Black Ties and White Lies(6)

“I’m in a bit of a”—he picks at a non-existent piece of lint on his sleeve—“predicament,” he finally finishes. “One I need your help with.”

“You need me?”

“I’ve made a mistake.” He keeps his voice level, but there’s the smallest bit of vulnerability in his eyes when he looks at me. “Recently, a gossip site ran an article on me that features numerous photos with me and multiple different women in the last month. Like, a good number of them…”

My eyebrows raise. Carter had mentioned Beck never did relationships. He’d meant it as a dig at his brother. Looking back, it seems Beck doesn’t make any fake promises. At least he’s up front about not wanting to commit to women, very unlike his brother. Carter will make the promise and just fuck it to shreds behind your back.

“And that involves me how?”

“My board is upset. They say it reflects poorly on the company.”

“Why? You’re allowed to have a personal life.”

He blinks, a slight grin on his lips. “It doesn’t quite work like that, Violet.”

I cross one leg over the other. “I’m still trying to figure out how I play into this.”

His fingers tap against the table, catching my attention. They’re long, slightly thicker around the knuckles. I wonder how they’d feel inside me. Blinking quickly, I shake my head. Where the fuck did that come from?

He’s completely unaware that my mind is only half listening, the other half wondering how many he could fit inside me and still feel pleasurable. Beck continues to talk as I try to rid my brain of the dirty thoughts of my new boss, AKA him. “I was told I need to maintain a stable relationship for at least a year, or they feared investors would become uneasy. No one wants to invest in a company whose face is plastered all over magazines being penned a playboy billionaire.”

I bite back a smile. “It’s kind of catchy.”

He does nothing to hide his grunt of disapproval. “I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I can’t stand most people. The thought of tolerating someone for a year makes my skin crawl. That is, a year with anyone except…you.”

My ass almost flies out of the chair. Surely I heard him wrong. I want to make some kind of witty remark, but the unreadable look on his face has me snapping my mouth shut. I hold back the comment, stunned by how he brazenly stares back at me.

“People wouldn’t believe it if we told them we all of a sudden started dating. But…they’d believe it if we went from working closely together with you as my assistant and it developed into more.”

“Now it’s starting to make sense…”

“I bought this company because I needed a reason you and I were brought back together—hence the reason I now own 8-bit Security. You work closely with me as my assistant and in a month or so we’ll tell people we’ve fallen in love.”

“That seems quick.”

When he smiles at me, I understand why so many women fall at his feet. It’s magnetic, bright but predatory. Enough to make my core clench because never did I expect it aimed at me. “When you know, you know.”

And then Beck Fucking Sinclair winks at me, and I swear to god in the moment, I’d do anything he asked me to. His hotness is a shock to my system, something I’m nowhere near equipped to deal with.

“The whole idea seems highly unnecessary. Don’t you own the company your board sits on or whatever? Tell them to go fuck themselves.”

He actually laughs at my comment. A loud, throaty laugh that for some reason, feeds my soul. I’d do anything to hear it again.

I made broody Beck Sinclair laugh. I want to do it over and over until his stomach hurts from laughter.

Beck shakes his head at me, his eyes lingering on my returned smile. His attention to my lips has me absent-mindedly licking them. “While I’ve thought about doing that a million times, it’s not something I can quite commit to. You see, I don’t hold all the power when it comes to my company. No matter how much I want to. I’ve got to clean it up or I'll lose important investors. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“What if I’m not willing to agree?”

His teeth dig into his lip as he bites back a smile. He attempts to wipe the smile from his face by running his hand over his mouth, but it doesn’t do much. When his hand falls back to his armrest, he still grins at me. “I can be very persuasive, Margo Moretti.”

Is Beckham Sinclair flirting with me?

Am I into it?

No. I can’t be into it. I dated—loved—his brother for years.

Bad, Margo.

But god, with that grin on his face, it might feel so good to be so bad.

I’m silent, still wondering in the back of my mind if this is some sort of joke. Am I on some sort of reality TV show where they play an epic prank? That’s totally something Emma would sign me up for as a cruel joke.

My eyes scan the office for any hints of hidden cameras.

“So, I become your assistant, then your fiancée, and then have to go back to normal with my tail between my legs when you end our engagement after the year is over? Have everyone think you grew tired of me? No thank you, Beck. It’s a no from me.”

“We could tell people you ended it. Whatever you want to say to them, I’ll do it.” The hurried way he gets out his words has me stopping to wonder why he seems so invested in getting me to agree to his ludicrous plan.