Page 27 of Down & Dirty

He sniffed. “We’ll see. You’ll have the paperwork in your email in a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling the door open. I sighed out the deep breath I’d been holding before I glanced back over my shoulder, “Thanks for last night. I really appreciate you doing that.”

Cory looked away, almost bashfully. “Don’t mention it.”

I had every intention of following that suggestion and wiping my mind of all of it. Just as soon as the nausea stopped reminding me of my mistake.

“See you at the office, honey,” he called as I closed the door. I bit back the smart remark rushing to my lips. There was no way I’d survive even a week of this farce if I took every bait he tossed out.

I’d read through enough contracts in my time as Ronnie’s assistant to spot loopholes and shoddy terms. But when I got myhands on the dating contract, there were none to be found. If anything, Cory was being extremely generous. I wished I could ask if this was his boilerplate agreement, or if he’d changed up the terms because it was me. I never would, of course. That would make it seem like I thought I was special. And as much as possible I wanted to keep emotions out of this. It was a financial transaction, an even exchange of money for service.

Only, the service was going to be my presence, my image, my reputation.

It wasn’t without reservation that I flipped through the pages. I’d lived a fairly private life. Even when I was with Tommy and he’d been making waves, I stayed out of the spotlight. I wasn’t like him, or my brother, or Cory. Being known by the masses wasn’t appealing to me, so the whole idea made me a little anxious. But it was still a small price to pay for what I’d get in return.

A minimum of one public appearance a week, featuring an assortment of “lite PDA”— a term footnoted and defined in depth in the attached glossary.

This was definitely not his first rodeo.

I’d be paid weekly, and he’d even set up direct deposit for me if I wanted. It all sounded so dry, so clinical. It also sounded incredibly strange.

Holding hands.

Kissing—no tongue if desired.

Hugging.

Forehead kisses.

Forehead kisses?Jesus. It was slightly alarming that things were spelled out in such detail, but I guess when two people were going to be playing at being a couple, keeping the lines clear and boundaries firm would be a good thing.

And Cory had done this with a lot of women over the years. He’d probably learned some unfortunate lessons about ambiguity and misunderstandings. I bet he had stories. Most would likely make me cringe, but the more I got used to the idea of playing thepart, the more I wondered what kinds of trouble he’d gotten himself into in the past.

There was no way we’d have any sort of drama. It was like he said, we were the last two people to develop feelings for each other, so this was likely the safest arrangement like this he’d ever done. But the more relief I felt about that, the more I started to wonder if anyone would buy our act? My own family, for one, would have a pretty hard time swallowing the complete one-eighty I’d be doing. Going from outspokenly hating Cory to dating him...I wasn’t sure I was a good enough actor, but I was determined to try.

Even more so when I scanned down the page and I hit the most important clause in the whole agreement; the compensation. Two thousand dollars a week.Two thousand.A week. I flopped back on my bed, hugging my knees to my chest and squealing. That kind of money wouldn’t just keep me from digging into my savings, it would double it!

In the six-month term of the contract Cory would pay me nearly fifty thousand dollars.

It was surreal. Whatever tiny voice was still making an argument for me to tell him to take his ego and shove it was being summarily dismissed by the giddy relief that was ringing through my body.

There was no saying no to this. But I knew if I gave my mind too much time to linger on all the ways this could go wrong, it would find something compelling. So I pulled out my phone, finding Cory’s cell number in the email, and with shaky hands I typed out a text.

Sky: I think this looks satisfactory.

It only took a few seconds for the dots to appear and with a quick glance at the clock I knew he’d be at the garage by now, having just finished up his first training ride of the day. Ronnie was likely not far behind him.

Cory: Satisfactory is what I was going for. Keeping both our expectations in the basement at this point.

Sky: Do you want a wet signature?

Cory: No, I’ll resend through the app I use to execute things. You’re sure you have no edits?

Fear jolted through me that he’d planted something sneaky in the agreement just to see if I’d catch it. And now that I had no feedback, he’d know I wasn’t qualified to be reading anyone’s contracts, Ronnie’s or my own.

Sky: Why? Should I? What did you do?

Cory: Take a breath, boss. I was just making sure. If you want more time, just let me know.

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