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Okay, crazy, crazy morning and she had no idea what had just happened. It felt as if everyone in that office had been speaking in subtext and that she was the only one who did not know the language. All she knew for sure was that Jax was Ryan and Ryan was Neil’s friend—and her new boss—and that he was superpissed.
And judging by their collective horror, she also knew that Banks’s clumsy pass and her kissing Ryan had consequences bigger than she’d imagined.
Ryan walked out of the bathroom, shirtless and holding another dress shirt, pale green this time, in his right hand. He was coffee-free and that torso, Jaci thought on an appreciative, silent sigh, could grace the cover of any male fitness magazine. His shoulders were broad and strongly muscled as were his biceps and his pecs. And that stomach, sinuously ridged, was a work of art. Jaci felt that low buzz in her stomach, the tingling spreading across her skin, and wondered why it had taken her nearly twenty-eight years to feel true attraction, pure lust. Ryan Jackson just had to breathe to make her quiver...
“You used to be Ryan Bradshaw. Why Jackson?” Jaci blurted. It was all she could think of to say apart from “Kiss me like you did last night.” Since she was already in trouble, she decided to utter the only other thought she had to break the tense, sexually saturated silence.
Ryan blinked, frowned and then shook his shirt out, pulling the fabric over one arm. “You heard that Chad was my father, that Ben was my brother, and you assumed that I used the same surname. I don’t,” Ryan said in a cool voice.
She stepped inside and shut the door. “Why not?”
“I met Chad for the first time when I was fourteen, when the court appointed me to live with him after my mother’s death. He dumped my mother two seconds after she told him she was pregnant and her name appeared on my birth certificate. I’d just lost her, and I wasn’t about to lose her name, as well.” Ryan machine-gunned his words and Jaci tried to keep up.
Ryan rubbed his hand over his face. “God, what does that have to do with anything? Moving rapidly on...”
Pity, Jaci thought. She would’ve liked to hear more about his childhood, about his relationship with his famous brother and father, which was, judging by his pain-filled and frustrated eyes, not a happy story.
“Getting back to the here and now, how the hell am I going to fix this?” Ryan demanded, and Jaci wasn’t sure whether he was asking the question of her or himself.
“Look, I’m really sorry that I caused trouble for you by kissing you. It was an impulsive action to get away from Frog Man.”
Ryan shoved his other arm into his sleeve and pulled the edges of his shirt together, found the buttons and their corresponding holes without dropping his eyes from her face.
“He was persistent. And slimy. And he wouldn’t take the hint!” Jaci continued. “I’m sorry that the kiss was captured on camera. I know what an invasion of your privacy that can be.”
Ryan glanced at the paper that he’d dropped onto his desk. “You seem to know what you’re talking about.” Ryan tipped his head. “Sexual scandals? Engaged?”
“All that and more.” Jaci tossed her head in defiance and held his eyes. “You can find it all online if you want some spicy bedtime reading.”
“I don’t read trash.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you what happened,” Jaci stated, her tone not encouraging any argument.
“Did I ask you to?”
Hell, he hadn’t, Jaci realized, as a red tide crept up her neck. Jeez, catch a clue. The guy kissed you. That doesn’t mean he’s interested in your history.
Time to retreat. What had they been talking about? Ah, their kiss. “Look, if you need me to apologize to your girlfriend or wife, then I will.” She thought about adding “I won’t even tell her that you initiated the second kiss” but decided not to fan the flames.
“I’m not involved with anyone, which is about the only silver lining there is.”
Jaci pushed her long bangs to one side. “Then I really don’t understand what the drama is all about. We’re both single, we kissed. Yeah, it landed up in the papers, but who cares?”
“Banks does and I told him that you’re my girlfriend.”
Jaci lifted her hands in confusion. This still wasn’t any clearer. “So?”
Ryan started to roll up his sleeves, his expression devoid of all emotion. But his eyes were now a blistering blue, radiating frustration and a healthy dose of anxiety. “In order to produce Blown Away, to get the story you conceived and wrote onto the big screen, to do it justice, I need a budget of a hundred and seventy million dollars. I don’t like taking on investors, I prefer to work solo, but the one hundred million I have is tied up at the moment. Besides, with such a big budget, I’d also prefer to risk someone else’s money and not my own. Right now, Banks is the only thing that decides whether Blown Away sees the light of day or gets skipped over for a smaller-budget film.
“I thought that we were on the point of signing the damn contract but now he just wants to jerk my chain,” Ryan continued.
“But why?”
