Page 15 of Hired By the Enemy
“I can stay if you want,” he says.
I snap my head up to stare at him. “What?”
“I’m happy to stay for the full week.” He shrugs. “I kind of need the money, and I’ve already arranged for someone to look after my gym clients.”
“Do you honestly think we can spend a whole week together without bloodshed?”
He shrugs again. “We handled today okay, didn’t we? We kept it professional.”
He’s right. I can’t fault the show we put on tonight.
And surprisingly, I haven’t been as worried tonight as I would have been if I were fake dating a stranger. I’m not concerned about what my fake date is thinking about the whole situation. There’s no way I can lower Liam’s estimation of me.
For a business arrangement, it actually works.
There are a whole lot of couples’ activities planned this week, so I can’t deny it would be nice to have a fake boyfriend for those.
“We’ll play it on a day-by-day basis,” I say slowly. “You’ll need to seed the idea that you’re worried about Granny Dearest, though, so it’s not so abrupt if you do leave.”
His eyebrows fly up. “Does your mind always go to evil mastermind strategies? Like, are you always thinking everything through a million steps ahead of where you need to be?”
“Do you not remember me well enough to answer that question yourself?” I retort.
“Oh, trust me, I remember.” Liam says the words like they’re weighed down with something.
He breaks eye contact, glancing around the villa.
“So I’m sleeping on the couch, right?”
“Ah, yeah.”
As he gets spare bedding out of the closet and makes a bed on the uncomfortable-looking couch, I feel slightly bad that I have a super-king bed all to myself.
But what’s the alternative? Invite him to sleep in my bed?
This is Liam, I remind myself. This is the guy who once told our entire fifth-grade class that I still wore trainer underwear and planted some in my locker as backup proof.
Really, I should be making him sleep outside with the crabs.
Chapter Five
Liam
The next morning, I wake to perfect tropical sunlight streaming through a gap in the curtain. I throw a look at the bed, but Matthew isn’t there. I can faintly hear the noise of the shower.
Stretching, my mind replays everything that happened between Matthew and me yesterday.
From our initial surprise and disgust at the airport to the way we settled into an uneasy truce last night. It was weird to discover how well we actually know each other.
Matthew comes out of the bathroom, shirtless, his hair damp.
Fuck me.
Okay, so Matthew’s body isn’t anything like the gym bunnies I hang out with, but there’s something about the lean lines and the way his skin looks like it would be soft to the touch that has my cock stirring.
Matthew glances over and catches me sneaking a look.
Fuck.
