“If you want me to kill someone, you’ve really taken this ‘violent life’ metaphor to a whole other level that I’m not really comfortable with. I swear to God, I’m really not that violent.”
“No, you don’t understand. I—” He paused for a moment before he snatched the bag of Cheetos out of my hands and threw it into the grass behind us.
My mouth fell open in shock. “Hey!”
“It was offensive,” he said simply. “Now, for my solution.” He twisted slightly to face me as if he wanted to present himself in the best possible light. “I want you to be my girlfriend.”
I blinked.
“Act,” he clarified quickly, “I want you to act like my girlfriend.”
My lips parted in surprise, but I could honestly think of nothing to say. Bill Gates had come to East Hollywood to ask me out on a fake date? Finally, when I decided that this wasn’t a joke and he was really asking, I leaned back against the curb.
“Why in the world do you think I would want to do that?”
He cocked his head to the side with a sharp grin. “You didn’t have any problem doing it before.”
“That was different!” I exclaimed.
“How?”
“One night. One person. One lie.” I slapped my index finger repeatedly against my palm as if to pound the point through his thick, lovely skull.
Did he honestly come down here today thinking I would just leap at the opportunity to defraud an entire company of shareholders? Somewhere between the dancing and the mix-up about the peacock, we’d gotten seriously offtrack.
“And I’m just asking you to do it one more time,” he said in a way he obviously took to be charming. “Listen, there’s a huge charity gala on the seventeenth, and I’d really—”
“The answer is no.” I cut him off. “I’m sorry.”
Much as I’d love to go running around the city fake dating my own fifty shades of playboy, I had a life to get back to. I had an apartment to keep and an acting career to heave off the ground. I didn’t have time for fake relationships. Heck, I didn’t have time for real ones.
“Furthermore, I’m late,” I said. “But I will buy you a cup of coffee like I promised.”
Only five minutes to get to the casting. I got my feet and tugged open the door to my car, inadvertently releasing a small avalanche of papers and hats. A crimson blush colored my cheeks as he knelt down to help me gather them in silence. One paper, in particular, seemed to catch his eye, but what with me carefully avoiding his gaze, it was hard to tell which one.
He didn’t seem particularly upset when I refused to help him. He didn’t seem at all put out to be left behind in the parking lot. He didn’t even question why I kept a collection of scratched Bob Marley CDs inside a tattered béret. He just handed me back everything he’d gathered and stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets.
“I’m going to make you change your mind,” he promised as I hopped into the car and revved the engine.
I grinned widely. “You just remember the pepper spray and keep walking, buddy.”
His mouth curved up in a smile as he locked eyes with me. His hands were still in his pockets, and a slight breeze danced his messy hair. While he may have stood out like a sore thumb in his expensive suit amongst the liquor stores and two-dollar laundromats, he carried himself with such an
easy confidence that it was the neighborhood that seemed out of place, not him. Altogether—a rather winning look for a guy with an image problem.
Then again...that was his problem, not mine.
I slapped the horn twice to make him move out of my way as I sped off past him into the smoggy sunset—hoping I wasn’t too late.
Chapter 10
I called Amanda from the casting room and told her about running into Marcus. Apparently, I had just missed her and she was already heading to Barry’s.
“Shit! He came to our apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“And he wants to hire you to be his fake girlfriend?”