And then he was striding away from me. I heard my apartment door close behind him, and it was like all my energy abandoned me with the sound. I dropped onto the nearest chair, my heart still racing.
Could I really play Hayden’s fake wife? How was I supposed to survive living with him day in and day out, to pretend we were in love in front of his friends and family?
It would be painful. There was no way around that.
But I also couldn’t turn him down. Not if it meant letting Miles get hurt.
This whole thing was a giant mess with no good options.
And I hated that the thing that was bothering me most was how my body had lit up when Hayden called meSunday School. I wasn’t sure when the condescending nickname had become an endearment I loved hearing fall from his stupidly perfect lips.
“Stop it, Danielle,” I murmured to myself.
But I couldn’t stop the memories from invading my mind. They didn’t ask for permission and didn’t care what kind of havoc they wreaked.
Taking a deep breath,I slipped into the alcove.
And froze at what greeted me on the other side.
I’d been prepared to drag Kylie away from a hookup and into a bed to sleep off whatever the hell she’d been drinking earlier. I wasn’t prepared to find Hayden Blake sitting alone with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. His suit jacket was draped over the arm of the couch, and he’d rolled the sleeves of his white button-down up to his elbows.
My attention snagged on his bare forearms for a second. They were covered in a light layer of dark hair and muscular in a way that made his veins stand out. How did he get so strong sitting at a desk all day?
Please, God, don’t let him have been Kylie’s make-out partner for the night.The idea of them together made my stomach drop in a way I really didn’t want to examine too closely.
I dragged my eyes back up to his face to find him looking directly at me. It felt like there was a rock in my throat when I tried to swallow. He was actually meeting my gaze, and for a second it felt like we were back in the hospital, when he asked me if he was in Heaven.
“You lost, Sunday School?” he asked, his voice low and slightly amused.
“Sunday School?”
“Yeah.” His eyes dragged over my body with a smirk. “I had a Sunday school teacher who wore that exact sweater.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew my outfit didn’t fit the club scene—I hadn’t had time to go back to my apartment after my shift and was stuck with whatever I could find in my locker at the hospital—but he didn’t have to point it out so blatantly.
“She must have had good taste,” I said sweetly, opting to ignore the insult behind his comment.
Hayden gave a low chuckle, and muscles low in my stomach clenched.
I was not supposed to be reacting to him like this. The man couldn’t even look at me most of the time. And he was my friend’s brother, not to mention the object of my deal with Beelzebub.
But my vagina didn’t seem to care about any of that. She was too busy drooling over the man’s forearms to listen to reason.
SEVEN
Hayden
Danielle was staring at me,her whisky eyes drinking in every inch of my body.
Everything about her was painfully innocent, from her unbound hair to the ugly knit sweater that covered her palms to the modest floor-length skirt that looked more like it belonged in some small-town church or a library than a club. Even the little white shirt that showed the outline of her bra somehow added to her generally wholesome look.
She was so far from my usual type they might as well be different species, but my dick didn’t seem to get the memo as it twitched inside my slacks.
It didn’t matter what she wore—Danielle outshone every other woman in the world.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said when a solid minute had passed without her leaving the alcove that usually served as either an area for groups to sit together or a make-out room for couples. “Are you lost?”
“No.”
