Page 107 of Boyfriend of the Hour

We blinked at each other in the darkness. There was that stare again. The one he had been hiding all evening. The one he only seemed to use with me.

“Well, then, I suppose it’s a good thing we’re not actually in a relationship,” I said with a suddenly scratchy voice. “I’d hate for you to start your first one.”

Nathan looked at me—hard. His gaze dropped to my mouth before returning to my eyes. “You’d be worth it.”

We were both quiet for a long minute. I opened my mouth to speak, not exactly knowing what I would say.

And just then, the elevator door opened with a ding.

“Nathan?”

My eyes popped open. She didn’t. That bitch. Had she followed us here?

“Nathan? Is that you?”

I turned as Charlotte’s voice rang out through the empty clinic. Nathan’s hand, suddenly cuffed around my wrist, held me in place.

“Easy,” he murmured.

“Where’s that raspberry mousse when I need it?”

“Or a shiv?” He chuckled before calling out over my shoulder. “Hello, Charlotte. I’m just here picking up a few patient files to review. I thought I’d show Joni around since she’s with me.”

Charlotte’s heels clipped the wood floors of the clinic as she approached. “Oh, I see. I needed to grab a few things as well.”

Liar, I thought. You heard him tell me he needed to come here and thought he’d be alone.

Yeah, Nathan wasreallylucky I wasn’t his actual girlfriend.

I twisted around to smile at Charlotte, though Nathan still had my wrist pinned to my side, warning me not to move. He stroked the sensitive skin just over my pulse with his thumb. Nothing Charlotte would notice. But something everyone in the room would sense anyway.

“You should do that, then,” he told her, which was a dismissal if I’d ever heard one.

Charlotte seemed a bit taken aback. I offered a haughty grin. That’s right, get the hell out.

“I…all right.” She bobbed her head and went back down the hall to her own office, but not before shooting another glare in my direction.

I turned to Nathan once she was gone. “You know, this only proves my point.”

He sighed. “It doesn’t look very good, does it?”

Part of me thrilled that he didn’t like her attentions. But only part. The other was saying something else completely. Something I knew I had to say it out loud.

“She would probably be a better fit for this little job we’re running here,” I murmured, though it was hard to think straight with his thumb still tracing gentle circles over my wrist. “Given the fact your family already likes her, especially. She already has an ‘in’ there.”

The thumb stopped. “Job? Oh, you mean our relationship.”

“Ourpretendrelationship, yeah. Except with her, it wouldn’t have to be pretend.”

Nathan shook his head. “I don’t want a relationship with Charlotte Mueller, pretend or otherwise.”

“Why not?”

I was pressing. I couldn’t help it. I told myself it wasn’t because I was jealous, that I wasn’t being that girl who forced her boyfriend to denounce another pretty girl just because she couldn’t handle it. There was no point. Not when this wasn’t even a real relationship, to begin with.

I was also lying to myself.

He took a step closer, forcing me to sit completely back on the desk. “Because she isn’t…”