Chapter 4

ARMANI

“Will you be my boyfriend?”

I stared at her.

If I said that didn’t catch me off guard I’d be lying. It was so sudden. There she goes again. Amusing me without doing too much.

She stared back with her chin up like whatever she had just asked was completely normal. The courage of this woman was something else.

I looked away first. I pulled my hood further forward.

“I—” I cleared my throat. “What?”

“You heard me. Will you be my boyfriend?” She asked again.

“But—But I don’t know you.”

“Duh…I know that.” She shifted her weight. “It’s not going to be real. It’ll be a fake relationship. I just need someone to play the part for a while. My ex won’t leave me alone unless there’s someone else in the picture.”

Your ex who is already handled. Your father who has never listened to anything that inconvenienced him. But go on.

“That’s—” I scratched the back of my neck. “I’m not good at fake.”

“Trust me, it’s not that deep. We pretend. I pay you. Nobody gets hurt.”

“You’d pay me?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the floor. She is so sure of herself right now. It’s almost painful to watch. I was having the best day I had had in eight months and I almost broke into a grin right there in the corridor. Instead, I looked like a boy who had been asked something that made him want to disappear into his hoodie entirely.

“I don’t think I’m the right person,” I said.

Her jaw tightened. Then her hand went to her ring.

Her whole face softened. Her eyes went glassy, and one tear slipped down her left cheek.

“I really need help,” she said, her voice soft and shaky. “I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

She took a small step closer, close enough that I could smell her perfume. Another tear rolled down, and she didn’t wipe it away. Instead, she looked up at me with those wet eyes, lips slightly parted.

Her hand came up slowly and rested on my chest, fingers pressing lightly against my hoodie. She let her thumb move in a small circle.

Please, I thought. Don’t do this. Not right now.

My dick didn’t care if she was pretending or not. It was already decided for both of us. It twitched in my jeans.

I stayed completely still and focused very hard on the fact that she was performing and the ring was still turning and she had planned every single second of this including the lip bite.

I’m this close to buying the act.

“Please,” she whispered. Her voice cracked on the word, but her body leaned in, her chest brushing against my arm. “I’ll do anything. Just… help me this once.”

Drisana was performing innocently for me. The way she was looking at me, all teary and soft, was messing with my head. If I wasn’t playing a role, I’d be grinning ear to ear. I don’t want this to end but I’d like to see her reaction when I turn her down.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”

Something shifted behind her eyes. She wiped the tears with the back of her hand and rebuilt herself in under two seconds. That was faster than I expected.

“Fine.” She reached into her bag. “Twenty grand.”

I blinked. That one landed differently. “Sorry. What?”

“Twenty thousand dollars. Three months. You show up when I need you, and you act like you like me. Carter stays away. That’s it.”

“I don’t need twenty thousand dol—“

“Thirty,” she said immediately.

“That’s not—”

“The car.” She crossed her arms. “My car. You’ve seen it, right? It’s the latest model. You take the car and the thirty thousand and all you have to do is exist next to me in public for twelve weeks.”

Wow. She just offered me a car. Interesting. My facial muscles were working harder than they had in years. She was looking at me with that serious expression, completely committed, not blinking. Dri baby. What else will you say if I refuse again.

“No,” I said.

I turned and walked before she could reload. If I stayed one more minute she would find the angle that worked and I would fold and we both knew it.

The elevator took forever. I stared at my reflection in the metal doors. My face was flushed. My jaw was tight. I pressed my thumb against the scar on my left hand and held it there until the doors opened.

I sat in my car in the parking lot and opened my laptop.

Good thing I hacked into the school cameras from the start. Moments like this made it worth every second.

She was still standing by the window at the end of the corridor. Her hand went into her hair. She stood there for a moment, staring at the floor, probably trying to rebuild her confidence. Then she straightened up, walked out, got into her car, and pulled out of the lot.

I watched her taillights until they disappeared. Then I drove home.

She was home twelve minutes after I was. She stopped at a restaurant on the way back. I clocked it through her GPS.

I pulled up the feed from my bed.

She came through the front door and dropped her bag by the couch without breaking stride. Set the takeout on the kitchen counter. Opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and drank straight from it. She had never done that before.

