His eyes are boring holes into me as his jaw hangs open slightly. Before he closes his mouth, the tip of his tongue subtly draws across his bottom lip, and then he plants his palms flat on the desk to push away from it. He remains seated, but I have a feeling that’s only to prevent him from leaping over the desk to strangle me, and I’m suddenly kind of loving this meeting.
“His daughter, Isla, got engaged recently, and they’re throwing a big engagement party this weekend,” Colin continues. “I’m obviously invited, but, more importantly, I have recently recognized this engagement party weekend as an opportunity. Ernesto is due to replace UMG’s fleet of jets, and I need him to buy them from me. He’s never bought from us before, and I need to convince him to buy from us from now on. This would be the largest deal I’ve ever nailed down, but it would also mean potentially long-term, even more massive deals.” He pauses as he leans forward again, resting his forearms against the edge of the desk. “Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, Elle. This isbuyingactual jets. Not chartering them.”
“Yeah, I understand.” I bobble my head in a flippant nod. “I caught that just now when you saidbuyinstead ofcharter. But here’s what I don’t understand.” I point at him. “What do you need me for? You and yourboys’ clubof sales leads are the ones who always handle the actualsales.” I drop my hand and hitch my shoulder to my earlobe. “If you actually need help with this, why aren’t you asking someone withexperience? Like Stephen or Roger. Or evenCelia. You already said I don’t have enough experience.”
Colin says nothing as he draws his finger back and forth across his upper lip before standing up. I follow him with my gaze, turning slightly in my chair as he crosses around the desk to approach the office door. He pushes on it as if checking to ensure that it’s closed, and then glances out one of the windows that flank it.
Turning back around, he slips his hands into his pockets and eyes me. “I’ve got a situation with the Reyes family that could derail the whole thing, and that’s what I need you to help me with.”
I prompt him with a quick lift of my brows. “And?”
“Ernesto has threelovelydaughters,” Colin begins with an emphatic rock on the balls of his feet. “He’s also a shameless bastard who finagled marriages for two of them that behooved his bottom line. Isla’s engagement is one of those. His youngest daughter, Liliana, doesn’t have any lucrative suitors,butshe’s his little princess. She gets whatever she wants. And… ever since high school…” Colin straight upbiteshis bottom lip as he appears to internally cringe, which makesmebite my tongue to keep from snorting with laughter. “She’s wantedme.”
At that, I go ahead and let myself laugh. “Aww.” I bring a fist to my eye to mimic wiping crocodile tears. “Boohoo. A rich daddy’s girl has a thing for you.” I clutch my chest. “Wow, I’mso sorry, Colin. What a hard life you have.”
“Theproblemis,” he snaps, “when I show up to this engagement party, Liliana is going to be all over me. Her mother is going to try to set us upagain. Her father is going to assume we’re about to finally start seeing each other, so he’ll go ahead and buy the fleet from me, but he’ll also expect some kind of deal like he got with his son-in-law and like he’s getting with hisfutureson-in-law. If I turn down Liliana, I’m going to be out of all of their good graces. She’ll pout and make a scene and possibly act like I did something awful, and it will cause all kinds of drama I don’t need. I need a deterrent for all of that.”
I eye him expectantly and flip my palm in the air. “And? I still don’t see how I’m supposed to help you with any of that.”
Colin’s shoulders rise and fall again as he takes a silent breath. “I need you to be my deterrent.”
I arch one eyebrow. “I beg your pardon.”
“I need you to come with me this weekend and sort of…” His eyes shift to one side and back to my face. “Act like we’re… you know… athing.”
My eyes narrow at him on their own accord.
Wow, Reader. And here I was thinking all morning that I’d be snuggled up on my couch watching Hallmark movies by now, not being asked toreenactone.
“You want me to pretend to be yourgirlfriend?” I blink. “Do you realize how unoriginal and stupid that is?”
“Yes,” Colin says simply. “But it’s the only thing I can think of that’s a guaranteed way to avoid the drama I know Liliana will cause.”
I lift my shoulders, incredulous. “How do you know she won’t start drama anyway? If she always gets her way, how would you allegedly having a girlfriend keep her from throwing a fit?”
“It just would. I know these people really well, and you just have to trust me on this.”
I scoff and turn back around to face the desk. “I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”
Solid footsteps pound the floor as Colin approaches the desk, and then he leans on the edge of it as he catches my eyes with sober intensity. “If I can close this deal, it means a two-million-dollar commission. And I will give youhalf.”
I stare at him for a second before tearing my gaze away and look out at the expanse of Midtown Manhattan stretching far and wide out the window.
Amilliondollars.
I could pay off my student loans. AndthenI could finally pursue the work I actually wanted to do way back when I was racking up that mountain of debt. All those naive dreams of becoming a social worker to help people avoid becoming toxic life-ruiners like my parents. Dreams dashed by the crushing weight of repaying student loans and realizing my dream job didn’t come with a salary that would sustain both the paymentsanda roof over my head. All of which was why I gave up on the dream and pursued a career in sales. I’m not cut out for sales.Obviously. But sales was the one line of work that had the potential to bring in enough money to pay back the loans.Potentialbeing the key word. Thatpotentialwould only have been realized if I didn’t suck at sales. That debt resulted in the hamster wheel of sales jobs that I sucked at, upon which I’ve been stuck since I finished my master’s program three years ago.
And sexy asshole Colin is offering me a golden ticket out ofall of it.
My throat suddenly feels tight, and I swallow. “How sure are you that you can close it?”
“I have nevernotclosed a sale, Elle.” His voice is a low, graveled timbre, and it’s almost sexy enough to distract me from my own bottom line right now. “I could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves.”
My mouth quirks with an out-of-place half-smile. “You watch a lot of crappy nineties comedies, huh?”
In my peripheral vision, I see Colin incline his face as if attempting to catch my gaze, but I don’t look at him. “You got that reference.” A half-laugh exits his mouth. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m not.” I turn my head to square my eyes on his. “I want $10,000 up front.”
