Page 36 of #Moonstruck

“They won’t know you’re fake. Nobody will. We’ll have to make everyone else think it’s real.”

I was a musician, not an actress. But here I was again with Ryan De Luna offering me an opportunity I couldn’t say no to. “I’ll have to tell my brothers so they don’t punch you. But they can keep a secret. A relationship? Not so much. But they can stay quiet.”

There was a knock at the door. Ryan got up to answer it, and I did not admire how nice his jeans looked on him as he walked away. Not even a little.

I heard Piper’s voice and was glad she couldn’t see me. Ryan thanked her and then stopped at a desk to grab a pen. He wrote something and then handed me a check that was about twice the size of normal checks. “Just so you know, I’ve never done something like this before. I don’t have to pay for women.”

“You’re not helping your case.” I took the check from him. He’d made it out to the band. It represented not only security for our mom but also the chance to relax and enjoy the tour, knowing that things back home were taken care of.

It might even mean we’d get to keep the house.

“Be careful with that,” he joked, sitting down on the couch next to me. His knee touched mine and sent a jolt through me. “It’s pretty much all the money I have in the world right now.”

“I don’t understand. Don’t you make millions of dollars a year?”

An alarm sounded on his phone, and he picked it up. “I’ll explain later tonight. At the after-party. Which would be a good time to show everyone we’re together.”

Despite Ashley’s warning, now I would have to go to the after-party. Which I wasn’t excited about. At all.

“I really can’t take it if this is all your money.” I tried to give him back the check.

He put his hand on mine, and that explosive, Vegas-lights, shimmery feeling returned. “This is an investment in my future. Keep it.”

I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. My mom needed it.

“So is that a yes? Will you be my fake girlfriend?”

Fake yeah!my body said. “I guess I have to be.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ryan said with just a hint of sarcasm. “I have to get to sound check, so I can walk you out.”

He grabbed a bag, his phone, and a key card, and I followed him out of his suite. “I thought that wasn’t for a couple more hours.”

“I get to do sound check first. One of the perks of being the headliner.”

We walked into the main hallway, and I saw Fox waiting near the elevators.

“This is my room.” I came to a stop, and so did Ryan. “So I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Yep.” He shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other. “I feel like we should do something to make this relationship of ours official. Like seal it with a kiss.”

At that one word, my entire body melted, throbbing with the need to have Ryan kiss me and screw the consequences.

What I wanted: to throw myself at him and kiss him until the entire world faded away.

What I said in an attempt to preserve even a smidgen of my dignity: “Don’t press your luck. I haven’t cashed the check yet.”

But he must have heard the way my voice shook, witnessed how my body trembled. Because he moved so close that I had to press myself against my hotel-room door to maintain a fraction of space between us. “At some point it will have to happen, Maisy. Nobody will believe it if we don’t hold hands.” He took my right hand, interlacing his fingers with mine. “If we don’t touch each other.” He ran the backs of his fingers against my left cheek. “If we don’t kiss.”

His lips hovered above mine, tormenting me. Breathing ceased to be an option as my entire body turned into a flock of coked-up butterflies. The attraction was so intense it was almost chemical. Like he had scientifically bewitched my hormones. Somehow I felt both hot and cold inside. Like ice and fire froze and burned through me at the same time, even though that was physically impossible.

His touch drove me crazy, and his lips so maddeningly close made me quiver.

And made me ache.

“I know I’m not supposed to mention it,” he said in a husky tone that turned my abdomen entirely liquid, his words like sparks that ignited the electricity between us, “but you’re shivering again. And I still like it.”

He painstakingly untangled himself from me, one epically slow movement at a time. First, he let his hand fall from my cheek, caressing me the whole way. He slid his fingers from mine, and I’d never realized how many touch receptors I had in my hand or that they could all simultaneously combust.

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