She went to her room, then her walk-in closet. I didn’t put a camera in there. Or the bathroom. I’m a gentleman. And gentlemen don’t invade ladies’ privacy.

The shower ran longer than it needed to run.

She came back out eventually, wearing an oversized shirt. Hair damp. She went back to the kitchen, made tea, walked back to her bedroom, set it on the nightstand, and sat cross-legged on her bed with her laptop open and her phone beside her. She stared at the phone for a long time.

Then she picked it up.

She opened my contact. My Rian contact. Started typing. The three dots appeared and disappeared. Appeared and disappeared. She grabbed her pillow and pressed her face into it and screamed. I increased the feed volume.

“You’re so stupid. You’re so fucking stupid. Why? Why did you do that?” She smacked the pillow on her head. “You should have walked out when he rejected you the first time. Ugh… now he’s definitely going to think I’m a creep.”

I tried imagining her being a creep but the thought was funny. I laughed so hard, I teared up.

She put the pillow down. Picked up the phone. Typed again. Deleted it. Stood up and walked around the room twice. Sat back down.

Hit send. A buzz came in from my phone. It was a message from her.

*Hey. About earlier. I want to explain properly. Can we talk?*

I set my phone face down. Watched her through the feed. She paced the room, phone in hand, staring at the screen.

Three minutes later.

*I know that was weird. I’m sorry for asking.*

Then.

*Forget I said anything.*

She dropped the phone on the bed and went to the kitchen. Opened the microwave. Put the takeout in. Turned it on. Stood there for ten seconds and turned it off again. Left the food inside and came back to her room.

Picked up the phone again and typed.

*Also, the thirty thousand was a lowball. I would have gone to fifty.*

There she is.

I set it face down and watched the screen on her chest go dark. She had fallen sideways onto the pillow mid-thought, phone still in both hands, laptop still open.

Go to sleep, Drisana. You need all the rest you can get.

I closed the laptop and lay in the dark for a while.

Tomorrow was already decided. I had let her walk away today with nothing and she was going to come in tomorrow with a new approach and I needed to move first. Give her something to think about before she has the chance to think too hard about what she already has.

I set my alarm for thirty minutes before her first lecture.

*

She was coming out of the building at the same moment I was going in.

I had timed it. But the timing required me to be moving fast enough that the collision looked accidental, which meant I had approximately three seconds to go from controlled velocity to convincing surprise.

Her shoulder hit my chest. Her bag swung forward. I caught it. A beat too fast. Her eyes moved to my hand. She was already looking at me with an expression I didn’t love.

“Sorry,” I said, looking past her eyes. Anywhere but her face. Hi

She took the bag slowly. “It’s fine.”

We went in. I took the seat directly in front of her. Her eyes burned holes in the back of my head. I stared at the board and didn't move for the entire lecture.

After class, I waited by the door, hood up, backpack on, looking at my phone like I was checking something.

She came out walking faster than usual.

"Hey." I stepped into her path. "Sorry. I just—" I glanced around the corridor briefly. "I saw you come in this morning. I wanted to check. That guy yesterday. Did he try anything?"

Something moved across her face. “No. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” I shifted my weight. “About the other thing. What you asked.”

She went still.

“I’m so sorry that I turned you down,” I said. “I’m not good at… you know, pretenting.” I gestured vaguely at nothing. “People. Socially. It’s not really my thing.”

She looked at me for a moment. Then she shrugged. “Forget it. I didn’t even think about it after you left. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She barely glanced at me. “Honestly, it’s totally fine. I wasn’t bothered about it at all.”

She turned and walked away, shoulders tense, hands shoved into her pockets. Something sharp twisted in my chest. Annoyance. Definitely annoyance.

It came out before I realized I had said it out loud.

"Could have fooled me."

She stopped walking. But my mouth was already moving. She turned around slowly.

“You seemed pretty bothered last night. You left the takeout in the microwave.”

The words came out before I could stop them. She went completely still.

The corner of my mouth moved. Just slightly. One half second before I caught it and pulled it back. Too late.

She had seen it. Her eyes dropped to my mouth and came back up and they weren’t soft or performing or calculating. They were just very still and very focused and moving over my face like she was reading something she had almost missed.

“What did you just say,” she said quietly.

I opened my mouth.

"How do you know about the takeout?" she said, before I could get a word out.