Parker

Since Sunday, I’ve been on a regular diet that includes Gas-X, tacos, and orgasms. I’ve had so much mind-blowing sex that I’m mildly surprised I still have brain cells left to do my job.

Knox’s romance and chocolate event and my reunion are in two days, and the weird truth is, after the whole farting incident, I’m actually feeling extremely confident that I’ll be able to handle my reunion just fine. Because if a guy as sexy, smart, and hot as Knox can handle me farting one day and still want to go down on me the next, then maybe I’m no longer the dweeb of Julian Oakland High.

My brothers got wind of our engagement, took Knox out for a round of drinks and interrogation after he left my apartment the other night—Brooks was in the city for a three-game home series and Rhett flew in just for dinner—and have quit dropping by unannounced.

I don’t know what he told them, but they’re satisfied.

Which is only terrifying because we’ll most likely be staging our breakup late next week, and now my brothers know where he lives.

My heart pangs again.

I like Knox. I don’t want to marry him, but I don’t want to break up with him either.

I even let him sleep over last night.

But I don’t know if I’ll ever want to give him children, or even if he’d want me to. I don’t doubt he wants children, mind you—I just doubt he wants them with me. Me and my horrible genes and rampant insecurity when it comes to personal issues.

This is a temporary thing. Mutually beneficial.

It’s just started feeling…real.

After giving Chase a quick update on a new marketing tactic I want to try for the holidays, I pack up my office and head downstairs earlier than usual. Knox is meeting me at my apartment in an hour, and I’ll barely have time to get home and pick up my laundry before he’s there. But when I push out onto the sidewalk in front of Crunchy, there’s a surprise waiting for me.

A surprise in the form of Lila Valentine. The perfect, perky, put-together Lila Valentine. My heart flips inside out and my inner bitch roars to life. He’s mine, you bachelor-stealer.

“Parker,” she says warmly. “Do you have a minute?”

I look at my wrist, where I’m clearly not wearing a watch. “Ah, actually, I need to—”

“My boss wants to open a small publishing house for romance novels,” she says. “We want Knox to consult on title selection, but he’s not answering my calls, and I don’t want to cause any issues for him at work by being one more woman asking for him. I understand that’s a little touchy at the moment.”

I twist my head to look at her closer.

She’s probably younger than me by a few years, meticulously put-together, gorgeous red hair shimmering in the light, and it would be so easy to hate her on principle alone, except there’s something…lonely about her.

“You wanted to take us to lunch to talk,” I say.

She nods. “And since I can’t set up lunch with him if he won’t take my calls, I thought you could talk to him for me.”

“You couldn’t leave a message?” I ask.

She pinches her lips together and gives me a look. Not a jealous-woman look. More like a you really don’t get it look. “I have. I suspect he’s deleting them without listening. Or he’s truly not interested, which seems unlikely given what we’re willing to pay him. My boss loves his Mr. Romance blog.”

“Your boss…?”

“Dalton Wellington.”

I know that name. He made a fortune in tech around the same time Chase was making his own fortune, though I don’t know anything else about him.

“I’m his executive assistant.” Lila slips me a card.

“That must keep you busy.”

Her nose flares as she laughs. “Oh, you have no idea.”

I shoot a glance up at the black-and-steel building I just exited. “I might.”

She looks too, then nods. “You know what? I think you really might.”

“Romance novels?” I tilt my head toward my subway stop, and she falls into step with me.

“Mr. Wellington has reached a point in his life where he has more money than he can ever spend. It’s not much of a risk to his way of life to amuse himself with launching a publishing house.”

“Probably shouldn’t put it that way when you talk to Knox.”

“Actually, the romance line is his concession to me.” Lila grins. “He’s writing science fiction mysteries himself. Inner geek and all that.”

“Ah, the truth comes out.”

“Please ask Knox to call me. If he’s interested, we’ll be happy to discuss a compensation package.”

“You could’ve asked him at your date.”

“I wasn’t convinced yet that he was the right person for the job.”

“And you are now?”

“You’ve seen his blog stats since the Times piece, haven’t you?”

Huh. She really doesn’t want him for herself. The idea is unfathomable. “Your bid. At the auction… That was crazy high.”

“What makes a better story: that I approached him at work, or that I paid a hundred grand at a bachelor auction for a studly romance expert?”

“You’re insane,” I say on a laugh.

She smiles back. “You work for a billionaire. You know how they can be.”

I think about Chase, and all the things he’s done for Sia, and honestly, all the things he’s done for me, and for Crunchy as a whole, and even for his mom and their hometown, and I shake my head on another laugh.

They’re a crazy, eccentric bunch. “That I do.”