Page 33 of Under My Skin

“Um…don’t hate me, but the next few weeks are going to be kind of hectic for me,” she mumbled. “I’ve got finals coming up starting next Monday, and I’m graduating on Thursday the following week.”

My heart sank a little as I realized that meant I wouldn’t see her for a little while. I couldn’t force her to make time for me in the middle of her finals. And I couldn’t even go to her graduation because that was the same day I was flying out to Kansas to help Ian pop the question.

“I totally get that,” I assured her. “Will you let me take you out to celebrate after your last exam? Just somewhere fun, nothing like tonight.”

She nodded with half a smile. “Yeah. That’d actually be really nice. Oh, I was going to tell you. Lina offered to work next weekend and stay a little later than normal during finals week so I can focus on studying. Is that okay?”

“Absolutely. Just tell her to make sure she keeps track of the extra hours. And when you talk to her about Ky’s premiere, let her know I’ll pay her for every second she’s with us, even while she’s not watching Isaac.”

“I will.” She let out a long breath. “Thanks for dinner.”

I wanted so badly to kiss her again. To see if the wild intensity from that simple brush of our lips outside the restaurant was just a fluke or if the chemistry I felt with her was real. But she’d drawn a firm line in the sand: nothing could happen once we were out of the public eye. I knew I had to respect that. So instead, I made myself settle for leaning over and pecking her on the cheek.

And yet again, my lips tingled just from the brief contact with her smooth skin.

I had no idea what to make of this. I wasn’t the guy who fell head over heels for a girl on the first date. I was Don Juan, not Romeo. I was in it for a good time, not for a long time.

Until now. Until her.

Now, I couldn’t imagine ever putting my lips on another woman because I knew no other woman could compare to Dani. And, as misfortune would have it, the one woman I wanted to spend more than a night with was the one woman who wanted nothing to do with me outside of the monetary arrangement we had.

“You’re more than welcome,” I said quietly, trying like hell to keep these emotions I couldn’t make sense of out of my voice. “Have a good night, Dani.”

“You too,” she murmured as she opened her car door. “I’ll text and let you know about the premiere.”

I watched Dani walk up the stairs and waited until I saw her open her apartment door before driving out of the parking lot, still trying to make sense of the emotions swirling around inside me.

My ringing phone made me pop my eyes open with a groan. A glance at my clock told me it was just after eight in the morning, and when I grabbed my phone and saw Vicki’s name on the caller ID, I groaned again. It waswaytoo damn early to deal with her.

“Vicki,” I answered groggily.

“I’m sorry, honey. Did I wake you up?” she cooed like she was talking to a toddler.

“You should know by now I’m not a morning person,” I muttered. “What do you want?”

“I was just calling to tell you the press is buzzing about your mystery girl already. Dani, right?”

“Yep,” I bit out. “And wasn’t that sort of the whole point of this exercise?”

“It was. I just wanted to let you know it’s working. So, when are you taking her out again? And where?”

“In a couple of weeks. She’s in college and has finals coming up. I’ll let you know where so you can tell the vultures. I’m also planning on taking her to Kyler Strong’s documentary premiere in Miami in late June if it works out with her schedule.”

“Braden,” she groaned. “You know you need to keep the buzz going. Otherwise, they’ll just move on to the next story.”

“I know that. But I also don’t want to stress her out by taking away from her studying. We’ll go out plenty after her semester’s over.”

“Just think about it this way, sweetheart. The sooner you can convince the tabloids that you’re trying to make a change, the sooner you can kick this girl to the curb and things can go back to normal.”

And what if I don’twantthings to go back to normal?I wanted to say.

I still didn’t know what to make of the way I felt when I was around Dani, but I did know that the idea of just cutting off contact at the beginning of the season after we manufactured the press spin about our “breakup” cut me like a knife. Something about her just drew me in, and as much as I wanted to tell myself that it was because of the situation we’d found ourselves in, I knew it ran deeper than that.

But I wasn’t about to tell Vicki any of that. My personal life was none of her business. She hadonejob: to help me maintain a good image with the media. And the only information I would ever share with her about my life was what she needed to know to do said job.

“If you want to keep the buzz going, maybe we can put together a press conference or something,” I pushed back. “I’m not going to force Dani to take time out of studying for her finals, which she needs to pass in order to secure her spot in the med school she’s been accepted to, just so the vultures can take a few pictures.”

Vicki tsked and huffed out a sigh. “I’ll see what I can do. But I don’t like this.”

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