Yup. No one’s eyes could be that green. Pretty sure she’s indeed a robot bent on murder because I caused some kind of uproar by kissing her grandson.
Not that he’s a stranger to scandal. Everyone at work knows all about Asher, so I’m not sure why I’m the one Julie Louise Paris had to hunt down. Maybe it’s because I’m not a model, artist, actress, lawyer, doctor, heiress, professor, famous author, or even a designer. I’m just a manager of a small clothing company trying to make a difference in the world. I’m just me. Me, who lives in a regular, twelve hundred square foot house. And not a new one either. It was built in the seventies, which kind of shows. Me, who likes to play baseball with my brothers and can sometimes be coaxed into a game of flag football. Me, who loves thrifting, antiquing, and going to flea markets. Me, who has a closet full of our company’s clothes because they’re comfy and awesome, and none of them cost over a hundred dollars. Me, who wears regular runners and wipes my bottom with regular toilet paper, not the stuff spun from unicorn tears and elf’s hair.
I’m so sure Julie Louise Paris is here to tell me off, fire me, and warn me to stay away from her grandson because she believes me to be a gold-digging, fortune-hunting, street-kissing hussy, that when she opens her mouth and speaks, I nearly face plant right off the couch.
Because those words sound something like this: “I want you to pretend to date my grandson.”
“P…pretend to date him?” I choke out. This is the same grandson who is crazy rich, kisses like a kiss-devil himself, and from what I’ve seen of him in person and photos, is hot enough to incinerate me to a charred burned-up crisp with just a single glance?
If Julie Louise Paris is a fearsome, murderous robot, then her grandson is definitely a too good to be true, over the top hot, muscle upon muscle, fills out a suit like a dang fallen god, or maybe a risen demon, so hot that he’d fry his own circuits kind of robot.
The guy is over six feet of pure, well, sexy goodness. I still think he’s spoiled, and it’s weird that his granny buys him companies and fights his battles for him, but when I kissed him, I couldn’t deny that bits of me—bits which hadn’t seen the light of day for a good long while—woke to the sun spilling from him and were bathed in the golden glow of Asher Paris.
Wow. Get a freaking grip, Emily.
Getting out of my thoughts, I realize his granny is staring at me from the couch across the way. I’m on the matching loveseat, and I circumspectly cross my legs. If I were wearing any panties, they’d be damp. But I’m not because underwear ruins pajamas. Thank goodness for the extra layer of my old robe as it hides my body completely. Julie Louise Paris isn’t able to tell that my nipples are so hard; they’re practically ready to turn inside out. I seriously hope she can’t see.
“Yes,” she says in her cool, collected voice.
I’m pretty sure Julie Louise Paris has never been ruffled a day in her life, not even when she woke up to find that her grandson made it onto another magazine. And me with him. Why hadn’t someone called me? Seriously. I should have heard about this by now. I don’t live in a hole, despite what Julie Louise Paris must think of the house.
“D…date him? Why would I do that? And why fake?”
“Because.” She blinks once. Twice. Her eyes never veer away. That moss shade has to be unnatural. “I need Asher to settle down and settle in. I’m tired of the magazines, press, media, and scandals. I want them to stop hounding him. I bought this company, a little thing in the middle of nowhere, to give him a chance at a normal life. He’s been working hard and he’s even behaved these past six months. Everything was quiet and smooth until…”
Until me.
“But fake date him? That’s…that’s kind of insane.”
Julie Louise Paris blinks again. Her eyelashes are unnaturally long, and the pink eyebrows and hair kind of throws me off, even though I’ve seen pictures. Nothing could prepare a person to meet someone like Julie in real life. Not that we’re on a first-name basis. I shouldn’t think of her like that.
“I need him to have a more wholesome image, but more than that, I want him to stay out of trouble. I want him to take this company seriously. Buy a house. And. Settle. In.” She said that already. The settling. “What you did was very unsettling.”
“I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I don’t even know why I…I was…my ex was…”