With a sigh, I pick up my phone again and click a few buttons. “What do you eat on your pizza?” I ask as it rings. “Might as well, you know?”

  “Isn’t it early?”

  “Never too early for pizza.”

  “Good point,” she says easily, as if what I just said makes perfect sense and isn’t a dodge to try and gain some more time. “Sausage and jalapeños.”

  Totally not surprised. I’m also not surprised that she’s quick on her feet . . . another point in her favor. I’m the sort of person to stockpile personalities, quirks, habits, and routines about people the way most folks study for college exams. It’s a skill I’ve perfected over years of practice and has come in handy more than a few times.

  I order the pizza, giving the address I’ve already memorized. “It’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

  Going over, I pull out a beer from the fridge and offer her one. To my surprise, she takes it from me without a word about the before-noon hour, but before she gets it too far away, I twist the top off. She smiles in appreciation and I lift one shoulder an inch.

  I’m not a total cretin.

  I’m not a gentleman either.

  Never had a need to be.

  “Sooo . . .” she drags out, rocking from her toes to her heels, “about my laptop?”

  I sip at my own beer, trying to decide how I can explain this without mentioning The Black Rose. In the end, being ‘partially completely honest’ seems like the best angle. “I took it. I gave it to a guy.”

  “You gave it away?” she sputters. “You know how important that laptop is?”

  “Well, it was nice,” I admit, thinking about how JP reacted last night, “but relax. I can get it back. I think.”

  She spits out her own sip and barks, “You think? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means I think I can get it back,” I repeat more slowly. “I know who I gave it to, and I know his plans for it.”

  She steps forward bravely, or with zero regard for her own safety—I haven’t decided which yet—and growls up at me, “I need it back. It has my manuscript on it and I’m on a deadline.”

  I hold my hands out up, showing I mean no harm. At least not right now. “Tell me about the manuscript.”

  She sags heavily, wind dropping out of her sails in a heartbeat. “I’m an author. The J.A. Fox dinner was a big deal for me until it all went to Satan’s asshole when you showed up.” She glares at me again before continuing, “That manuscript is my baby, one I’ve worked on for months. There’s blood, sweat, and tears in those pages. I have to finish it and turn it in by the beginning of the month or I’m done-for. Dead woman walking.”

  She drags a thumb across her neck, but I don’t think she means literally unless she’s got a really fucked-up publisher with mob ties. Hmm, I wonder if that exists? I mean, it could. Mobsters read . . . probably.

  After all, Mr. Big is an art aficionado and a man who can kill without remorse.

  “And you didn’t have a backup?” I ask, lifting my eyebrow. “Nothing on the cloud?”

  “After the cloud hacks the past few years?” She scoffs but then softens. “Dammit, I know. Trust me, I know!”

  “Whoa, whoa . . . I got it.” I tap my bottle to hers, acknowledging that I hear her. “I’ll do what I can to keep you among the living,” I joke dryly. “We’ll get it back.”

  She makes a face, twisting her lips and squinting her eyes at me brattily. “Promise?” I dip my chin to seal the deal, but that’s not enough for her. She holds out a fist, her pinky sticking up. “Pinky promise or your dick is mine. And not in the fun way,” she threatens, “but in the snip, snip, chop, chop way.”

  I don’t laugh, not at losing my dick, but it’s a close call. But I do want to think about her wanting my dick in another way, and a chuckle tries to escape. I cough to cover it, wrapping my pinky around hers and shaking in agreement.

  “That’s my laptop situation. Now, how about you tell me about your mother situation since I’m going to meet her at dinner tomorrow?”

  I choke on the drink I just took, spitting half of it out as the other bit goes down the wrong pipe. Wiping at my mouth, I growl, “You’re not going to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” Poppy declares evenly, “I am. Your mother is expecting me. Well . . . she’s expecting Scarlett, your fiancée. Why’d you lie about that?”

  This is dangerous. I mean, it’s already dangerous to even let her know my name and not be on the road to the nearest Holiday Inn. I should just feed her a line of bullshit. Hell, I lie so often that sometimes the lies seem more real than the truth.

