Page 24 of The American

Her phone rang. “Yes?”

“How appealing?” His sexy voice growled.

She laughed again. “I don’t know. It’s nice, chiseled in a rough-guy sort of way.”

“So you like chiseled. Are we talking like Tom Cruise chiseled?”

“What? No. He’s so old news. Hugh Jackman. MMMM.”

“OK, that’s not even a real comparison. Is his jaw chiseled at all?”

“Of course it’s chiseled. I wouldn’t have even mentioned him otherwise.”

“You just like him because he can sing.”

She gasped. “How did you know I was into that?”

“Why do you think I sang to you in the park?”

Her face warmed. “I thought it was just a good guess.”

“Oh no. I’m on to you. I’ve got plans.”

“This is such a weird experiment.”

He was silent so long she thought she lost her signal. Then a quiet voice answered. “I know. Sometimes I forget we are supposed to be faking it.”

“Are you faking it?”

“Right now? No way. But I guess I am just having fun. I mean we don’t know if we should pursue this. We have no idea if it is a good idea to be together. We are just sort of forced into it and we may as well have fun, right?”

Now it was her turn to pause. She was way more into him than the reverse, or at least it seemed that way. “Fun is perfect. And thanks for saving me. Where did that crowd come from anyway?”

“Our video has a few million hits on YouTube.”

“What!” She couldn’t believe it had picked up traction that fast.

“We are going to need to talk about increasing your security. I hope you like chiseled jaw man because he is your new personal body guard.”

“Are you sure I need one? That seems a little extreme.” Then she thought about the crowd. “But thank you. I wouldn’t have even known what to do about that group today. They were in the back alley behind my place.”

“Your doorman tipped them off.”

“Wait. Are you serious? He needs to be fired.”

“He was.”

“Oh. Awesome. Are you like secret service too?” She couldn’t believe how quickly he had taken care of everything and how much he knew.

“It’s Lucan. He has fingers on the spy networks, runs security for our country. And especially for our family.”

“Who’s Lucan?”

“Oh, he’s my brother. Sometimes I can’t believe you don’t know anything about me.”

“Or you, me.”

They pulled into the building and jaw man parked and followed her in.

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