by Hamel, B. B.
“I never asked for any of that.”
“Too bad,” she said, sighing. “You’re supposed to be a moral, upstanding person.”
“And yet I’m the depraved asshole we both know and love.”
She smiled slightly. Livy wasn’t so bad looking. She was in her mid-thirties, incredibly tightly wound, with dark hair always kept in a bun, thin red lips, and a thin, tall body.
“Yes, exactly,” she said. She paused and sighed again, her smile disappearing. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Just say it, damn it,” I said. “Quit playing around.”
“Do you know what a morality clause is?”
“Not really.”
“It’s a clause in your contract. It basically means you have to be a moral, good person, the kind of hero the American people want and need. Otherwise, you’re in breach.”
“How the fuck can a contract control my actions?” I said, annoyed.
“It can’t. But if Chuck and the board decide that you’re antics are getting out of hand, they can invoke the morality clause and take everything away from you.”
I stared at her for a second as that sank in. “You’re fucking threatening me,” I said slowly.
“I’m not threatening,” she said. “This isn’t coming from me.”
“I know what a threat sounds like.”
She shook her head. “Listen to me, Nash. Threat or no threat, you have to get your shit together. Otherwise, Chuck is going to cut you out of any future deals regarding your book.”
“He can’t do that,” I said. “I’m the damn face of this whole fucking thing.”
“He can and he will.” She paused, looking at her phone again. “They’re optioning the book into a movie, you know. Lots of money you won’t get if you don’t get yourself together.”
I stared at her silently, raging on the inside. I wanted to smash something, scream in her face, but I knew that throwing a tantrum wasn’t going to fix shit.
Fact of the matter was, I was tied to these fucking corporate suits whether I liked it or not. I didn’t much care about their money, but I needed it anyway. I couldn’t let them cut me out, otherwise I’d be fucked on too many levels to count.
“Looks like I’m screwed,” I said.
“Just behave and you’ll be fine.” She looked back at her phone. “Now, let’s go over the itinerary.”
I half paid attention as she ran through what we were doing for the rest of the day. The book tour was still on-going, but I was ready to call it quits then and there. Suddenly, I had some assholes in a boardroom telling me how to act, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I could break their spines with my bare hands, kill them all without blinking an eye, and yet I was supposed to be their proper little fucking American hero.
I hated that shit.
I was my own person, my own man. Maybe I’d gotten tangled up in this book business shit, but I’d never really asked for it.
Fucking bastards had me by the balls and they knew it.
I shook my head, staring out the window, plotting my next move.
I wasn’t going to be cowed, made to bow down.
I’d play their game. But I’d play it my way, and to fucking win.
Chapter Three: Selena
I climbed out of the Uber, feeling incredibly out of place.
It wasn’t often that I put on one of my most expensive dresses and went to meet a stranger at a nice bar. Actually, as far as I could remember, I hadn’t worn this dress since a wedding a few years earlier. It was short, black, and tight, showing off way too much cleavage, but it was the best I had on such short notice.
I frowned as I walked into the restaurant. Butcher And Singer was an upscale steak house, the sort of place where I couldn’t afford a drink, let alone an actual meal. The place was quiet inside, dimly lit and expensive looking. The woman standing at the hostess station looked like she could have been a model, all angular thin lines and tall legs.
“Can I help you?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yes, hi. I’m supposed to meet someone here.”
“Name?”
“Nash.”
She glanced up at me, and I couldn’t help but notice the brief moment of surprise that crossed her face. She quickly looked back down at her book and nodded. “Right this way.”
I followed her into the main space. She led me through the main dining room, around a corner, and into a small private booth.
Sitting against the wall was Nash Bell. I stared at him, a little surprised that he was there. I had fully expected him to flake out and not show up as some stupid prank, but there he was, grinning at me and motioning for me to sit.
He was wearing an expensive-looking suit tailored perfectly to his body. He looked almost out of place wearing it, since he was normally in jeans and a tight T-shirt.
“Selena,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d show.”
“I was curious, I guess,” I said.
The waitress showed up a minute later. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just a glass of wine, please.”
The waitress looked at me. “We have a large selection of wines, miss, if you’d like to look at the menu?”
I blushed. “House white is fine.”
“Very good.” She disappeared.
“Snob,” Nash snorted.
I smiled at him. “She’s not a snob. Just doing her job.”
He shrugged, sipping his drink. I guessed it was whisky, but I couldn’t tell.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“I could eat.”
He nodded at the menu. “Get whatever you want. It’s on the publishing house.”
I laughed. “Seriously?”
“Sure. They expense my meals. One perk of writing a fucking bestseller, I guess.”
“You don’t sound too convinced.”
He made a face. “Has its downsides, too.”
