Wildest Dreams: Chapter 3

“Fuck that,” Dylan mouthed noiselessly over Gravity’s head, enunciating each vowel between those luscious lips of hers.

“There’s my delicate flower.” I smirked mockingly, trying to swallow down the cue ball of hysteria wedged in my throat.

Bruce Marshall thought my best friend’s baby sister and I were together. It didn’t take a genius to see he’d gotten a hard-on at the idea. Me. A family man. Accounted for. The first sign of interest from him so far. Which meant the charade must continue. I couldn’t blow this chance.

“I’m not pretending to be your fiancée, Rhyland,” Dylan clarified.

“Just…” I massaged my temples. “Listen before you slam the idea, okay?”

She already has a good-for-nothing ex. There is nothing you can offer her in exchange for this favor.

The elevator arrived, and I pushed open the rusty gates, hurling the suitcases and duffel bags inside before holding the door open for Dylan and her daughter. Dylan stepped inside, still staring at me like I was crazy. In her defense, I had just propositioned her with something that only made sense in low-budget rom-coms.

I’d spent my entire adolescence actively avoiding this girl, only to get a phone call yesterday from Row that his baby sister was moving into the building. He asked me to watch over her, probably because he wasn’t aware of how closely I’d watched her while growing up.

Oh, watching Dylan wasn’t a punishment by any stretch of the imagination. It was listening to her that made me want to hurl myself directly onto the tracks of a moving freight train.

And now I wanted her to pretend to not only like me but actually convince people she’d willingly tie her future to mine.

The elevator doors slid shut. I pushed my hair out of my face.

“Look, I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“Nope.” Dylan popped open her purse, took out a piece of gum, and threw it into her mouth without offering me any. The scent of lime and cherry filled the small space. “None at all. Because I’m not going along with this nonsense.”

“But—”

“This is not a Hallmark movie, and you are not Nicholas Galitzine.”

“Slow your roll here.” I raised my palms in surrender. “I think we can agree both me and Nicholas Galitzine are far too good for straight-to-cable mov—”

“The answer is no.”

Okay. Tough crowd. I had done something to cause her to hate me, but that was fucking eons ago. What was with the elephant memory? I couldn’t remember what I’d had for breakfast this morning.

Oh, wait. Yes, I do. The blond from my hot yoga class.

“Here’s the thing.” I licked my lips. “Bruce is a potential investor for my start-up app, App-date. If I secure his investment, it’ll allow me a monstrous budget, a mouthwatering one-off paycheck, not to mention connections. Marshall is a very powerful guy. You might know him from Shark Tank? The last season?” I glanced at her hopefully.

She pretended to look over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re talking to me? I thought you were talking to a boomer who actually does watch broadcast stations.”

I inwardly groaned. Dylan was trouble in every way imaginable. A lethal combination of heart-achingly gorgeous—the kind of beautiful that seeps into your system like fine whiskey, making your bones liquid and your common sense sparse—whip-smart, sarcastic, stubborn, and emotional to a fault. She had no filters, no inhibitions, and no fucks to give when it came to what people thought about her.

Even as a kid, everything made her cry. Injured animals. People who took lunch alone in the cafeteria. Super Bowl ads. She felt everything, all at once, in vivid color. I, by contrast, felt nothing at all. Ever. By choice. We were like oil and water. Black and white. Hot dogs and real meat. You get the drill.

“Listen—” I started.

The elevator pinged, and the doors slid sideways. I grabbed the suitcases and followed her like a bellboy. She stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring at me expectantly. I realized she’d never been here before. Not in Row’s apartment and probably not in New York. Save for a few London trips to visit her brother and Cal, Dylan hadn’t really seen the world.

“It’s this one.” I jerked my chin toward the right door.

She stuck her chin up proudly, and we both ignored the crimson staining her cheeks.

Dylan opened the door and coughed in disbelief. Yeah, the place was pretty neat. Gravity squealed in excitement.

“Wow! Big windows!” She wormed her way out of her mother’s embrace. The little girl dumped her headphones on the floor and darted to the hallway to explore.

I wheeled all the luggage inside, staring at Dylan pointedly.

Her forehead creased in annoyance. “Oh. Sorry.” Her frown smoothed out, and she grabbed the Target purse from her shoulder, rummaging through it and slapping a five-dollar bill into my hand. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

She fucking tipped me.

That just happened.

I lied. I wasn’t indifferent to her.

I wanted to kill her.

Slowly. Methodically. Over the course of a few days.

We were engaged in a silent, hostile stare down. She waited for me to retreat. I wasn’t going to—not before I squared that fucking circle. I knew Bruce Marshall was holding back on the deal because his wife thought I was a sleazeball player who would turn the app into Ashley Madison 2.0. She wasn’t wrong. I was a sleazeball. Damn proud of it too. A womanizer, a slut, a sex addict. You name it.

