LITMIR.BIZ

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I selected your profile because I need a date for my sister’s wedding. The gig is three nights, four days in amazing and luxurious Crown, Ohio. Your airfare will be covered and your hotel room will be separate, but also covered. You will be tasked with being my date, pretending to find everything I say amusing, and impressing my mother and father. You’re skilled at bragging about how great you are but I will also need you to recognize that I’m in the room if we have any hope of pulling this off. Are you up for the mission I’ve presented you, or do you want to call it a night?”

      He watched her carefully, an uncertain look on his face. “Are you—You’re serious.”

      “As a heart attack. Which I hear you know a lot about.”

      “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend.”

      “Yes.”

      “At a wedding.”

      “Yes.”

      He leaned forward and squinted one eye, his lips pursing as if deciding if the trip to Ohio would be worth his time, energy and effort.

      Andy’s palms were sweating. Not because she was excited by the doctor, but because her search might finally be over.

      Then the idiot blurted, “Do we at least get to fuck?”

      Yeah. They were so done.

      “Good night, Christopher. I’ll take care of the check.”

      “Wait, Andy—”

      She tossed twenty bucks on the table to cover their drinks and marched to the ladies’ room. The money would cover the single drink they’d each had and then she could go home and—

      And what?

      She was flat out of solutions. She had no close guy friends she could ask. Hell, she had no close girlfriends who might help her make a plan. What she had was money and prestige.

      Just the thought of showing up at Gwen’s wedding alone pissed her off. She refused to fail. It wasn’t in her nature. Plus there was one other itty-bitty reason why showing up with a date was preferable.

      One of her ex-boyfriends had been invited. She’d stooped low enough to call, which was bad enough, but then she learned that he was dating Gwen’s best friend who was in the wedding. So that was gross.

      Matthew Higgins had greeted her like no time had passed since they parted. Well, well, well. If it isn’t her royal highness.

      The Ice Queen. That was her.

      Thank God she hadn’t asked him to be her date. She’d played it off like she’d simply thought of him out of the blue and wanted to “catch up” and then ended the call before she died of humiliation.

      At the double sink, she dug through her purse for her lip gloss, which evidently she’d neglected to pack in her clutch. She sighed in defeat. It’d been a long month.

      A long life.

      Around the time she’d dated Matt, she’d been sure she’d wind up marrying eventually. Until he repeatedly teased her about her lack of warmth. She wasn’t enough for him, and as much as she wished she could refute that, she’d also seen evidence in her family of what she was lacking. She wasn’t as bubbly as Gwen. She wasn’t as bold as Kelli. She wasn’t as stylish as Ness. She wasn’t as athletic as Carroll. As one of five girls in the Payne family, Andy was the unofficial black sheep. She’d just as soon not draw even more attention to their differences by becoming the last single one. Yet here she was.

      For all the confidence and kick-ass-ness she possessed at work, she didn’t want to be singled out or excluded from couples’ activities.

      Plus, nothing chapped her ass more than giving up.

      She peeked out of a crack in the swinging door of the ladies’ restroom to watch Christopher exit the bar. Thank God. Also, her twenty was still on the table, which was a plus. The last guy had taken her money and left, and she’d had to pay the waitress again.

      There were no good men left in this city.

      In the world.

      “I can’t catch another bouquet without a date,” she whispered to herself. As humiliating as it was to catch the blasted thing—that her sisters always aimed her way—nothing was more humiliating than returning to the table with the flowers in hand and no date in sight. Guests always looked on in pity, as if she was going to die alone.

      Her gaze snagged on the attractive guy at the bar and her back straightened with determination. If she was right about her observations, he was single. He was also sort of flirting with the bartender which hopefully meant he was looking.

      Approaching him would be a random shot, but so had approaching every other guy she’d been out with. Maybe instead of taking home the cute bartender, he’d agree to bail out the too-serious, frosty, desperate-for-a-wedding-date single woman hiding in the ladies’ room.

       Probably not.

      But Andy wasn’t a failure.

      She wouldn’t allow failure.

      She stepped from the restroom and spotted him—alone. The guy with the attractive facial hair and almost boyish curls. Except everything about the sculpted jaw and rounded shoulders screamed man. He was alone. Which meant the couple he’d been with had gone elsewhere.

      Now was her chance.

      Maybe her last chance.

      “Money,” she muttered.

      She didn’t have time for a get-to-know-you chat followed by the prospect of a date followed by her warming up to mention, “Hey, so my sister is getting married in two weeks...” She had to cut through the small talk and arrow straight to the point. Cash would make that a hell of a lot easier. She opened her clutch to count her credit cards. Five. That should be enough.

      She rounded the corner to the ATM at the back of the bar, a plan in mind and a glass of good chardonnay in her belly.

      She would take the simple approach and ask him if she could pay him to come with her to Ohio. Enough with faux dating and weighing the odds. She needed a date, and hopefully this guy needed a couple grand.

      On a mission, she slid the first of five credit cards into the machine and punched the withdrawal button.

      She would find a date to Gwen’s wedding.

      And she would find him tonight.

       Two

      Gage Fleming finished off his IPA and tipped the bottle’s neck at the bartender. “I’ll take the check when you have a second.”

      Seattle had come out of a long winter and cool spring, and was now firmly entrenched in summer. The energy was different during the hot months. The skirts were shorter and the nights were longer, and for him, the workdays were longer, too. He hadn’t left his desk until well after seven thirty—hadn’t gotten here until well after eight thirty. Given the hellacious week he’d had at the office, it didn’t surprise him that he wasn’t as upbeat as usual.

      “Sure thing.” Shelly was petite, wearing a ball cap with her ponytail sticking out of the back. Her lashes were thick, and her lips were shiny with gloss. Cute as she was, he didn’t plan on asking her out. Even though she was his type, from her shapely calves to her low-cut V-necked T-shirt with the bar’s gold-and-red emblem on it. Even though she’d been offering her smiles freely and borderline flirting back with him, Gage wasn’t feeling it.

      His best buddy Flynn and Sabrina, his other best buddy turned Flynn’s girlfriend, had taken off a few minutes ago. Gage hung around at From Afar, finishing his beer after a long week and what felt like a longer workday.

      He’d been friends with Flynn, Sabrina and Reid—who wasn’t in the

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