Secrets on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #1)(16)
Author: Roxanne St. Claire

“That’s going to be your contract?”

“Legal and binding.” He looked around again, and she jutted her chin to the tiny desk built into the corner.

“There’s a pen.”

He turned, grabbed a felt-tipped pen from the cup, and laid the paper towel on the counter, smoothing it out as he bit off the pen cap and kept it between his teeth.

“I, Ezekiel Nicholas…” He scribbled the words, the ink bleeding on the soft paper towel. “Do agree to pay five thousand dollars to…” The pen cap garbled his words.

She slid it out from between his teeth.  “Amanda Lockhart.”

He grimaced. “You’ll never be that to me.” As he started to write the A, she put her hand over his.

“Okay, Mandy Mitchell. Only for you.”

He hated that those words kicked his heart and her hand made him tense, so he nodded and looked down at the paper towel, turning the A into an M. “…Mandy Mitchell in exchange for…”

He hesitated again, and she got a little closer, so he could smell something citrus in her hair and feel the warmth of her.  He continued writing. “In exchange for her appearance at social functions as my…” Then he looked at her, waiting for her to provide the descriptor.

“Pseudo? Imitation? Pretend? Fake?” She shrugged. “I don’t know how else to say it.”

“In math, any number that’s the product of a real number and the square root of a negative one is referred to as imaginary. Would that work?”

She smiled. “Imaginary girlfriend it is.”

On the contract, he finished the sentence. “…my imaginary girlfriend. Okay?” He searched her face, looking for humor in their little arrangement, but he didn’t see anything but seriousness and, hell, a little fear. He hated the bastard who’d put that fear in her.

“No,” she said softly. “You have to add that there can’t be any…”

Sex. She might as well have spelled it out with her own marker. He turned back to the paper, his brain already seeking…loopholes. “We hereby swear that those services will not include…” His pen stilled as he waited for her to spell it out.

“You know,” she said.

“I need a legal term.”

“How about ‘any activities that require the removal of clothes’?”

He lifted both brows, already seeing the loopholes and how to…get around, through, and under them. “Are you sure?”

“Well, I expect we’ll have to, you know, hold hands and act like we’re together in public. I mean, at least for the benefit of your mother and the Cinderellas at her ball.”

He laughed softly. “You heard every word of what I said to her, didn’t you?”

“Not on purpose,” she said. “But, yeah, I picked up quite a bit.”

He looked at her for a moment, enjoying the close contact, the chance to gaze into her eyes, and the softness he saw when she let her guard down. “Okay, then. Your words, your rules.” On the paper, he wrote exactly what she’d said.

Any activities that require the removal of clothes.

“Is that ironclad enough for you?”

She leaned closer to read, her hair brushing his cheek as she did. Above her, he closed his eyes and took a silent breath of lemon and flowers, the desire for her as strong as the first day he’d seen her.

“That’s good,” she said.

He made two straight lines on the bottom, and then scratched his signature with little more than three strokes of the pen. He handed it to her, and she wrote very slowly, very clearly.

Mandy Mitchell. She smoothed the paper towel again. “I better be careful with this.”

“I can put it in the safe in my villa,” he said, reaching for it.

“Good idea.”  She turned, still trapped between him and the sink, and they looked at each other, a heartbeat of awkward followed by both of them laughing softly. “Should we shake?” she asked, holding out her hand.

“As long as our clothes stay on…” He took her hand and gave it a firm shake, then pulled her fingers to his mouth, dying for one more touch of his lips against her skin. “We’re legal.”

Her eyes shuttered as he pressed his mouth to her knuckles.

“So, when is the party?” she asked.

“The party isn’t until Saturday. I’ll arrange for a personal shopper from Naples to come here with samples of clothes for you to wear.” At her look of surprise, he added, “I mean, if you’re forced to keep them on, you might as well like what you’re wearing, right?”

“Right. Is that how you shop? They come to you?”

“Now,” he admitted with a laugh. But she still looked stunned and about to turn down the offer. “Mandy…” He took her chin and angled her face toward his. “There are some perks to being my girlfriend, even an imaginary one. Oh, I almost forgot.” He picked up the check he’d set on the counter. “This is yours.”

She eyed the check, then him, then the check again. “Thank you.”

He slid it into her fingers, relaxed now. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mandy.”

“Yeah, Zeke.” She slipped away. “I’m sorry if I seem, well, odd to you. I hope you understand.”

“You don’t seem odd.”

He followed her into the living room, getting the clear message she was walking him to the door. There, he added, “You seem like you’ve been hurt and you’re protecting yourself.”

She gave him a grateful smile, one that warmed her eyes and made him ache to take her in his arms. “I really appreciate you being so understanding.” She stopped at the door and turned the handle to usher him out. “Then, I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”

Loophole number one. “No, not Saturday. Tomorrow. At six.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’m having dinner with a client.” Again, her mouth opened with an “o” of disbelief. He fluttered the paper towel he was holding. “This doesn’t specify that we’re only going to be together for that party. I’m here for a week, so I’ve got an imaginary girlfriend for that week.”

“But…”

“I’ll follow the rules, Mandy,” he promised. “And you’ll enjoy a trip to Miami.”

“Miami? That’s a long drive.”

“Oh, we’re not driving. I have a helicopter chartered for six-thirty. We’ll go a little early and swing over the Everglades.”