Page 53 of Pretend for Me

Ignoring me again will only make me more insistent.

Unknown number

Piper?

Unknown number

Don’t be the ungrateful bitch I expected you to be.

Unknown number

Piper?

“Please tell me this photoshoot doesn’t involve you getting near me with a pair of scissors,” my fiancé drawls as he scrolls his phone. He’s leaning against a wall nonchalantly, while photographers buzz around adjusting lights and fussing with the background.

We converted the cats’ room for our photoshoot today. They’re not happy about it—meowing as if we replaced their gourmet food with rotten kale—but let’s not get into that.

I give him the stink eye. “Are we ever going to get past that? You know I have a list of stick-up-their-asses clientele like you, don’t you? They’re perfectly happy with my services.”

That gets his attention.

Sliding his phone into his pocket, he gives me that intense stare that always manages to make my lady bits stand at attention like they’re contestants onThe Voice. “Yourservices?”

I cross my arms around my chest, internally high-fiving myself for drawing his gaze to my breasts. His eyes slide lower,taking in my exposed midriff. I’m in a long-sleeve white crop top and flared denims that accentuate my ass, my hair in two long braids over my breasts.

“Yes. My services. Are your ears still plugged from the flight, Menon?”

He leans in, his subtle woodsy cologne adding to all the things happening to my lady bits. “My ears are fine, but if you don’t check that attitude, your ass will earn a very special kind of . . . service.”

I reel back just in time for one of the photographers to yell, “We’re ready for you, Mr. Menon.”

Dev smirks at me, strutting over to take his position in front of the cameras like he’s a peacock at a pigeon gathering.Arrogant asshole.

“Not going to lie, your fake fiancé is hot as fucking Hades,” Sarina whispers in my ear, having materialized beside me out of thin air.

She must have slipped in a minute ago, but I hadn’t noticed. Probably because I don’t notice much else when a snooty billionaire is taking up all the space in the room. I turn toward her, noticing she’s carrying Snatch in her arms like a newborn baby.

I snort with an eye roll, masking my agreement. “Yeah? Well, Hades just called. He says he wants his ego back. Trust me, my fiancé’s hotness is directly proportional to his . . .” I purse my lips, not finishing my thought on purpose, making both Sarina and I giggle before her cat decides she’s had enough and demands to leave the room.

Sarina lets Snatch out before turning to me with a huge smile stretched on her face.

“Oh my God! You fucked him, didn’t you?” she whispers, placing her hand over her mouth this time as if someone could read her lips otherwise.

“No.” I shake my head, but my eyes connect with the manin question, smoldering at me like he knows the subject of our conversation. “What I meant to say is, that his hotness is directly proportional to his pain-in-the-ass factor, and they are both insufferable.”

“Uh huh,” she drones. “Is that why you both can’t seem to stop looking at each other like neither of you has eaten a meal in months? Guarantee if no one was here right now, you would be ripping each other’s clothes off.”

“You forget. Ilivewith the man and that has yet to occur.”

Not for the lack of trying, of course.

Seriously, I put my best foot forward, wearing my cutest bikini and everything, but nope, the man has the restraint of a celibate monk.

I don’t, though. My restraint is hanging on by a fucking thread.

“Maybe he’s trying to be practical,” Sarina muses. “Maybe he thinks that once you get physical, it will only become more challenging to untangle when it ends.”

I scoff, plucking invisible lint off my shirt. “Then he doesn’t know me at all. Entanglements aren’t things I gettangledin.”

---