Packing Heat(76)

The waitress walked away and I looked at him. “Okay, I need to know what this is all about now,” I said.

“I have a business proposition for you.”

“Business?” I asked, laughing nervously. “You know I’m just a college undergrad, right?”

“What are you studying?” he asked.

“Marketing and journalism. I’m interested in publicity and things like that.”

He laughed loudly, shaking his head. “Too fucking perfect,” he said.

I stared at him quizzically. “What is?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Do you want to hear this proposition?”

“Okay,” I said, totally unsure. Part of me wanted to get up and run away, get far, far away from him.

But there was something keeping me in that seat.

Nash had a magnetism about him, something that drew me toward him. I wanted to get up and leave, walk away. He was a dangerous man, not in the sense of hurting me or something like that, but he had a bad reputation and was well-known as being a deadly force. I had no clue what kind of proposition he had for me, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

And yet I couldn’t leave. There was just something about his smile, the way he asked about me, the way he seemed like he didn’t belong in an expensive steak house wearing an expensive suit.

“Lately,” he said slowly, “I’ve been under pressure from my publisher.”

“For what?”

“Apparently, I have a morality clause. And they don’t like the way I’ve been handling myself.”

I laughed. “Seriously, a morality clause?”

“I’m an all-American hero, Selena. Can’t have a hero fucking random club sluts and getting drunk every night.”

I bit my lip. “Are you fucking random women every night?”

“Not the point,” he said. “I have a problem with my publisher, an image problem.”

“You want me to help with that?”

“Yes,” he said, grinning his delicious grin. “I want you to marry me.”

I stared at him, shocked. “What did you just say?”

“Selena,” he said slowly, “I’ll pay you one million dollars to marry me.”

I leaned back in my chair, my eyes wide, shock and denial running through my body.

I should have gotten up.

I should have run away.

But instead I sat there and looked at him, confused, uncertain, wondering what I was getting myself into.





4





Nash





I savored the look on her face for a few seconds.

As soon as I had laid it out there for her, she’d looked totally shocked. At first I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she was slowly figuring out that I wasn’t fucking around.

“Why?” she managed to say.

“I need to change my image. You’re beautiful as hell and a student at a good college.” I grinned at her. “I also did some more research on you after we met. You’re a pretty normal person living a pretty normal life.”

“So what?” she said. “I mean, why would you want to marry me? You don’t even know me.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter. We won’t really be married. But I need you to pretend to be my wife, at least until my book tour is over. Once it’s done, I’ll be able to renegotiate my contract and hopefully get rid of this idiotic morality clause.”

“But how does marrying me help?”

“Come on, Selena,” I said, “you’re the marketing major. Think about it.”

She bit her lip, shaking her head. “This is crazy. Really crazy.”

“Maybe, but I don’t give a fuck. Those bastards think they can push me around, but nobody fucking pushes me around. I’ll play their game, but I’m playing it on my terms.”

She nodded, and I could tell she was thinking it over. I didn’t expect her to say yes right away, but I did think she’d come around. A million dollars was a lot of money; honestly, it was most of the money I had. But I wasn’t kidding when I said that I didn’t care about the cash.

I cared way more about my fucking freedom. No publisher was going to have Nash Bell by the balls. I’d killed men with my bare hands, stabbed them in the neck, shot them, burned them, blew them up. I was a trained killer, skilled in more than just taking off women’s clothes.

“You need to change your image,” she said, “and you think that having a normal wife will help with that.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“But why me?”

I grunted, not sure how to answer that. Truthfully, I didn’t really know why her. I’d been toying with the idea for a couple of days, and the second I saw her I knew that I had to have her. For whatever reason, she just struck me as someone who would make a great wife, who could potentially change my image for the better.