But I now had a chance to pretend to be an outstanding member of polite society as opposed to one of the pillars of its demise. And to become disgustingly rich as a result. Dylan was the entire package: a young mother with a chubby-cheeked child.

“Wouldn’t you like to be temporarily engaged to a man in finance—who is six foot five, with blue eyes?” I coaxed.

She peered behind my shoulder nonchalantly. “Sure. Where is he?”

Exasperating.

“It’s me.” I stubbed my thumb into my chest.

She snorted. “You’re six three on a good day, dude. Besides, I know that song. You don’t work in finance.”

“I’m about to, if you don’t fuck shit up for me.”

“You’re also not a trust-fund baby,” she maintained.

It was so my luck to need a favor from the one straight woman who was immune to my charms.

“You’re going to need someone to help you with that piece-ofjunk car, changing a light bulb, getting shit done here,” I pointed out, handing her the blinds remote when she began to walk aimlessly around the patio doors, trying to figure out how to open them. “I mean, let’s admit it, Dyl. You’re a mess.”

“I can get by on my ow—”

“Can you though?” I slammed my teeth together. “Row and Cal aren’t going to be here most of the time. Your mom is all the way in Maine. You have no friends around. No relatives. Look at your first hour here, for fuck’s sake.” I gestured to the door. “What would’ve happened if I wasn’t there to save Grav? To push your car into the garage? Carry your luggage? Admit it. We need each other right now, and we can help each other. A mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“I can do this alone,” she insisted, eyes glittering with brazen determination.

I knew she was in over her head, and I was going to capitalize on that shit till the cows came home. There was no low deep enough for me not to stoop. People were a means to an end. And her means could put an end to my sticky financial situation.

“No, you can’t,” I snapped irritably, glancing at my watch. Bruce Marshall appreciated punctuality, and I appreciated the four hundred million dollars he was willing to give me as an advance if we signed the contract. “You don’t even know where the AC unit is, how to fix the heater, or what to do when the Wi-Fi gets spotty. I’m offering you a goddamn get-out-of-jail card to prove to your family you can survive in New York, Casablancas. Take the damn thing and run with it.”

“Row’s gonna lose his shit if he thinks we’re dating.” She was walking around, opening cabinets, familiarizing herself with the place.

Now we were getting somewhere. She was actually considering it.

“Not that he has any reason to,” I pointed out.

She gave me a face. “With all due respect, Rhyland—and let me assure you, I have none for you—you are more damaged than Cal’s hair when she went through that phase changing its color every week. And you’ve never had a steady girlfriend. And you are a literal, biblical man-whore. And the only feelings you are capable of are horniness and annoyance. So frankly, I can totally understand why he wouldn’t be happy to see us as a couple.”

Talk about a humbling experience. Engaging with Dylan Casablancas did so much mental damage I was surprised she wasn’t hired as a torture tool at Guantanamo Bay.

“We’ll tell our friends the truth,” I assured her, my come-hither smile on full display. “He knows I want to charm Marshall into working with me, and everyone will be happy I’m helping you settle in. He knows I’ll never break bro code.”

She rolled her eyes at that before gnawing on her lower lip in contemplation. In the background, I heard Gravity screaming at a high pitch, ping-ponging from room to room in the hallway. God help me, I detested kids. Even this one got on my nerves, and she was, by all definitions, cute and well-behaved.

“I’m not doing this for free.” Dylan parked a hand on her waist. “Especially if we have to be seen at events and pretend to tolerate each other.”

I snorted out a laugh. She stared at me blankly.

Oh. She was serious. She wanted me to pay her for…what, exactly? I didn’t even know if Bruce would need more than this halfassed meeting on the street to believe we were together. Then again, knowing the anal-retentive bastard, it was on-brand for him to make me jump through hoops, and I’d end up parading her around like a prize horse. This deal was far from over, and I was bound to see him a few more times at least before it was signed.

“Name your price.” Whatever it was, chances were I couldn’t fucking pay it. I was Armani without the money. Dressed to the nines with zero in my bank account.

Her eyes widened in amazement. She didn’t think I’d bite. That made two of us. But I needed this temporary arrangement. Besides, if things went my way, it would last for less than a month before Bruce would sign the damn contract and bring our fake engagement to an abrupt end.

“Uh…” She looked around, unsure. Dylan had no fucking clue what to charge, because the only work she’d ever done was bussing tables at a diner in our small town. “Like…two thousand dollars a week?”

“Deal.”

“Wait, no. Ten thousand a week!” she blurted out breathlessly.

