Page 33 of Token

Kennedy huffed, indignant. “Yeah, that the whole thing was staged and I’m your Black defender.”

“Yes, that or that I’m fuc—sleeping with you.” He wasn’t able to course correct in time.

His remark elicited a narrow side-eye, a look he found sexy as fuck. She had incredible eyes. He used to stare deep into them when he was fucking her.

Memories. Good times.

“You do realize that not everything between a man and a woman boils down to sex.”

“Not everything,” he agreed, because not every woman was Kennedy. “But when it comes to women as beautiful as you, that’s where a lot of minds go. Especially men.” He shot her a quick look before he resumed driving.

At his compliment, she simultaneously rolled her eyes and blushed, a faint stain of red on the crests of her cheeks.

“Our situation is different, though, because it isn’t as if someone happened to see us together out on the town one night. The press conference was planned, and the press was explicitly invited. For those reasons, they think we wanted them to know about our ‘so-called’ relationship.Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.And there’s only one reason we’d do that. To give you cover for the lawsuit. You have to know that. Honestly, right now, you’d be better off if they truly believed we werefucking.”

A bolt of lust hit him directly in the groin. The sound of that word on her lips really did it for him. Eyes on the road, he schooled his expression to hide the moment of tumult.

“Really? How so?”

“Because it’s better we convince them we’re loversor, at a minimum, that our relationship is real, or they’re going to think you’re underhanded and sneaky and willing to do just about anything for favorable coverage. And if that’s what they believe—” shaking her head, she gave a mirthless laugh “—they’re going to do their best to make your life hell.”

There wasn’t one ounce of doubt in his mind that was precisely what they’d do. The snarky remarks at the presser were only a taste of things to come, unless they were able to nip this in the bud. It was a good thing he didn’t have to warm to the idea. Pretending to be her lover would be like riding a bike. All they needed to do was to work out the kinks and get their story nice and cohesive.

“How can we expect them to believe we’re in a relationship when I only just came back from France yesterday, where I’ve been living for the last three years? And what about you? I’m sure you’re dating someone. Perhaps several someones,” he mused aloud, his tone guileless.

Since Aurora had made him promise not to say anything to her about the proposal and her ex-boyfriend, he thought it best to play ignorant on the matter of her dating life.

Kennedy eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he knew about Aidan. “I’m not seeing anyone now. Are you?” Her breakup was fresh, yet it felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Nate sweeping back into her life had upended its structured orderliness. Now she didn’t know what to expect from one minute to another. And he hadn’t even been back forty-eight hours.

“No.”

Good.

She resented the sense of peace the single word brought her. “Okay, well, I think the most important thing we need to do is prove we had a relationship in the past. And to that end, I may still have some pictures of when—” she fluttered her fingers “—when we were, you know, involved.”

Briefly tearing his eyes off the road, he shot her an arch look. “Involved?”

“Okay, fine, sleeping together.” Why did he have to be so annoying?

Nate’s shoulders shook with laughter. “I’m gonna be honest with you, but I don’t remember a whole lot of sleeping going on. Why is it so hard for you to say it? We had sex. We fucked.”

“Okay, fine, when we were fucking. Happy?” she asked snippily.

He smiled to himself. “I’ll let you know when I’m happy.”

Kennedy didn’t even want to know what he meant by that. Prolonged proximity to him was playing havoc with her lady parts.

“So tell me about these pictures. You have some of us? Together?” He sounded more than a little intrigued at the prospect.

“I don’t deleteanything, and I think there’s a couple of us out there in the cloud. I’ll have to check.” The compunction to explain why she kept pictures of him, and worse,of them together, made her sound defensive.

There were nine pictures exactly, and they resided on her phone and laptop. Unlike print photos, which gave people the satisfaction of ripping them into little pieces in a fit of rage or sobbing heartbreak, digital photos only required the click of a button to send them into digital purgatory where they weren’t actually deleted. Not close to dramatic enough.

“When did you take pictures of us? You’re going to have to show me.”

“I don’t know. I think it was that time we went to Coney Island.” Those she’d had to scan because she’d bought physical prints taken by the Pennywise-looking clown photographer. Did he even remember that?

“You mean the one taken by that creepy-looking clown of me, you, and Rory?”

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