I nodded, taking my small notebook from my purse. “What kind of downsides?”
He stared at me and laughed. “You fucking kidding?”
I cocked my head to one side. “I thought this was an interview.”
“Put the notebook away,” he said, laughing and shaking his head.
“Okay.” I slipped it back into my purse. “If I’m not here to interview you, what am I here for?”
“We’ll get there.”
I bit my lip, staring at his handsome face. My stomach was a mess of nerves. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted from me if he didn’t want me to interview him. Was this some sort of weird sexual thing? As far as I knew, Nash Bell was a relatively harmless person, aside from his deadly training and his partying. He wasn’t a criminal or anything like that.
But he was intense, that was true. The second I sat down at the table was the second I felt like a spotlight was shining directly on me. He had that amazing way of making me feel like his entire attention was on me, even if he was gruff and short.
The waitress returned a minute later with my wine, placing it down in front of me. She disappeared before I could ask for some water.
“Drink,” Nash said. “You look nervous.”
I sipped my wine. “I am nervous. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“You’re having a drink with me.” He stared at me for a second. “I like the dress. You clean up good.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What were you expecting, wearing that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Selena, that you look fucking sexy. And I think you look that way on purpose.”
I blushed. “This is the only nice dress I own.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Aren’t all you Penn kids rich?”
“Hardly,” I said. “I’m here on scholarship. I’m from the Northeast, normal parents and all.”
He grunted. “Good. Wasn’t sure if you were a rich girl or not.”
“Would that matter?”
“Probably,�
� he said, smirking. He sipped his drink again.
“Got a problem with rich people?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“Interesting. Aren’t you rich now?”
He shrugged again. “I’m not interested in my money.”
“You sure do like to spend it though.”
He laughed. “I said no interview.”
“You can’t blame me for trying.”
He looked at me for a long moment, almost as if he were sizing me up. “Guess not.” He leaned back in his seat, finishing off his drink. “We’ll order food, and then I’ll tell you what you’re doing here.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me more about yourself while we wait.”
So I told him about my early life growing up on the outskirts of Philadelphia. My dad was a mail carrier and my mom worked as a paralegal. They weren’t rich people, but they did well enough to provide a comfortable life for us.
Soon, the waitress came back. Nash ordered a steak and potatoes, and I ordered a Caesar salad, too nervous to get anything else. He gave me a look when I said it, a knowing smirk, but said nothing.
The waitress walked away and I looked at him. “Okay, I need to know what this is all about now,” I said.
“I have a business proposition for you.”
“Business?” I asked, laughing nervously. “You know I’m just a college undergrad, right?”
“What are you studying?” he asked.
“Marketing and journalism. I’m interested in publicity and things like that.”
He laughed loudly, shaking his head. “Too fucking perfect,” he said.
I stared at him quizzically. “What is?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Do you want to hear this proposition?”
“Okay,” I said, totally unsure. Part of me wanted to get up and run away, get far, far away from him.
But there was something keeping me in that seat.
Nash had a magnetism about him, something that drew me toward him. I wanted to get up and leave, walk away. He was a dangerous man, not in the sense of hurting me or something like that, but he had a bad reputation and was well-known as being a deadly force. I had no clue what kind of proposition he had for me, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
And yet I couldn’t leave. There was just something about his smile, the way he asked about me, the way he seemed like he didn’t belong in an expensive steak house wearing an expensive suit.
“Lately,” he said slowly, “I’ve been under pressure from my publisher.”
“For what?”
“Apparently, I have a morality clause. And they don’t like the way I’ve been handling myself.”
I laughed. “Seriously, a morality clause?”
“I’m an all-American hero, Selena. Can’t have a hero fucking random club sluts and getting drunk every night.”
I bit my lip. “Are you fucking random women every night?”
“Not the point,” he said. “I have a problem with my publisher, an image problem.”
“You want me to help with that?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning his delicious grin. “I want you to marry me.”
I stared at him, shocked. “What did you just say?”
“Selena,” he said slowly, “I’ll pay you one million dollars to marry me.”
I leaned back in my chair, my eyes wide, shock and denial running through my body.
I should have gotten up.
I should have run away.
But instead I sat there and looked at him, confused, uncertain, wondering what I was getting myself into.
Chapter Four: Nash
I savored the look on her face for a few seconds.
As soon as I had laid it out there for her, she’d looked totally shocked. At first I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she was slowly figuring out that I wasn’t fucking around.
“Why?” she managed to say.
“I need to change my image. You’re beautiful as hell and a student at a good college.” I grinned at her. “I also did some more research on you after we met. You’re a pretty normal person living a pretty normal life.”
