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My pulse picked up speed, sweat gathering on my palms. She was calling my bluff.

All the pain of the past decade came rushing at me like a tsunami. I couldn’t let Kelly see me fail. Not again. Not so spectacularly. Because only a fool would say no to an opportunity like this.

And she knew it.

“Reese’ll be cool.”

She would not be cool. Not with any of this.

“Wonderful!” Neil said, lifting his hand up for a high five. And like the idiot I was, I slapped my hand against his.

While Neil went to get Kelly’s purse, where she kept the cards for her assistant, apparently, Kelly shot me an icy glare and hissed, “I can’t believe you went along with this.”

“What?” I leaned against the doorframe like I wasn’t swallowing down the coffee trying to come back up again. “Like your boyfriend says, it’ll be great for us.” I stood up again. “Anyway, I don’t need anything else in there, so take whatever you want from our old happy-as-shit marriage, and I’m going to go to the office to pull my credit card from the account. Sound good?”

Kelly looked like she wanted to rip my head off, and honestly, I didn’t blame her. But I was just vindictive enough that I kept running with it.

After Neil and I exchanged numbers—and he wrapped me into a rib-splitting hug—we said our goodbyes.

It wasn’t until I was done with the Stor-Rite office and had driven around the corner that I pulled over, gripping the steering wheel like if I let go I might fall through the floor.

I leaned my forehead between my hands and groaned.

Then I gave myself a little slap, picked up my phone, and pulled up Reese’s number. Somehow, even with my all-or-nothing approach to goddamn everything, I hadn’t deleted her number after we split.

I held my thumb over the call button, hesitating.

How the hell was I going to convince her to pretend to be my girlfriend in—I ticked off the time in my head—seven months’ time?

Even someone who didn’t hate my guts would tell me where to go if I asked them to do that on national television.

Money, maybe? Sexual favors?

I hit call before I lost my nerve. I’d think of something. Or no,she’dthink of something. I’d just ask her what it would take, and I’d give it to her.

Yes, this would work. It had to work.

“Hello?” Reese said when she picked up.

There was no hostility in her voice, which meant she’d deleted my number. Great.

“Hey Reese. It’s Eli.”

There was a long, drawn-out pause.

“What do you want, Eli?”

“What would you say if I said you were going to be on TV?”

“I’d say go home and lock the doors because I’m going to kill you.”

Great.

This was going to go just great.

CHAPTER1

Reese