Hard Sell (Page 39)

The agony on his face is real, and I know that the reality of his Vegas shenanigans is hitting him harder than ever. And though some deep instinct tells me I’m likely to regret it, I hear myself agreeing to the trip.

He closes his eyes in relief. “Thank you. You good to leave Friday morning?”

“Sure. Are we taking your car?”

“Yeah, I thought we could get up there first, get settled into our domestic-bliss mode for the weekend. Everyone else is coming later.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see if Kate can stay with Juno.”

Matt shrugs. “Bring her.”

“I can’t bring a dog to your bosses’ place in the Hamptons!”

“Why not? She’ll love the beach. She’s house-trained. And nothing says ‘settled down’ like a dog.”

“True.” The thought of a weekend getaway with Matt and Juno is admittedly appealing. “So, which version of ‘settled down’ are we going for this weekend? Same as we’ve been doing, acting delightfully smitten with each other? Or are we going for broke and selling it hard, dropping lots of ‘we’ as it relates to our future and talking about ring shopping?”

Matt’s wince is subtle. So subtle that if I hadn’t been watching for it, I might have missed it. But I was watching for it.

Given what I know, I was fully expecting words like future and ring shopping to be the thing to send a guy like Matt Cannon running for the hills.

What I’m not expecting is how much his flinch stings.

“Let’s see how it goes,” he says. “I’m guessing some hand-holding and pet names will be enough to convince everyone that I’ve given up my lap-dance ways.”

“Okay.” My tone is agreeable, but his eyes narrow on me slightly.

“You don’t agree?”

“I—” I bite my lip, knowing I need to tread carefully.

The truth is, something feels off. Jarod Lanham seems more interested in Matt and my relationship, as well as my skills as a potential matchmaker, than he does hiring Matt as his broker. Even more perplexing, Matt doesn’t seem to care nearly as much as he should, considering the opinion of people like Jarod is the reason Matt and I started this charade in the first place.

As for me . . . I do care. I care about all of this. A little too much.

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “This whole thing has gotten rather fucked, hasn’t it?”

I laugh, not so much with mirth but with dismay that he seems to be reading my thoughts. “It’ll work out,” I say, smiling to help sell what feels like a lie.

If I can’t get my weird feelings and this strange sense of doom under control, it won’t work out at all.

He looks away without saying anything, and after a too-long silence, I touch his arm. “You want Jarod Lanham as a client, don’t you?”

He hesitates only a moment before nodding. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s play our part and get you your man.” I keep my voice light and start to turn away.

He grabs my wrist. “Sabrina, are you going with me because of the contract?”

“Are you asking me to go because of the contract?” I counter.

The door opens, and Kate’s head pops out. “Guys. I ate all the cheese, and they won’t let me have anything else until you join us. And I’m starving.”

“Be right there,” I say, dragging my gaze away from Matt’s.

I start to pull back, and his fingers tighten for a moment on my wrist before he slowly releases me.

As we go inside, I realize that neither of us answered the question.

Are we going to the Hamptons together because of the contract?

Or in spite of it?

25

MATT

Friday Afternoon, October 6

Well. Shit.

My weekend just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

Wordlessly, I hold out my phone to Sabrina so she can see the text message that’s just come through.

We’re standing in The Sams’ kitchen at their place in the Hamptons, sipping a glass of champagne to kick off what we’d expected to be a long weekend of make-believe in front of two bosses and a billionaire.

Instead, I’m bracing for Sabrina’s irritation as she silently reads the text.

She hands the phone back to me and takes a sip of champagne. “Well. I guess that means I don’t need to freak out about the fact that Juno’s already put her muddy paws all over the duvet in the master bedroom.”

“I can’t believe they canceled,” I say, still distracted by the message from Samantha. “Who the hell does that?”

“Maybe they thought they were doing you a favor,” she says, going to the fridge for the champagne bottle. “They probably figured that if the prospective client couldn’t come, there was no reason for the four of us to suffer through the awkwardness of small talk.”

I ignore her placating. “And what kind of bullshit is ‘something came up’? It’s the oldest, lamest blow off in the books.”

“So you’ll woo Jarod some other way,” she says, reaching across the counter to top off my glass.

I put a hand out to stop her. “I shouldn’t. Not if I’m driving back.”

“No way,” she says, batting my hand away and refilling the glass. “I am not getting back in the car with that dog just yet.”

I laugh at the memory of Juno wailing the entire ride from the Upper East Side to Southampton. “You’d think she’d never been in a car before.”

“She probably hasn’t,” Sabrina pointed out. “I don’t own a car. Her vet’s within walking distance, so I’ve never needed to put her in a cab or subway. And I got her from a shelter in Harlem when she was a young puppy.”

“Where is the monster, anyway?” I ask, looking around the lavish beach home for the dog.

“Outside. I decided she’d be better off digging a hole in the sand than your bosses’ bed.”

“She won’t run away?”

Sabrina shakes her head and walks to the back door that opens onto the beach. “Watch this.”

She lets out a short, no-nonsense whistle, and not thirty seconds later, a wet, sandy dog bounds toward her. Sabrina holds up a hand before the dog can burst inside the house, and Juno plants her butt down on the porch, tail wagging wildly as she waits for praise.

“Good girl,” Sabrina says in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. It’s adoring and a little goofy, and I can’t help but smile as she squats down to pet her dog.

Sabrina’s wearing an expensive-looking red sweater and light-gray slacks, but she doesn’t so much as flinch when Juno sets her paws on Sabrina’s knee and goes in for a slobbery on-the-cheek kiss.

“Okay, that’s plenty of love,” Sabrina says after a moment, laughing as she pushes the dog away. “Go continue your beach exploration.”

Juno bounds away again, and I give Sabrina an admiring look. “Is there anyone you don’t have completely wrapped around your finger, ready to do your bidding with a simple whistle?”

She gives a coy smile. “Well. I’m still working on you.”

I’m not so sure. Every time I’m with her—hell, every time I look at her—it becomes harder and harder to think about going back to the way we were.

For the first time, I truly understand why Sabrina put her no-hookup rule into place. And though I don’t regret violating the rule in every pleasurable way possible in recent days, I’m no longer entirely confident in what we’re doing. Or why we’re doing it.