I tapered my eyes. “Now you’re just making numbers up.”

She hitched one shoulder. “Julia Roberts charged three thousand in Pretty Woman, and I think it was less than a week. That was in 1990. Just think about the inflation.”

“Julia Roberts offered a hell of a lot more than holding hands and looking pretty,” I ground out.

“So am I, though.” Dylan licked her lips nervously, fingers twisting together. “Sex is going to be the only upside to this deal.”

“What’d you say?” I yawned to pop my ears. I must’ve been hallucinating. I really needed to tamp down that not-so-casual coke habit.

“I said, sex is on the table.”

Silence.

“Or anywhere else you’d like to have it, to be honest. I’m not picky.”

My.

Jaw.

Was.

On.

The.

Goddamn.

Floor.

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed back saliva—and possibly my fucking tongue with it. “My grasp on the English language has loosened in the past five seconds. Do you mean to tell me you want to, uh, fuck?”

She stared me square in the eye, calm if a little flushed. “I mean, the relationship will be fake, but the orgasms had better be real. If I have to put up with you, I want to at least have a little fun. We’re both grown-ups. I haven’t had any action in a while. You’re deplorable but undeniably hot. And I mean, you can’t be that bad in bed, with all the experience you’ve amassed…”

This woman was lethal to my ego.

“As long as it’s with full consent…” She pretended to examine her busted-up nails, and I wondered if, now that I was apparently going to pay her fucking $10K to breathe in my sphere, she’d invest in some mani-pedis. I wanted her to. And I wasn’t even fucking sure why.

“You don’t have to have sex with me to get the money,” I stated the goddamn obvious. I always knew I gave fuckboy vibes, but creeper? That was a new one.

“I know you’re not asking. I’m offering, if it wasn’t clear.” Another eye roll—Dylan’s signature “I don’t give a shit” tic whenever she definitely gave a shit. “I mean, come on. You are a sex worker. Don’t be a prude.”

“First of all, I’m not being a prude. I’m checking for signs of a head injury.” But the truth was she had me rattled there for a second. The idea of burying myself between those long, lean legs had me undone. “Second, there’s no shame in sex work, and mine happens to be done by the book. With an ironclad contract. Third, I’ve been retired for three months now.”

All in preparation for launching myself fully into App-date. Which meant there was even more on the line here.

“Fourth…”

There was a fourth—something about her offering her body for money and how I’d rather just pay her not to do any stupid shit— but I forgot what it was. Honestly, the fact that I was even speaking English right now was a miracle in itself. Dylan Casablancas, the hottest woman in the Americas and probably any other continent, had offered me sex for pay.

“Fuck it, Dylan. My mind draws a blank. Just…promise me, if you ever need money that bad, come to me, and I’ll give it to you. No strings attached.”

The word “strings” made me think about bondage, and my dick was so hard at this point all it needed was its own pant and shoe to qualify as a third leg.

“It’s not about the money. I have some savings.” She nibbled on the dead skin around her thumb, and for a reason I did not want to look into, I didn’t find it as gross as I normally would. “It’s not something I’d have offered anyone. I wouldn’t mind if there’s sex included in the deal since I’m practically regrowing my hymen over here, and there is no way I’d ever catch feelings for someone as appalling as you.”

“Why, thank you.” I breathed slowly through my nose. “Always love meeting new fans.”

“Hey, at least I find you physically attractive.”

“And personally repulsive.”

She jerked one shoulder up.

“Do you want your brother to kill me?” I inquired. That’d definitely happen if we slept together.

“It’ll be a nice bonus,” she admitted evenly, “but there’s no reason why he should find out.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth. I couldn’t think straight with ninety percent of my blood in my dick. “Ten K a week is fine. Do we have a deal?”

“You’re going to need to build some things around here.” Dylan glanced at the room. “Grav’s toddler bed, some bookshelves, stuff like that.”

“That’s not gonna be an issue.” My father was a handyman— building shit was no biggie for me. “What else?”

The child popped her head in from the hallway, grinning. “Mommy, can I make a fort with the pillows?”

“Uh…yes, honey,” Dylan said distractedly. I’d wager she’d let Gravity cook meth in there, she was so eager to get back to the conversation. She flushed even redder under her deep Italian tan and thick obsidian hair, wrenching her gaze back to me. “If this includes sex, I have some hard limits,” she whispered.

This was the part where I needed to tell her that sex would not be included. I wasn’t going to take advantage of my best friend’s baby sister. Shit, I wasn’t going to take advantage of anyone like that. It was wrong.

But…was it really?

She suggested it. I’d have said yes to her number anyway, and maybe she knew that.

Row is going to cut you into ribbons and slow-cook you in your own bone broth if you take liberties, asshole.