  But somehow, there’s something about Poppy Woodstock that has me doing the totally wrong thing . . . and telling her the truth. “My family’s got lots of shit going on. And Mom is . . . a lot. She gets all up in my business, which I just can’t have. Honestly, she’s like you.”

  “Cute and perky?” she suggests with a faux-innocent blink of her bare, pale lashes.

  “You’re not cute,” I growl. “Either way, my sister’s getting married, and it’ll be this whole dog and pony show with the aunts and uncles and cousins. I’m not going.”

  “To the wedding? Your sister’s wedding?” she asks, horrified.

  “No wedding, and no dinner either.” I answer darkly. “Every family’s got a black sheep, right? Well, that’s me. In fact, I’m like a radioactive black sheep.”

  “Doesn’t matter, we’re going.” Stubborn doesn’t begin to describe her, and that’s coming from someone who’s been described as stubborn as a mule more than once. “She wants you there!”

  She doesn’t get it. I’m not going for their benefit, not mine. “Did you not hear me? I’m radioactive. My mom doesn’t know who I am, what I do. She thinks I’m a good guy, wants to show me off to her sister, my Aunt Audrey. And those two . . . they’ve had a pissing match for years. Their kids are just soldiers in their war, and I have zero interest in competing with my cousin, Ian.”

  Poppy smiles, her teeth flashing white before she tries to cover it with her beer bottle.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head, taking a big gulp. But under my hot gaze, she melts and her laugh bubbles out. “I’m trying to imagine you” —she gestures from my head to toes— “competing with someone named Ian.” The insult hits me sharply, but then she says sadly, “Poor kid. With a name like Ian, he never had a chance.”

  Wait, she thinks I’m better than Ian? She doesn’t know him, and all she knows of me is that I’m a lying, stealing thief, but somehow, that brings me ahead as the winner in this imaginary contest?

  I grin cockily and agree. “He really didn’t.”

  Somehow, it forges a little bond between us, and Poppy relaxes, taking another sip of beer. “So tell me about you, and tell me about Scarlett since I’ll be playing her tomorrow.”

  Oh, God, Scarlett. That’s a whole other bundle of shit to deal with, and I’m glad when the doorbell rings before I can reply. Still, it makes me jump a little, and I chastise myself that I didn’t hear the car pull up outside. Don’t get distracted, Connor. It might not always be a pizza.

  I take the pizza from the delivery guy and set it on the counter. Sliding a slice onto a plate, I hand it to Poppy and then plate one for myself. She sits at the table, and I realize that she moved the boxes while I was getting the pizza.

  She’s helpful and willing to pitch in. I store that information away too.

  I hope that’s true because in the scarce moment it took me to get the pizza, I’ve realized that she’s right. If I don’t show up for the dinner now, my mother will never quit calling me. And Caylee will never forgive me.

  A little part of me that hopes for redemption at some point says I can’t let that happen. I have to try, at least.

  “Okay,” I say as I sit down heavily in my chair, my appetite for sausage and jalapeños lost for now.

  Poppy freezes, her mouth full of pizza. She mumbles, “M’kay, wut?”

  “Dinner. You can go. Just that, though, not the wedding. One day. You’ll be my one-day fiancée.” I’m making it sound like I’m doing her a favor, but we both know the opposite is true. She’s the one giving me half a chance to try and have a future with my family . . . potentially.

  She proves me right when she open-mouth grins, showing me the half-chewed pizza. “Cool.”

  “If . . . you can eat with your mouth closed,” I deadpan.

  Her mouth clacks closed, and she chews before swallowing thickly. “Okay, mom and aunt, sister and cousin. What else? Give me the whole intel brief like I’m Jane Bond going in for an operation.”

  I set my pizza down, staring at the small puddle of grease on top. “I wasn’t always the bad guy, actually started off pretty decent.” She looks at me wryly, but I keep going. “But I got into a bit of trouble when I was a kid, nothing too serious. Pickpocketing, petty theft . . . stupid shit, but just enough to embarrass them. Things got tense after that. I left the day I turned eighteen, and that’s when I . . . got really good at what I do,” I say carefully.

  “Like bag snatching?”

