Page 3 of Bargain Match

With a resigned sigh, I roll my eyes. “You’re just saying that because we’re going with your idea, not mine.”

Burke shakes his head at me. “Even if by some chance we were both picked?—”

“I think we have a good shot. I pulled out all the stops with our application.”

He shakes his head. “There’s one big problem standing in the way of this grand scheme of yours.”

“Which is?”

“You have a boyfriend.”

I crinkle my nose. “Boyfriend?”

“Travis. The guy you’ve been seeing for the past three months.” He stares at me without blinking. “Don’t you think he might have a problem with you traveling to God knows where with some man you’re pretending to care about?”

“Travis isn’t my boyfriend.”

His frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

“We were just… casually dating and having a little fun.”

“Wait. Did you say ‘were’?”

“I did.” I raise my chin to look down at him as best I can while he’s still towering over me. “Last week we decided the fun was over.”

“You broke up.”

“We decided to stop seeing each other.”

“You broke up,” Burke says more definitively. “You never said anything.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“You’re my best friend. Of course, I care about who you are and aren’t dating."

“Look, we can talk about this later if you really want, but the point is nothing is standing in the way of us making this work.”

Burke’s frown deepens. “Except one more thing.”

“Which is?”

“I won’t do it.”

TWO

BURKE

Hadley doesn’t take my answer lightly.

For the next three days, she floods my phone with texts, voice messages, and even a string of social media posts begging me to consider her plan.

But no amount of pleading changes my mind.

Hadley might have no qualms about dating some random stranger and pretending to have feelings for them in the name of earning money, but I do. Have qualms, that is.

Because unlike her, I don’t see romantic relationships as transactions. Not that I blame her for that. For someone who mostly sees sunshine and rainbows, it’s her one jaded worldview. And one she came by honestly thanks to her mom.

Her mom was so in love with the idea of being in love that she dragged Hadley all over the continental U.S. before finally landing in Alaska more than a decade ago.

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