No comment.

“You want the gig so bad, you take it,” I suggest, trying to forget the crackle in my bloodstream from Dash’s touch. “He needs someone who won’t fall in love with him, and he’s definitely not your type.”

She shakes her head, laughing. “I gave up pretending to date men in college. This one’s all yours!”

The rest of my shift is a long, harried blur of demanding customers who dismantle my displays every five minutes, but still don’t seem to buy anything, so by the time I finally clock off and head home, the thought of a weekend by the ocean in Palm Beach is sounding awfully tempting. Not to mention a cash payment from Dash that would let me take some time off to focus on my makeup company full-time…

But I couldn’t. Could I?

Nope. I shake my head, trudging down the busy sidewalk. If lunch today proved anything, it’s that Dash is too dangerous for his own good. And sure, he’s probably not a serial killer or anything, but that smile is just as deadly.

Agreeing to play fake girlfriend—even for a few days—is just asking for trouble.

I cross the street and duck into the little drugstore down the block from my apartment. It’s one of those ‘everything and its mother’ places, with cramped aisles and dusty boxed mac-and-cheese, but it’s one of the few places I managed to convince to carry a small display of my lipsticks.

“Hi Dorrie,” I call to the woman behind the register, as I make my way to the makeup aisle in back. It always gives me a kick to see my products on the shelf—and to see if I’ve made a sale—but when I search for the little riser I crafted to hold the boxes, I can’t find it anywhere.

I look around, searching every shelf, but there’s no sign of it.

My hopes rise. “Did you sell out?” I ask Dorrie excitedly, but she just frowns.

“Had to move it,” she answers brusquely. “No space. Back there, I think.” She gestures to the far corner, so I go looking…

… And finally find it. Behind a selection of laxatives.

“If this isn’t a metaphor for my crappy day, I don’t know what is,” I sigh, swallowing back the sting of disappointment.

Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling me it’s time to flush my dreams down the toilet, I think, as I sneak the display back to the cosmetics section. But I can’t quit, not after I’ve worked so hard. My products are amazing, and I know that all it takes—all any new company needs—is one person to believe in it, too.

Either that, or just whip out their checkbook.

On my way out, I pass the magazine aisle, and a picture on one of the covers catches my eye.

It’s Dash.

I grab the copy of New Entrepreneur off the shelf, but nope, I’m not seeing things.