Could I actually pretend to be someone I wasn’t?
It would involve so much deceit, so much lying. It would mean I’d have to lie to every single person I knew, including my family. And what happened at the end of it, after the book tour?
But a million dollars was a lot of money.
The next morning, my head buzzing with thoughts of Nash’s dirty words, his muscular body pressed against mine, I climbed out of bed. I had to do something to try to forget about him, and so I made myself some coffee and took out my phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “How are you?”
“Oh, hi, sweetie. Things are fine. How are you?”
“I’m good. Just had a weird night last night.”
“Hold that thought. I think I hear your father getting sick.”
I frowned as I heard her put the phone down. Dad had cancer and was going through another round of chemo, which meant he was getting sick pretty much all the time. My poor mother was dealing with it the best she could, and I tried to get home as often as possible, but it was hard.
Because of the cancer, Dad couldn’t work. He wasn’t old enough to retire yet, and so they were existing on my mother’s paycheck and Dad’s disability.
I sighed to myself as soon as the thought crossed my mind. One million dollars sure could go a long way toward helping my family out. It would mean my father could get the best treatment from the best doctors, and they wouldn’t have to worry about money all the time.
But if I married Nash, I’d have to lie to them. I’d have to pretend like I actually loved Nash, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I was terrified of that. I’d never lied to them about anything before, let alone about having a secret arrangement with a rich and dangerous man.
“Okay, back,” Mom said.
“How’s he doing?”
She sighed. “You know how the chemo is. He’s hanging in there.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“They have him on a hundred different pills, but there’s nothing they can do about the nausea. He tried eating breakfast today, but I guess he couldn’t keep it down.”
I frowned to myself. It was horrible to imagine the big, smiling man of my childhood as a weak, frail person who couldn’t even eat breakfast.
“You were saying something about your night?” Mom said.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied. “It was just a school thing.”
“How is school, sweetie?”
I told her all about my classes, but I couldn’t seem to broach the subject of my meeting with Nash. I didn’t know what that meant, or why I wasn’t mentioning it, but I stuck to easy topics.
Mom had always been incredibly supportive of me. They were happy I had decided to go to a local school, but they’d encouraged me to look everywhere and to make sure I was making the right decision. Before Dad got sick, they sent me money out every week, as much as they could.
The money had stopped, though. That was okay. I didn’t need it nearly as much as they did.
“Oh shoot,” Mom said. “Listen, honey, I have to go. It was great hearing from you.”
“Tell Dad I said hello.”
“I will. Call again later; he might be feeling better.”
“Okay.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
She hung up.
I sipped my coffee, leaning back in my chair. The look Nash gave me when I turned him down flitted through my mind again. He had looked so disappointed and surprised, but also hungry for me, like he wasn’t going to give up. It honestly shook me a bit, made me wonder if he knew something I didn’t.
One million dollars. That was life-changing money, the sort of money that could really make a difference for my parents.
And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go in front of the media very often. So long as they knew I existed, got a few pictures of the two of us together, maybe that would be enough. We could say that I was a private person and that I didn’t like the spotlight.
Or maybe I could just forget about the whole thing. My parents were making it work on their own, after all. I couldn’t imagine that they would want me to go through something like this just for their sake.
Then again, they’d gone through a lot to raise me right.
It felt like I was at war with myself. I downed my coffee, got up, and went to get dressed.
I had to get out of the house.
I had to stop thinking about Nash Bell, about his cocky grin, his intense stare, his handsome face, his ripped body.
I had to stop imagining what it would be like to have him slip a ring on my finger.
And I definitely had to stop thinking about what it would be like on the wedding night.
6
Nash
The media was such a fucking bore.
“Sorry, ma’am,” I said. “That’s still classified.”
She smiled at me. “Okay, Nash. Last question. How did it feel to be out there serving your country?”
I smiled and repeated the same old bullshit. “It was my duty and my honor to fight for the United States abroad.”
“Thanks, Nash.” We stood and shook hands. I watched as she walked off and spotted Livy heading toward me.
It was another media interview morning. That was the tenth interview I had done in the span of a few hours, and now hopefully Livy was coming to let me have some fucking peace and quiet for a little while.
Though that wasn’t likely. I was probably going to be shoved in front of some more cameras and told to say things about how great America was and all that shit. Which, yeah, America was the greatest fucking country in the world, and I really did want to fight for my fucking country. But I was sick of being shoved in front of cameras and told to say it.
I missed the feeling of sand under my feet, of the sun beating down on my head. And of the constant twinge of fear and worry nagging at the back of my head.
I had felt alive out there. In the fucking media room of our hotel, I felt like a stuffed animal regurgitating some bullshit.
“Good job this morning,” Livy said.
“Thanks,” I grunted. “Easy when you just keep saying the same shit over and over.”
“Good. That’s what we want.” She paused and frowned at me. “But smile a little more. You looked morose.”
“I looked fine.” I stretched, looking out the window. “When’s lunch?”
“Soon.” She stood next to me. “You didn’t go out last night,”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Was it because of our conversation?”
I sighed, shaking my head. It really didn’t have anything to do with my handlers wanting me to behave. If it were up to me, I would have gotten out there and fucked the first willing, sexy piece of ass that threw herself at me.
But something had been stuck in my head, something had been nagging me. For some reason, as soon as I’d gotten back to the hotel, I just hadn’t felt like going to yet another club to fuck yet another vapid slut. Instead, I had ordered a whisky from room service and watched shitty TV until I had passed out early.
Which meant I’d woken up with a much smaller hangover than usual, which was nice.
“Nothing to do with you,” I grunted at her. “Just felt tired.”
“Good. Stay tired.”
I clenched my jaw. “You saying that shit makes me want to do the opposite. You know that, right?”
She smiled wryly. “Of course, Nash. But you’re good at following orders, right?”
“Yeah. You know I fucking am.”
She smiled again and walked away, leaving me there to look out the window.
Following orders. That was what I was good at. That, and killing men in a thousand different ways. I was so full of deadly training, and yet I was running around America like a fucking circus animal, getting shown off to and fussed over by dumbass media people.
And yet all I could think about was the girl from the night before. About Selena, the cute fucking college girl, the innocent one. The first girl to turn me down in a long, long time.
I had a phone full of women who would happily take me up on my offer. Sure, most of them would blow it in under an hour, but they’d all gladly say yes if it meant spending another night with me.
But not Selena. She had said no and seemed to mean it. She didn’t throw herself at me, but instead was skeptical of everything I had said. True, it was all pretty crazy, and it probably made absolutely no sense to her.
But there was something about her. Fuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about that dress and what her skin must have felt like.
I turned back from the window and caught Livy giving me the two minutes sign. Another reporter had just walked into the room and was setting up a small camera.
Time to go fucking smile and kiss Uncle Sam’s ass on national television.
That was my fucking life now.
By the time the day ended, I was tired as hell. I kicked open my hotel room door and tossed my shit onto the dresser.
I sat down on the bed, collapsing back onto the comforter. This was the point in the night when I normally found the closest bar and tried to pick some girl up, but the only thing I really wanted was something to drink and to eat.
And Selena. The damn girl kept plaguing my mind, wouldn’t leave me alone. What pissed me off most was that she had listened when I’d told her to dress nice. I adjusted myself in bed, sitting with my back against the headboard, and shut my eyes.