Page 53 of Reputation (Tempt)

I understood his reasoning, but, “Would this be any better? Lying about our relationship?”

“At least it’s something we’d agree to. And we wouldn’t be hurting anyone.”

“Except Brooklyn.” That was a huge sticking point for me.

“Except Brooklyn.” He hung his head. “But we’d be doing this for her.”

That was what had me nearly agreeing. But instead, I tried to think through everything. To understand every angle.

“Because you’re worried Trinity could win this time?”

He nodded slowly, and I’d never seen him look so defeated. “But maybe you’re right. This is…” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’ll call my PR team. See what alternate solutions they can come up with. Hell, Graham knows a guy. Maybe he can have the video scrubbed from the internet.”

“Video?” I asked, the word catching in my throat.

“Someone posted a grainy video of me telling the nurse you were my fiancée.”

Fuck.It seemed a little late to try to retract it.And while I didn’t want to lie to Brooklyn, the story was already out there. There was no going back now.

“Backtracking is only going to look even worse,” I said. “Numerous people heard you say I was your fiancée. It’s not like this is coming from ‘a source close to the couple.’ We can’t deny it now, or it’ll make you look bad.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Let’s just…hypothetically speaking, say I agree. Walk me through what this would look like.”

“Okay. Hypothetically speaking, we would only have to act like a couple when we’re in public. When we’re at home, nothing has to change.”

“What about Jackson and the guys from Hudson? What about Belinda and Andre?” I asked, thinking of how it would feel to lie to them. They weren’t just my coworkers; they were my friends. What were they going to think about me?

“True,” he conceded. “We would need to act like a couple around them as well.”

I scoffed. “So pretty much everything would change.”

“Only when we have an audience,” he said.

I threw my hands in the air. “Which is all the fucking time.”

“Notallthe time,” he said. “Besides, if they believe we’ve been hiding our relationship from them all along, then it’s not like we’d suddenly switch to a ton of PDA. Especially not when Brooklyn’s around.”

“Okay. True,” I admitted. Maybe we could work with that. “But what about your private life?” When he continued to stare at me, I said, “Other women? You can’t be seen with them.”

He lifted his chin, peering down his nose at me. “First of all, when was the last time you saw me with someone?”

Well. Never. At least not at the house. That didn’t mean he hadn’t slept with someone at a hotel or their home.

“You shouldn’t believe everything printed about me,” he said. “And I would never cheat on my fiancée, even if this is a fake relationship.”

“So, no flings. No one-night stands. No…”

“Sex?” he asked with an amused curl to his lips.

“Exactly,” I said on an exhale. I wasn’t usually this much of a prude when talking about sex, but this conversation had hit me square between the eyes. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, Nate Crawford still had an effect on me. He always had.

“A small price to pay for what we’d gain.”

Was he serious? I gawked at him.

“What?” he asked.

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