“Because he knows that I caught him hitting on my girlfriend and he’s embarrassed. He wants to remind me who’s in control.”
Okay, now she got it, but she wished she hadn’t. She’d put a hundred-million deal in jeopardy? With a kiss? When she messed up, she did a spectacular job of it.
Jaci groaned. “And I’m your screenwriter.” She shoved her fingers into her hair. “One of the project’s key people.”
“Yep.” Ryan sat down on the edge of his desk and picked up a glass paperweight and tossed it from hand to hand. “We can’t tell him that you only threw yourself into my arms because you found him repulsive... If you do that, we’ll definitely wave goodbye to the money.”
“Why can’t I just stay in the background?” Jaci asked. She didn’t want to—it wasn’t what she’d come to the city to do—but she would if it meant getting the film produced. “He doesn’t know that I wrote the script.”
Ryan carefully replaced the paperweight, folded his arms and gave her a hard stare. After a long, charged minute he shook his head. “That’s problematic for me. Firstly, you did write that script and you should take the credit for it. Secondly, I don’t like any forms of lying. It always comes back to bite me on the ass.”
Wow, an honest guy. She thought that the species was long extinct.
Jaci dropped into the nearest chair, sat on top of a pile of scripts, placed her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “So what do we do?”
“I need you as a scriptwriter and I need him to fund the movie, so we do the only thing we can.”
“Which is?”
“We become what Leroy and the world thinks we are, a couple. Until I have the money in the bank, and then we can quietly split, citing irreconcilable differences.”
Jaci shook her head. She didn’t think she could do it. She’d just come out of a relationship, and she didn’t think she could be in another one, fake or not. She was determined to fly solo. “Uh...no, that’s not going to work for me.”
“You got me into this situation by throwing yourself into my arms, and you’re going to damn well help me get out of it,” Ryan growled.
“Seriously, Ryan—”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “If I recall, your contract hasn’t be signed...”
It took twenty seconds for his words to sink in. “Are you saying that you won’t formalize my contract if I don’t do this?”
“I’ve already bought the rights for the script. It’s mine to do what I want with it. I did want some changes and I would prefer it if you write those, but I could ask Wes, or Shona, to do it.”
“You’re blackmailing me!” Jaci shouted, instantly infuriated. She glanced at the paperweight on his desk and wondered if she could grab it and launch it toward his head. He might not lie but he wasn’t above using manipulation, the dipstick!
Ryan sighed and placed the paperweight on top of a pile of folders. “Look, you started all this trouble, and you need to figure out how to end it. Consider it as part of your job description.”
“Don’t blame this on me!”
Ryan lifted an eyebrow in disbelief and Jaci scowled. “At least not all of it! The first kiss was supposed to be a peck, but you turned it into a hot-as-hell kiss!” Jaci shouted, her hands gripping the arms of the chair.
“What the hell was I supposed to do? You plastered yourself against me and slapped your mouth on mine!” Ryan responded with as much, maybe even more, heat.
“Do you routinely shove your tongue into a stranger’s mouth?”
“I knew that I’d met you, dammit!” Ryan roared. He sprang to his feet and stormed over to his window and stared down at the tiny matchbox cars on the street below. Jaci watched as he pulled in a couple of deep breaths, amazed that she was able to fight with this man, shout at him, yet she felt nothing but exhilaration. No feelings of inadequacy or guilt or failure.
That was new. Maybe New York, with or without this crazy situation, was going to be good for her.
“So what are we going to do?” Jaci asked after a little while. It was obvious that they had to do something because walking away from her dream job was not an option. She was not going to go back to London without giving this opportunity her very best shot. Giving up now was simply not an option. She had to prove herself and she’d do it here in New York City, the toughest place around. Nobody would doubt her then.
“Do you want to see this film produced? Do you want to see your name in the credits?” Ryan asked without turning around.
Well, duh. “Of course I do,” she softly replied. This was her big break, her opportunity to be noticed, to get more than her foot through the door. She’d been treading water for so long, she couldn’t miss this opportunity to ride the wave to the beach.
“Then I need Banks’s money.”
“Is he the only investor around? Surely not.”
“Firstly, they don’t grow on trees. I’ve also spent nearly eighteen months thrashing out the agreement. I can’t waste any more time on him and I can’t let that effort be for nothing.”
There was no way out of this. “And to get his money we have to become a couple.”
“A fake couple,” Ryan hastily corrected her. “I don’t want or need a real relationship.”
Jeez, chill. She didn’t want a relationship, either.
“So I can see some garden parties in the Hamptons in our future. Maybe theater or opera tickets, dinners at upscale restaurants because Banks will want to show me how important he is and he’ll want to show you what you missed out on.”
