Page 16 of The Temptation
Please, I’m much craftier than he’s giving me credit for.
“What do you want, then?”
“I want you to handle all the legal mumbo jumbo for setting up my business. All the paper work and filing the paper work with the government. All that stuff.”
His beautiful brown eyes fell shut and he looked pained, as though I’d kicked him in the shin with my words. “Legal mumbo jumbo,” he whispered.
“Come on. You know what I mean.”
He opened his eyes again and stared at me. “No, I don’t. What business are you starting?”
“Music.Mymusic.”
“I’m still confused. Don’t you have an agent?”
“I do, but she handles mostly booking me and the contracts for those bookings. I’ve recently started writing original pieces.Nothing that I’ve played in public yet, but I want to, eventually. I want to make sure that all my work is thoroughly protected. Copyrighted. If I end up making an album, I want to retain all the rights to the originals. No one is allowed to access my music or replicate it without my approval. And all that intellectual property plus the earnings need to be placed in a legal entity, right?”
“I see.”
“And I want you to handle it. Only you. No one else. You don’t accept this job and then hand it off to one of your juniors or paralegals.”
His blistering glare returned with a vengeance. “I get it. The problem is that I’m not fully versed in music copyright law. I would need to consult some experts.”
“Consulting is fine. I just don’t want to call you about it or stop by your office and immediately get shuffled off to someone else.”
“Got it. I can handle this if you help me by acting as my fake boyfriend.” He extended his hand to me and I stared at it for a heartbeat, savoring this moment. One step closer to making him mine. After fighting me for so long, it almost felt as if he were handing himself over.
I took his hand and shook it, suppressing every urge to flirt with him. “I’ll be the perfect fake boyfriend.”
This was going to be so much fun.
5
PIERCE SUTTON
Throughout the entiredrive to pick up Simon for dinner with my parents, my brain was listing all the ways this plan could and would blow up in my face. Most of the items centered on Simon being far too clingy and unconvincing as someone I would date. Not to mention the often outlandish things that came out of his mouth. It didn’t matter when we were with Sebastian and Declan. Hell, Rome was usually the instigator. But I didn’t need that nonsense around my rather stiff and all-too-proper parents.
If Simon couldn’t be convincing as someone that I would want to date, my parents would continue with their demands for me to move back to Boston.
And it didn’t appear as if we were going to start off on the right foot when I pulled up to Simon’s rental to find him standing outside in the fucking cold.
He hurried to the car before I could put it into park and yanked the door open. He threw himself into the warm interior and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Holy crap, it’s cold out!” He shuddered and thrust his hands up against the vents to warm them.
“Why were you waiting outside? I was happy to park and walk up to get you,” I snapped. “We’re not in that big of a rush to get to the restaurant.”
“It’s fine. It’s fine.” Simon fumbled with the seat belt a few times, struggling to get it across his body, his fingers holding the latch as they were likely still frozen. “I was getting nervous waiting for you to arrive and thought the cold air would help clear my head.”
Some of my irritation oozed away, and I released a breath. It was only now that I could take in his nice dark suit and pale-blue shirt that seemed to make his large blue eyes sparkle even more. His usually messy blond hair was more tamed than usual, but not as severely styled as it was when he played before an audience. Simon looked sophisticated without becoming stuffy and boring like me. It went without saying that he was ridiculously handsome. At least, I wasn’t going to say it out loud. That would open the door to flirty comments that I didn’t want to dodge while focusing on the road.
I reversed out of the driveway and began our trek downtown. It was reassuring that he was taking this dinner seriously.
After a couple of minutes on the road, Simon sat up straight in his chair. “Okay, so I think it’s important to get our stories straight now. Is there a chance that your parents are going to know who I am?”
“As a world-famous violinist?”
“No!” Simon cackled, falling back against the soft leather seat. “I mean as Simon Miller, younger brother of Sawyer. Do they know any of your friends from college and such?”
