list of dry questions, she thought, warming to the idea, with some curve balls thrown in. Classic stat-collection technique. He could tell her a lot that way without even meaning to.
“Or how long will it take for your family to think you’ve just made me up?” When his cheek twitched again she knew she had him. “We’ll need to set up a couple of meetings between now and then. Casual get-togethers. Coffee, perhaps. We both like coffee. The Art Gallery has an Impressionists exhibition. Or we could go ice-skating. I don’t mind.”
Keeping him thinking about places he clearly did not want to go with her gave her the chance for the other half of her brain to create the research project in earnest. Questions piled up inside her head with such speed it made her breathless.
And as she was getting excited by the research, the layers upon layers of information this man could provide for her love formula, she remembered the pile of red envelopes wavering on her desk.
Her excitement deflated like a pricked balloon. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Why not?”
The why was like a pain in her belly—one that was lessening by the day, but would remain till the day the last red envelope landed in her mailbox. “Time, I guess. More than anything.”
“An hour together here and there should suffice,” he said.
“Well, now, that’s about the most romantic thing a nearly pretend boyfriend has ever said to me.”
His mouth did the surprise smile thing—the one that gave a hint of straight white teeth and lit his intense eyes with genuine laughter. “What’s the problem? I’m a problem-solver. It’s what I do. Money, time, space, audience, you need it I provide it.”
“You’d be cutting into my worktime. I need to work.”
“Why?”
He was so sincere, so keen, she made a quick decision to tell him the truth. Part of it anyway. Not bend the truth, just not tell all.
“I have…debts.” Yet her chin lifted as she said it.
His long, slow breath in made her stomach hurt. Then, with a nod, he said, “I’ll take care of them.”
She shot out a laugh so loud the table shook. “Just like that? A blank cheque?” When he didn’t laugh back she realised. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
“But I haven’t even said what I owe!”
He gave a slight lift of the shoulder, as if she could name her price. “Consider this negotiation, Miss Bloom.”
Miss Bloom now, was it?
“You have a debt. I have the means to wipe it from existence. I have need of a date to my friends’ wedding, and you seem amenable to the terms and conditions that come with being said date.”
“You pay off my debt—I pretend to be devoted to you?”
He eased into a smile this time, slow and sensual. A frizzle of energy lit her belly and she felt a sudden need to swallow.
“Seems more than fair,” said Nate.
“Seems like a version of the oldest profession,” she muttered.
Clearly not softly enough. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, Saskia,” he said.
“Stop,” she said, her cheeks feeling like little spots of heat. “Now you’re just gushing.”
His laughter was soft, a low chuckle. And then he leant back in his chair, watched and waited.
A pretend boyfriend. A date to a wedding. No more red envelopes. No more reminders of Stu or his letter. The time and the means to get back to renovating the first place she’d ever rightfully called home.
“For the sake of argument,” she said, “would you change your mind if I told you this is what it would take?”
She threw out the hefty figure that covered Stu’s debt only, which she knew to the nearest cent, and he didn’t even blanch. Maybe if he’d flickered an eyelid, lost a little colour in that healthy face, or if his long fingers had gripped a napkin in despair that would have been the end of it. But for his complete lack of reaction she might as well have been asking for a tenner for the cab home.
And from one heartbeat to the next she considered his offer.
Seven months she’d been living under the weight of it. Seven long months of driving a banged-up car, of trawling online sales to replace every piece of electrical equipment she needed to make a living. Of taking menacing late-night phone calls from debt collectors, legal threats, her mortgage squeezing tighter and tighter. Of being romantically stagnate…None of the debt was her fault, but she was too bone-deep humiliated to do anything but absorb it.
Nate watched, bluer than blue eyes taking in her every breath. The guy was smart, gorgeous, clearly better than welloff. He wasn’t going into this thing desperate or despairing. He was doing a deal with all the cool of a business decision. Why couldn’t she do the same?
“Do we have ourselves a deal?”
“I get the feeling I’m going to regret this…” she muttered, then held out a hand. He took it and she felt a frisson of heat and something else—electricity, perhaps—shooting up her arm.
Then Nate said, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be the time of your life?”
And with that came a big wallop of charm so bright she had to blink against such brightness.
It occurred to her belatedly that while she’d thought she’d had him on the ropes, distracting him with talk of infographics and ice-skating, he’d actually been in charge the entire time.
She waited till the buffet of charm subsided, before saying, “Who on earth filled your head with that rubbish?”
“Three sisters. All of whom you’re going to meet Sunday week at my mother’s house.”
On that note their dinner arrived: steaming pasta piled high with glistening red sauce, pungent with Italian herbs. The homemade bread oozing with butter. And for the first time ever at Mamma Rita’s Saskia lost her appetite.
After dinner—as always, Saskia insisted on going Dutch which, considering the amount he was about to lay down for her services, might have been a tad redundant—Nate walked her through the restaurant and outside where the breeze was brisk, the final notes of winter trying one last stir.
“Where are you parked?” asked Nate, pressing a hand to Saskia’s lower back.
She actually felt the warmth of him through her top.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I walked. I don’t live far.” She’d planned on walking back too, only now she could afford transport. “I’ll grab a cab.”
One nod, then Nate looked across the busy street and