“Oh, joy.”
Ryan shoved his hands in his hair and tugged. “We don’t have a choice here and we have to make this count.”
Jaci rubbed her hands over her face. Who would’ve thought that an impulsive kiss could lead to such a tangle? She didn’t have a choice but to go along with Ryan’s plan, to be his temporary girlfriend. If she didn’t, months of work—Ryan’s, hers, Thom’s—would evaporate, and she doubted that Ryan and Thom would consider working with her again if she was the one responsible for ruining their deal with Banks.
She slumped in her chair. “Okay, then. It’s not like we—I—have much of a choice anyway.”
Ryan turned and gripped the sill behind him, his broad back to the window. He sighed and rubbed his temple with the tips of his fingers, his action telling her that he had a headache on board. Lucky she hadn’t clobbered him with that paperweight; his headache would now be a migraine.
“For all we know, Leroy might change his mind about socializing and we’ll be off the hook,” Ryan said, rolling his head from side to side.
“What do you think are the chances of that happening?” Jaci asked.
“Not good. He doesn’t like the fact that I have you. He’ll make me jump through hoops.”
“Because you’re everything he isn’t,” Jaci murmured.
“What do you mean?”
You’re tall, hot and sexy. Charming when you want to be. You’re successful, an acclaimed producer and businessman. You’re respected. Leroy, as far as she knew, just had oily hair and enough money to keep a third-world economy buoyant. Jaci stared at her hands. She couldn’t tell Ryan any of that; she had no intention of complimenting her blackmailer. Even if he could kiss to world-class standards.
“Don’t worry about it.” Jaci waved her words away and prayed that he wouldn’t pursue the topic.
Thankfully he didn’t. Instead he reached for the bottle of water on his desk and took a long sip. “So, as soon as I hear from Banks I’ll let you know.”
“Fine.” Jaci pushed herself to her feet, wishing she could go back to bed and pull the covers over her head for a week or two.
“Jaci?”
Jaci lifted her eyes off her boots to his. “Yes?”
“We’ll keep it completely professional at work. You’re the employee and I’m the boss,” Ryan stated. That would make complete sense except for the sexual tension, as bright and hot as a lightning arc, zapping between them. Judging by his hard tone and inscrutable face, Ryan was ignoring that sexual storm in the room. She supposed it would be a good idea if she did the same.
Except that her feet were urging her to get closer to him, her lips needed to feel his again, her... God, this was madness.
“Fine. I’ll just get back to work then?”
“Yeah. I think that would be a very good idea.”
* * *
When Jaci finally left his office, Ryan dropped into his leather chair and rolled his head from side to side, trying to release the tension in his neck and shoulders. In the space of ten hours, he’d acquired a girlfriend and the biggest deal of his life was placed in jeopardy if he and Jaci didn’t manage to pull off their romance. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Jaci that Leroy would be furious if he realized that Jaci was just using him as an excuse to put some distance between her and his wandering hands...but hell, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!
It was the kiss—that fantastic, hot, sexy meeting of their mouths—that caused the complications. And, dammit, she was right. The first kiss, initiated by her, had been tentative and lightweight and he was the one who’d taken it deeper, hotter, wetter. Oh, she hadn’t protested and had quickly joined him on the ride. A ride he wouldn’t mind taking to its logical conclusion.
Concentrate, moron. Sex should have been low on his priority list. It wasn’t but it should have been.
When he’d come back down to earth and seen Banks’s petulant face—pouty mouth and narrowed eyes—he’d realized that he’d made a grave miscalculation. Then he’d added fuel to the fire when he’d informed him that Jaci was his girlfriend. Banks wanted Jaci and didn’t like the fact that Ryan had her, and because of that, Ryan would be put through a wringer to get access to Banks’s cash.
Like his father, Banks was the original playground bully; he instantly wanted what he couldn’t and didn’t have. Ryan understood that, as attractive as he found Jaci—and he did think that she was incredibly sexy—for Leroy his pursuit of her had little to do with Jaci but, as she’d hinted at earlier, everything to do with him. With the fact that she was with him, that he had her...along with a six-two frame, a reasonable body and an okay face.
This was about wielding power, playing games, and what should’ve been a tedious, long but relatively simple process would now take a few more weeks and a lot more effort. He knew Leroy’s type—his father’s type. He was a man who very infrequently heard the word no, and when he did, he didn’t much care for it. In the best-case scenario, they’d go on a couple of dinners and hopefully Leroy would be distracted by another gorgeous woman and transfer his attention to her.
