Page 40 of Devil in a Tux

I admitted the truth to them at a whisper. “For two million dollars, I thought it was worth it.”

Both of them stopped talking, mouths agape and eyes wide.

“Open it.” I pointed to the sealed envelope.

I hadn’t thought Chelsea could get more shocked, but she did when she pulled the two checks out.

“There’s another million coming when I finish,” I said. “And no sex.”

Theno sexcomment clearly confused Gwen. Chelsea might not have heard it. She was busy reading and rereading the checks.

“A million to not sleep with him?” Gwen asked with a scrunched brow. “Is this some kind of ritual torture? Is he practicing to join a monastery or some shit?”

“Count me as not understanding too,” Chelsea said. “Why does he want a platonic girlfriend?”

I hadn’t asked Evan how much of this was secret, so I didn’t go into detail. “He thinks his image needs work.”

“The ruthless businessman part or the manwhore part?” Gwen asked, cutting to the meat of it.

I cleaned up the wording. “His dating reputation. After the fountain incident this week, he’s decided he needs a steady girlfriend, but just a fake one.”

“Now that makes sense to me,” Gwen said. “Why you?” she added after a moment.

Chelsea finished a swallow of her drink. “Simple. He knows he doesn’t want to get serious or attached, so he picks the one woman in town…” She pointed at me. “Who hates his guts, because she’ll be impervious to his charms.”

“What charms?” I hissed. I wasn’t about to admit that I’d found his attempt to shield me from the cameras and his waiting outside my building to hear that I’d made it to my apartment safely just an itsy-bitsy, little, tiny smidgen endearing.

CHAPTER11

Evan

I was backat work mid-morning on Saturday when my phone vibrated on my desk.

I turned it over, only to find an unknown number. I declined the call. The politicians always promised to do something about marketing calls, but so far they had failed.

The vibration started up again, so I reached over, answered the call with “No thank you,” and hung up again.

The third time, the caller got a word in before I did. “Why did I wake up to find more pictures of you and some bimbo this morning?”

“Charlie?”

“Oh, so you remember my name, but not a single thing we talked about. Didn’t we agree no more dating?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re on Page Six again, idiot.”

“Oh, that I can explain.”

“Don’t bother,” she hissed. “I don’t work for dumbasses who completely ignore my instructions. I thought we had an agreement. No more bimbos. I’m done with you.”

Sometimes fire had to be fought with fire. “Your resignation is not accepted—even though I hate working with idiots who jump to conclusions without any of the facts.”

“The pictures are right in front of me,” she said, shifting to a calm tone. “And I quote, ‘They arrived separately, hoping we wouldn’t catch sight of Evan McAllister’s latest conquest. We don’t know the name of the latest McAllister Minx. We’ll fill you and as soon as we do.’ End quote. So, you couldn’t keep it in your pants for couple of days?”

“She’s the one,” I blurted.

“I’m sure they all are until you get tired of them,” she quipped.

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