  I nod, letting Poppy continue to think all I stole was her laptop, probably assuming it was J.A. Fox’s or something. I’m not going to divest her of that assumption. She’s already too close, too tied up in a bad situation. “Anyway, to try and get some breathing room, I made up Scarlett. They think because of her, I turned my life around, became an upstanding citizen, a business consultant with a sweet, kind-hearted, patient fiancée.”

  Poppy levels me with a playfully evil smile. There’s no sweetness in the way she bares her teeth, but the light in her eyes tells me she’s joking. “Well, if you can play upstanding, I can play sweet. What about your dad? You didn’t mention him.”

  “Sore subject. He’ll be there,” I admit through gritted teeth. “In body, at least, but he’s been absent for a long time. He probably won’t speak to you.”

  That’s the long-story-short version. My dad checked out on our family years ago when his father died unexpectedly. We all dealt with it in different ways, but Dad never got out of the hole he fell into. But that’s probably something that won’t come up in our dinner and doesn’t need to be discussed.

  “Grumpy dad, getting info is like pulling teeth . . . wonder where I’ve seen that before?” Poppy says, and that zings. She taps her chin thoughtfully, gazing into the distance. Her eyes clear and zero in on me. “And again, I haven’t forgotten about my laptop. Speaking of, I need to get moving. I’ve got to go buy a backup laptop for work, though I don’t know what I’m going to do without the first chunk of my writing. Should I start over completely or continue from where I left off?”

  She doesn’t seem to be asking me but rather trying to decide for herself, so I wisely stay quiet. Watching her process is fascinating. She seems to be talking to herself, not silently but out loud, actually turning her head left and right as though arguing with herself. It’s a weird and interesting sight, like she’s legit got the classic cartoon ‘angel and devil’ on her shoulders.

  “What’d you decide? Did the left shoulder or right shoulder win?” I tease finally. “Or is it a secret?”

  Poppy shrugs her right shoulder up, looking at it from the corner of her eye. “I’m going to keep on keeping on, trusting you to come through and get my laptop back. So something cheap it is.”

  I’m surprised. She has no reason to trust me other than desperation, but it feels like more than that. I can’t help but question her instincts if she’s putting her life, which is what she called her manuscript, in my hands. “Okay then. Go get your temp laptop, and I’ll make some calls.”

  She gets up, setting her empty plate in the sink before heading to the front door. I follow her, more of a gentleman than I would’ve guessed. To justify the action, I take the opportunity to look at her ass in the very nicely fitting yoga pants she has on.

  “What time tomorrow?” she asks. “The dinner.”

  “Six o’clock.” I dimly remember that from the voicemails my mom has left. “If you no-show, there’ll be no hard feelings. I’ll still get your laptop.”

  She looks at me for a long moment, and I can’t decide if she’s reading my soul or memorizing my face. Either is uncomfortable as hell, but I stay as still as a statue, not flinching. Finally, she nods, and in a surprising move, she boops my nose.

  “Six o’clock. I’ll be ready.”

  I’m so stunned by the boop that all I can do is watch as she walks across the yard. Her hips sway back and forth to a rhythm I can feel in my cock, hypnotizing me.

  She gets to the small fence between our yards, and I’m curious what she’ll do considering she came over in a flight of rage earlier. She doesn’t miss a step, taking a single running step before leaping over it gracefully, looking almost like a dancer in the air before she lands.

  Well, spoke too soon because as she takes her first step on the other side, her foot slips a bit in the green grass and she stumbles.

  I start to move toward her, but she steadies on her own. She looks back over her shoulder to check whether I saw that, so I lean on the doorframe, arms crossed over my chest and a smile on my lips. I’m sure that from here, if she wanted to, she could see the full bulge in my jeans. But she’s looking at my laugh, so instead she glares, turning back around. Losing the hip sway, she stomps the rest of the way to her door, slamming it shut behind her.

  “Nut juice!” she calls out, and I do a double-take, laughing out loud at the odd curse. I watch her living room curtains before evaluating her whole house in a moment, mentally assessing the access points and safety concerns. She locked the door after going in, which is a plus. I wonder about the front window, though. There are no blinds, just gauzy curtains. I’ll have to talk to Poppy about that.