Tell her there’ll be no hookups. Tell her the deal only includes the regular rom-com shit. Be a Nicholas Galitzine, not a goddamn…I don’t know, King Joffrey.

“Let’s hear your limits.”

Dammit, asshole, what did we just talk about?

It was her turn to look scandalized. She wasn’t expecting me to be game. Hey, negotiating putting my dick in Dylan Casablancas wasn’t on my year’s bingo card either. But it was all in theory anyway.

“No hurting me.” She erected a finger for every rule, counting them with her hand and starting with her thumb. “No audience, you always have to use a condom—I am never getting pregnant again— and we’ll have to be exclusive.”

I nodded. This was easy enough. Even though I was a big fan of pussy, I didn’t care for the complication of variety. If there was one thing I’d learned in my former gig as a gigolo, it was that a pussy was a pussy.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d made a career of fake-dating people, and now I had to pay for someone to fake-date me.

Karma, you filthy little animal.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “We have a deal.”

“Wait—I’m not done.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, drawing in a breath. “Of course you’re not.”

“I might need babysitting.”

“Look, I’m the first one to agree you’re a mess, but I think you should be fine. Just google shit if you run into big words.”

“For Gravity, you tool bag.”

“Oh, I don’t do kids.”

“You just saved Gravity from sure death.”

“I imagined she was a squirrel,” I quipped. “Seriously. My la vida is a little too loca to throw kids in the mix. No way.”

“Well, I’ll need someone to help me with her while I look for work. Seeing as you’re the only non-stranger here, I only trust you.” She gave me a slow once-over. “Kinda. No offense.”

“None taken. I wouldn’t trust me. Which is why I beg you to reconsider the last item on your request list. Plus, why the hell would you need a job if I’m paying you ten K to breathe?”

“You can sign the contract with Bruce tomorrow morning, and then what?” She lifted a brow. “I wouldn’t be able to provide for my kid. No. I need to find steady work. Gravity trusts you. Babysitting duties must be included. At least twice a week.”

I drew in a sharp breath, rolling my tongue along the inner walls of my cheeks. I hoped the kid liked McDonald’s and vegging in front of the TV. “Fuck. Fine.”

“Try not to curse in front of her.” Dylan made a face.

“I have some asks too,” I informed her.

“Go ahead.” She nodded.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Gravity busted open a bag of chips and was wolfing them down between fits of giggles.

“One, you will be my fake date as many times as I need within the time constraints. You will be prim and proper, and you will look at me adoringly. You will not blow our cover and won’t tell anyone about that time a balloon got stuck in my braces in eighth grade and everybody thought it was a condom.”

She gave me a frustrated look. “Rhyland, it was a condom.”

“It was a beige-colored balloon, Dylan.”

It was a condom. I’d wanted to see how far I could blow it up before it exploded. But this could never worm its way into the four-page piece about me in Forbes, if and when I signed the deal with Bruce. Either way, Dylan had an unsavory habit of telling the story every time we were in the same room, because she knew how much I detested it.

“That includes work travels in and outside the States,” I added. “As long as you give me enough time in advance and Grav can come, I’m okay with that.”

“And…” I stopped. Bit my tongue until warm, thick blood filled my mouth. Still, I couldn’t stop the words from falling.

From completely passive and apathetic, I’d just become animated and on fire. For the first time in eight years, Dylan and I were in the same room, completely alone, allowed to finally take out our claws and teeth and be ourselves without worrying about offending Row and Cal.

“And?” She arched an eyebrow, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We’d always shared this wild attraction, me and her. Since she was eighteen.

The air became thick and charged between us. I stepped toward her. She didn’t retreat, though I detected a glint of fear in her dark, upturned eyes. I leaned into her personal space, a breath away from the shell of her ear. No need for her daughter to accidentally hear the depraved man in their apartment.

“No condoms, Casablancas. We exchange clear medical sheets, you get on the pill, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

The pill wouldn’t be necessary, I knew, but I didn’t want to delve into that. Not now. Not ever. She couldn’t know. Couldn’t learn the level of fuckery that was my life.

“Whoa. Do you always do it without a condom?” She looked grossed out.

“Nope. Never.”

“Why skip it with me?”

“Because I want to. That should be reason enough.”

It was misogynistic. It was dark, twisted, and screwed up. And yet my cock was already throbbing, achingly excited at the prospect of doing filthy, wicked things to my best friend’s baby sister.

A shudder ripped through her entire body. I watched as her silky skin pebbled into a trillion goose bumps. And that was before I’d even touched her.

“If it’s too much, forget—” I started, already regretting everything I’d said.

“Deal,” she said in a rush, sounding like she’d just run a marathon. “It’s a deal.”