“So what?” she said. “I mean, why would you want to marry me? You don’t even know me.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter. We won’t really be married. But I need you to pretend to be my wife, at least until my book tour is over. Once it’s done, I’ll be able to renegotiate my contract and hopefully get rid of this idiotic morality clause.”
“But how does marrying me help?”
“Come on, Selena,” I said, “you’re the marketing major. Think about it.”
She bit her lip, shaking her head. “This is crazy. Really crazy.”
“Maybe, but I don’t give a fuck. Those bastards think they can push me around, but nobody fucking pushes me around. I’ll play their game, but I’m playing it on my terms.”
She nodded, and I could tell she was thinking it over. I didn’t expect her to say yes right away, but I did think she’d come around. A million dollars was a lot of money; honestly, it was most of the money I had. But I wasn’t kidding when I said that I didn’t care about the cash.
I cared way more about my fucking freedom. No publisher was going to have Nash Bell by the balls. I’d killed men with my bare hands, stabbed them in the neck, shot them, burned them, blew them up. I was a trained killer, skilled in more than just taking off women’s clothes.
“You need to change your image,” she said, “and you think that having a normal wife will help with that.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“But why me?”
I grunted, not sure how to answer that. Truthfully, I didn’t really know why her. I’d been toying with the idea for a couple of days, and the second I saw her I knew that I had to have her. For whatever reason, she just struck me as someone who would make a great wife, who could potentially change my image for the better.
And of course, as soon as I began to research her, I had realized how right I was. Selena Wood was a model student, a good little journalist at her paper, with a nice mommy and daddy. She wasn’t rich or poor, just a normal girl from a regular family.
Plus, she was smart. She had to be if she was going to get into Penn on a scholarship. I needed someone with a good head on her shoulders, not someone batshit crazy, if I was going to pull this off. I needed someone who understood what we were doing and could play the part.
Plus, as soon as she walked into the restaurant and I saw her in that fucking dress, I knew I wanted her on my arm. I was instantly attracted to her, wanted to peel that tight black cloth from her smooth skin and fuck her tight pussy until she cried out my name.
“Why you?” I asked her back. “You’re normal. You’re sexy. You’re smart.” I shrugged.
“But any number of girls at Penn are all those things,” she said, still shaking her head. “Why me exactly?”
I went to answer, but the waitress returned with our meals. I smiled at the woman, giving her my best shit-eating grin, and she backed off, blushing slightly. I dug into my steak, ignoring Selena’s confused stare, because I was fucking starving.
After a good few bites of food, she finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“How do you even have a million dollars?” she asked.
“You said it yourself: I’m rich.”
“That’s a lot of money. How would this even work?”
“You pretend to be my wife for a few months while the book tour ends. Then I pay you.”
“You make it sound so simple. What about my classes?”
“Finish them when we’re done. Or not. You’ll have a ton of money.”
She bit her lip again, the cutest fucking gesture in the god damn world. I bit my steak, feeling my cock stir in my pants. I hated wearing a suit, but it was the best camouflage for going to a fancy restaurant. Plus, nobody expected to see Nash Bell in a fucking suit.
“What about the media? Won’t this look
suspicious?”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “They expect this sort of shit from me.”
“Pretend to be your wife,” she said softly. “For months.”
“That’s it. Just pretend, and then you’ll get your money.”
I dug into my steak while she picked at her salad, clearly still in a state of shock. There was something supremely attractive about the way she stared at me, slightly afraid, slightly confused, but clearly she wanted me. If she didn’t she’d have run off already.
“Excuse me,” she said abruptly. She stood up and stepped out of the booth, walking quickly away.
I smiled to myself, eating and drinking my whisky. Maybe she was running off, or maybe she was just getting herself together in the bathroom. Either way, it didn’t matter to me. She’d do it, or she wouldn’t and I’d have to find someone else.
But all of my instincts were telling me that this girl was the right move. And I’d learned to trust my instincts a long time ago.
I managed to wave down the waitress, get the bill, and pay it by the time Selena made it back to the table.
“Thought you ran,” I said to her, signing the receipt.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just had to think.”
“And?”
“And I think I’m going to turn down your proposal.”
I stared at her for a second, frowning. That was a surprise.
“Are you sure?” I said. “Being married to me will be the most fun you’ll ever have.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is just too crazy. I can’t do it.”
I nodded. “Okay, Selena. But if you change your mind, come to my room. I’m staying in the Ritz downtown, room 234. I leave the day after tomorrow, early.”
She sighed, frowning. “I’m sorry. I’m just not your girl. I can’t help you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, standing. “You are exactly what I want, Selena. You just don’t realize it yet.”
She frowned. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I grunted. “Room 234, Ritz downtown. One million dollars. Come see me if you change your mind.”
“Okay,” she said softly.
“And Selena?”
“Yeah?”