The worst-case scenario would be Leroy digging his heels in, stringing him along and then saying no to funding the movie. Ryan banged his head against the back of his chair, feeling the thump of the headache move to the back of his skull.
The thought that his father had access to the money he needed jumped into his brain.
Except that he’d rather drill a screwdriver into his skull than ask Chad for anything. In one of his many recent emails he’d skimmed over, his father had told him that he, and some cronies, had up to two hundred million to invest in any of his films if there was a part in one of his movies for him. It seemed that Chad had conveniently forgotten that their final fight, the one that had decimated their fragile relationship, had been about the industry, about money, about a part in a film.
After Ben’s death, his legions of friends and his fans, wanting to honor his memory, had taken to social media and the press to “encourage” him—as a then-indie filmmaker and Ben’s adoring younger brother—to produce a documentary on Ben’s life. Profits from the film could be donated to a charity in Ben’s name. It would be a fitting memorial. The idea snowballed and soon he was inundated with requests to do the film, complete with suggestions that his father narrate the nonexistent script.
He’d lost the two people he’d loved best in that accident, the same two people who’d betrayed him in the worst way possible. While he tried to deal with his grief—and anger and shock—the idea of a documentary gained traction and he found himself being swept into the project, unenthusiastic but unable to say no without explaining why he’d rather swim with great whites in chum-speckled water. So he’d agreed. One of Ben’s friends produced a script he could live with and his father agreed to narrate the film, but at the last minute Chad told him that he wanted a fee for lending his voice to the documentary.
And it hadn’t been a small fee. Chad had wanted ten million dollars and, at the time, Ryan, as the producer, hadn’t had the money. Chad—Hollywood’s worst father of the year—refused to do it without a financial reward, and in doing so he’d scuttled the project. He was relieved at being off the hook, felt betrayed by Ben, heartbroken over Kelly, but he was rabidly angry that Chad, their father, had tried to capitalize on his son’s death. Their argument was vicious and ferocious and he’d torn into Chad as he’d wanted to do for years.
Too much had been said, and after that blowout he realized how truly alone he really was. After a while he started to like the freedom his solitary state afforded him and really, it was just easier and safer to be alone. He liked his busy, busy life. He had the occasional affair and never dated a woman for more than six weeks at a time. He had friends, good friends he enjoyed, but he kept his own counsel. He worked and he made excellent films. He had a good, busy, productive life. And if he sometimes yearned for more—a partner, a family—he ruthlessly stomped on those rogue thoughts. He was perfectly content.
Or he would be if he didn’t suddenly have a fake girlfriend who made him rock-hard by just breathing, a manipulative investor and a father who wouldn’t give up.
Four
Jaci, sitting cross-legged on her couch, cursed when she heard the insistent chime telling her that she had a visitor. She glanced at her watch. At twenty past nine it was a bit late for social visits. She was subletting this swanky, furnished apartment and few people had the address, so whoever was downstairs probably had the wrong apartment number.
She frowned and padded over to her front door and pressed the button. “Yes?”
“It’s Ryan.”
Ryan? Of all the people she expected to be at her door at twenty past nine—she squinted at her watch, no, that was twenty past ten!—Ryan Jackson was not on the list. Since leaving his office four days before, she hadn’t exchanged a word with him and she’d hoped that his ridiculous idea of her acting as his girlfriend had evaporated.
“Can I come up?” Ryan’s terse question interrupted her musings.
Jaci looked down at her fuzzy kangaroo slippers—a gag Christmas gift from her best friend, Bella—and winced. Her yoga pants had a rip in the knee and her sweatshirt was two sizes too big, as it was one of Clive’s that she’d forgotten to return. Her hair was probably spiky from pushing her fingers into it and she’d washed off her makeup when she’d showered after her run through Central Park after work.
“Can this wait until the morning? It’s late and I’m dressed for bed.”
She knew it was ridiculous but she couldn’t help hoping that Ryan would assume that she was wearing a sexy negligee and not clothes a bag lady would think twice about.
“Jaci, I don’t care what you’re wearing so open the damn door. We need to talk.”
That sounded ominous. And Ryan sounded determined enough, and arrogant enough, to keep leaning on her doorbell if he thought that was what it would take to get her to open up. Besides, she needed to hear what he had to say, didn’t she?
But, dammit, the main reason why her finger hit the button to open the lobby door was because she wanted to see him. She wanted to hear his deep, growly voice, inhale his cedar scent—deodorant or cologne? Did it matter?—have an opportunity to ogle that very fine body.
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