  Shifting my attention, I scan the street looking for anything unusual. But it’s a quiet neighborhood, very suburban and polite. Hunter chose just about the safest place to drop my bad seed.

  Seeing nothing, I turn to head back inside. Only then does it all hit me.

  Shit . . . I’m going to dinner with my family and taking a fake fiancée!

  Chapter 8

  Poppy

  It’s two minutes until six, and I’m in my second-best polite outfit, standing by my front door, trying to decide.

  Should I go over to Connor’s? That might come off as being too pushy, and I pushed my luck really hard yesterday.

  Should I wait here for him to pick me up? Yeah, no, that’d be a good way to get ghosted, if I’m reading him right.

  Do I stand outside by his truck? That screams ‘desperate stalker’ way too much.

  What is the protocol for a not-a-date, fake fiancée, dinner to meet the family? The more I rack my brain, the more I’m certain one doesn’t exist. I should write one.

  I shake my head, deciding there’s probably not a lot of need for this specific situation. Only I would find myself mixed up like this. But ironically, it seems to have done a little bit of good. Going by memory and my written notes, I was able to actually pound out a whole supporting chapter today on my new laptop, saving it to my also new external flash drive.

  I’m not making the same mistake twice.

  Nervously, I peek out the front window and see Connor exiting his front door. He glances toward my place, and I’m so fucking glad that I’m not standing outside where he can see me right now. He doesn’t deserve to know what the mere sight of him does to me.

  But right now he looks . . . overwhelming. In a black suit, with a white dress shirt and black tie, the look could go blah and bland, but on him, the classic look is like a sexy dream in the flesh with his day-old scruff of stubble that I want to scratch at. Or maybe feel scratch along my skin.

  I wish I weren’t so affected by him, but my traitorous body responds to his like plucking an overtight string, making my hips shimmy with desire while my heart thumps a driving jazz beat in my chest.

  No, Poppy. Horny or not, this is not okay. No matter that the bad boy cleans up well . . . really well. Just because his slacks look nice enough to run your hands over and the buttons on that shirt look like they’d be perfect to unbutton with your teeth, you can’t. No matter if he’s got his sleeves rolled up to show his thick forearms and his jacket is thrown over his shoulder, highlighting the gleam of a fancy watch on his wrist.

  “I wonder if he stole it?” I ask myself to try and throw ice-cold water on my horniness, and it helps a little. The ugly thought breaks me out of my reverie, reminding me that while he might be sexy as sin, the devil tempts in lots of ways.

  Making up my mind and mostly in control of myself, I open my door, calling behind me. “Be good, boys. Mommy will be home soon.”

  Outside, Connor’s heard me and is giving me a curious look. “Nut and Juice,” I explain, but his brows jump up his forehead in shock, and I hear what I just said a second too late. “My dogs. They’re white Pomeranians. Get it? Nut juice. It seemed funny at the time.”

  “And now?” he asks dryly.

  “It makes me smile,” I admit, “at least until I have to call the little escape artists back. Nothing like walking around the neighborhood yelling, ‘Nut Juice!’ to get some awkward looks and a reputation as the neighborhood weirdo.”

  I expect him to smile or laugh because that’s some funny imagery right there. And it did happen a few times when Nut and Juice were puppies and I didn’t have them trained. But instead, he frowns. “Are you the neighborhood weirdo?”

  “Uhm . . . yes?” I answer uneasily. “I mean, look around you. This might be a single woman-heavy neighborhood, but it’s about as standard operating beige as you can get. Folks get up, go to work at eight, and get back home at six for dinner and the news, maybe an evening of chauffeuring kids around if it’s their night. Some might be extra-wild and go to Zumba class at the Y, but most of the active people join the neighborhood walking group where they bitch about their office drama and comment on people’s gardening skills, or the lack thereof, as they circle the neighborhood. Me, I work at home writing romance novels, and I go days without showering if I’m in the writing groove, wear pajamas most days, get food deliveries at all times of the night, and have dogs named Nut and Juice. I’m not exactly invited to the pool parties for fun times.”