Page 22 of Fiancé for Hire

Antika didn’t respond, she was looking at Drevon as if trying to figure something out. She didn’t snap out of her trance until those still in the room started congratulating her. But there was one person Drevon didn’t see—Edward.

He must have snuck out at some point.Good.

Drevon returned his attention to Antika. Even with everyone hugging and loving on her, she still had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on her face. They needed to get going before she came to her senses and said something to discredit everything that he’d just set up.

“Let’s go,” he said and intertwined his fingers with hers and moved toward the door. “Megan, thanks for your help today.”

She grinned and giddiness oozed from her. “Anytime!”

Though Antika was almost zombie-like, she’d managed to lead him to her office so that she could grab her purse. Drevon wanted to get them out of their as soon as possible, because he had a feeling that at any moment, she was going to curse his ass out.

* * *

“Have you lost your damn mind?” Antika screamed and pounded on the center console the moment they were both settled into Drevon’s SUV. “What the hell was that back there? At no time did I say anything about hiring you to be my fiancé! What were you thinking?”

Antika couldn’t stop shaking. She was angry enough to punch him. They couldn’t be engaged. They didn’t even know each other. She had hired someone to be her plus-one.

Not a damn fiancé.

Drevon pulled out of the parking space and started the trek out of the parking garage.

“Okay, first of all, calm down,” he said, his deep voice still doing wicked things to her body despite her being pissed at him.

“I can’t calm down,” she snapped. “This is my life. This is not some reality show or movie. This is mylife, and I’m pretty sure it just imploded. Oh, my God…”

She gripped the sides of her head, feeling a headache coming on as her mind replayed bits and pieces of the last thirty minutes.

“I can’t believe you proposed. More than that, I can’t believe I said yes! I vowed to never get married again, and—”

“Antika,” Dreven said with authority and reached for her hand. “Sweetheart, calm down.”

“You keep saying that, Drevon! Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s something I can do. You—a celebrity—just asked me to marry you in front of several of my coworkers.”

Granted, he wasn’t some A-list actor, but still…

He was known well enough that if this sham of a proposal got out, people and the media would talk. Hell, they would hunt him down.

“Are you trying to be the topic of conversation on social media again?” she asked, the question rhetorical. “Are you trying to have people all up in your business like they were months ago?”

Antika had read on the internet about what happened between him and his ex-girlfriend, Kendall. It sounded like a nightmare. If the information was correct, he had even spent a night in jail after the cops responded to a domestic dispute between the two of them. Seeing the way some people on the internet—people who probably didn’t know him—voiced their opinion was awful.

Drevon released her hand and huffed out a breath. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I heard how that bastard Edward was talking to you before I entered the room. Then he had the audacity to talk shit while we were all standing there. Granted, he’d said what he said under his breath, but if you and I heard him, others did too. I didn’t like it,” he continued. “My first thought was to knock his stupid ass out, but I refrained…barely.”

“You don’t come across as the violent type.”

“I’m not. I can’t believe my reaction either, but that guy is a piece of work. I saw the look on your face, Antika.” He split his attention between her and the road. “I saw how he hurt you with his words. I couldn’t let him get away with that shit. So I reacted. I wanted to show him and everyone else in that room, that you are more than worthy. That you can get any man you want.”

His voice grew deeper and louder, and Antika’s heart squeezed. She could feel his conviction with each word. No man had ever defended her like that. Even if he’d done it with a fake proposal, it was still extremely sweet. She felt like she mattered to him.

“I appreciate what you did and why you did it, but you risked a lot.” She glanced out of the window while that knowledge swirled inside of her mind. “And where are we going.”

He flashed that sexy grin that always ignited butterflies to take flight inside her stomach. “I’m starving. I figured I’d take us to get something to eat.”

Now that she thought about it, she was hungry, too, but then her mind went back to the staff lounge.

“You kissed me,” she said, and her cheeks burned as she recalled the soul-stirring kiss that had made her knees weak. She couldn’t ever remember being kissed like that, not even when she was married. “Our fake relationship doesn’t include intense lip-locking,” she said. “I’m pretty sure on one of the At Your Service forms I completed, I said:no kissing.”

Drevon chuckled, and the tension inside of her and in the car eased.

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