Page 51 of Bad Boy for Hire
He hazarded a glance at her, the weight of that memory flickering behind his eyes. “I had a rule too. Like your no-hot-men policy.”
“No lying cheaters?” She smiled.
He smiled back. “Stick to casual. Short term. No strings. I’m always upfront about that.” He diverted his gaze and, with a subtle shake of his head, said, “At least, I was before you.”
Her heart mule-kicked her ribcage.
“You’re a singular experience, May.” His affable charm snapped back into place. “Don’t panic. I bent my rule. I didn’t break it.”
“I am fairly certain my rule is shattered.”
“Yeah.” He cupped her breast. She felt her body going pliant already. “But you aren’t going to be in so deep that you’re obligated to my family. I won’t have future you wrestling with the decision to go to my brother’s wedding.”
“An unlikely scenario.”
“Him getting married?” Xavier scoffed. “Absolutely the least likely possibility.”
The heaviness in the room lifted a little, like they’d both exhaled the past to make room for something lighter.
“Second least likely is you?” she teased.
He didn’t offer a dismissive smile. Instead, he tilted his head and gave her a slow, thoughtful nod.
Not quite a yes.
But it might’ve been a maybe.
Chapter Sixteen
May knew that Lourdes Daniels was an incredible writer. Last year when she and Ant were rediscovering their friendship and exploring coupledom, Lou had shared with her friends that she’d written an intensely private journal that had morphed into a manuscript. A manuscript she’d bound and gifted to Ant. She’d sworn never to publish it, a promise she’d apparently kept.
“Wait. If you’re not publishing that story, then which story did the publisher offer to buy?” Lisa asked while scrolling through the document on her phone. Lou had called an emergency girls’ night to share the good news, and her friends had descended on her lake house without hesitation.
“Lisa! We’re here to toast and congratulate our girl, not read publishing contracts on our phones.” Elliott impatiently raised her wine glass.
Lisa swiveled her phone to show her screen. “I need to make sure our girl is being paid a lot of money for this book. Whatever it is. What is it?”
Lou was all smiles. “It’s not what I wrote for Ant. But parts of it are in this book. It’s a story about a travel blogger…”
“Mm-hmm.” May was enjoying the hell out of this exciting development.
“And,” Lou added, “my main character has many complicated tales about traveling with a very sexy, very uncooperative partner, with whom she eventually falls in love. See? Fiction. Not autobiographical. My ex isn’t in this story anywhere.”
“Ant seems to be the implied ‘very sexy’ hero,” Elliott pointed out.
“Any likenesses to an actual person, living or dead, is strictly coincidence.” Lou lifted her chin.
“Suuuure. Fiction,” Lisa said. “And it’s going to be a number-one bestseller!”
“Yes!” Elliott and May raised their glasses. Lisa put her phone down and raised hers as well.
Lou drank with them. Then pointed at May. “What’s going on with you and Xavier?”
May blinked, stunned by the rapid shift in topic. “What do you mean?”
The other women exchanged glances. It was Elliott who spoke next. “We know you two had sex after the wedding, and now three weeks have passed, and you haven’t told us anything.”
“We’ve…seen each other a few times since then.” May offered a smile, which was impressive.
