The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head. “You need details. Couple activities. Couple inside jokes. Couple rituals. If you really want to make it believable, then you have to commit to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.”

She put her glossy red lips around the straw of her pineapple shake and sucked, and he could swear he heard the sparks and sizzles of his synapses exploding.

“Like what?” he managed to get out.

“Saturdays at the flea market.”

Okay, that horrible idea brought him back from the edge of fantasy. “There has to be something else.”

“It’s perfect,” she said. “I always go in the morning. We can find something to refurbish, and it will be just the kind of couple detail that will make all of this seem more real.”

“People actually do that?” It sounded about as fun as his mom’s ideas about arranged marriage.

“Haven’t you ever seen Flea Market Flip?”

He shook his head and took another bite of his burger, which had thankfully gotten its flavor back.

“It’s my favorite show,” she exclaimed as if that made this insanity any better. “Add it to the list. You can’t miss that. We can binge-watch on Friday nights to get pumped up for the flea market the next day.”

“I don’t like it.” He fucking hated it.

Clover narrowed her eyes at him, her sexy mouth pursing with disapproval. “You don’t have to like it. You just need to do it so we can find some more details to back up this ridiculous fake engagement.”

This is why he was a big-picture man. Details sucked. “I’m afraid to ask, but what else?”

“Post-event late night dinners at Vito’s. Picnics in the park. Sunday brunch at your apartment with your family.” She tapped a finger on the pen resting across the blank napkin. “Go on, write it all down. It’ll be golden, trust me.”

“And in six weeks when you leave for Australia, what will we tell them?” The end game was clear as day, but how to get there was muddled.

She took another bite of her burger and mulled over his question. “We’re just too different. It wouldn’t have worked. It was the whole The Way We Were thing.”

“The what?”

“You haven’t seen it?” She looked at him as if he were an alien. “Robert Redford? Barbara Streisand? Buckets of salty tears?”

“I got nothing.”

“Add it to the list,” she demanded. “We’ll have movie night and can alternate picking. Come on, write it down.”

He did, managing to hold the half of his burger that was left in one hand as he did so. Movie nights—he just had to keep it on the down low that he preferred chick flicks. Flea markets—about as fun as shoveling after an ice storm. Dinners out—now that he could get behind. As he was writing she listed more of her requirements. Chocolate syrup in the fridge for her morning oatmeal. Jasmine scented bubble bath. Raw potatoes to snack on. It took him right up until the end to realize she was fucking with him—at least on some of it.

He glanced up from the heavily inked napkin, his suspicions confirmed by the all-too-innocent look on her face. Yep. She was messing with him.

“Is everything just another fun adventure to you?” he asked, realizing too late that he hadn’t added a damn thing of his own to the list. Some hotshot negotiator he was.

“What fun would life be if it wasn’t?” She winked as she sucked up the last of her shake and then popped the final cherry into her mouth.

Cherry. Mouth. Lips. Tongue. Taste. Clover. It all mixed together in his head with the kind of vivid details he usually never fleshed out—especially not in a jerk-off fantasy that he wasn’t about to indulge in. She was a sorta employee and held the fate of this subterfuge in her hot little hand. Without warning, the mental image of that hand wrapped around one of his favorite body parts nearly undid him.

Fuck. Get in the game, you fucking chump.

“Okay so you can skip the bubble bath and the raw potatoes, but since this job has just jumped fourteen notches on the difficulty scale, I’m going to need additional compensation.”

Of course. “Like what?”

“A black card to cover the cost of clothes, shoes, and oth

er incidentals.”