5

Alex

“What are you doing? I need to take this call. Privately.” Elena lowered herself gracefully onto one of Chad’s overstuffed leather chairs like it was her throne and glanced at the door expectantly.

It was obvious Lady Elena expected me to show her inside and leave, but if we were doing this, I needed to make sure the two of us were clear on something. Everyone else could make all the rules they wanted, but there was only one that really mattered to me and I wanted to talk to her about it alone.

Sorry, Your Highness. It’s going to take more than that to intimidate me.

Instead of leaving, I plopped down on the couch, enjoying how infuriated she looked more than I should have.

“Cut the shit.” I grabbed some candy from the jar on the coffee table. “We both know you don’t have a call.” I didn’t pause to let her confirm or deny. “You’re a decent actress, but your body language gives you away. It’s fine. But let’s lay some ground rules between us while they’re working out the contract, or this isn’t going to work.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I looked her straight in the eye. “No more bullshitting. People want things from me. I’m famous. There’s almost always a hidden agenda. You get used to it after a while, but since the nature of our…arrangement…is so personal, I need to know the hidden agenda between us is only what’s being negotiated in that room. With each other, we’re straight up. No lies.”

She considered me for a few seconds, assessing me like a bird of prey, regal and low-level terrifying. Like she was going to toy with me a little before devouring me. Then she nodded as though this went without saying. Maybe in her world, but not in the cutthroat swamp I inhabited.

“Agreed,” she said. “No lies. Anything else?”

She’d agreed so quickly I had to wonder if she understood how important it was to me, but asking her again wouldn’t make me any more secure in her answer.

“Nope. You?”

Her lips turned up a fraction. “I’m sure my attorney has the rest under control.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I always won the quiet game, but I was going to have to pretend to date this person.

Was this going to work?

Why the hell was she acting like I’d killed the Last Unicorn?

I sat there trying to think of something to say to get her to open up even a little. “Why did you pick the name Elena?” I eventually asked.

I’d seen everything from her background check to her latest STD tests at this point, so I knew it wasn’t her real name.

“It was my mother’s name. She died when I was a kid.”

Good one, Alex. “I’m sorry. I lost my dad when I was young too.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. But then she fell silent again.