We stay in The Microbrew after the little incident with the Cashio asshole, but I start to notice people eyeing me a lot.

If that asshole could tell who I was, I’m guessing others can too.

Ruth asks, “What’s wrong?”

The way New York’s Best Couple works, you just get spotted as a couple, and the judges consider you. If I’m going to win the bet, I actually need to get spotted with Ruth.

So this should be fine with me. I need people to start chattering about me dating someone new, and ideally I need photos to get out as well for the tabloids.

But after what just happened, I don’t exactly want Ruth to have to deal with all that bullshit right now. I feel an urge to protect her, more than I want to protect my stupid fucking bet.

“You want to get out of here?” I ask.

She looks around. “You’re not embarrassed or something, are you? I can tell people are recognizing you.”

“It’s not that,” I say. “I just figured you don’t want that kind of spotlight on you.”

She nods slowly. “I guess I’d rather avoid it, but if we’re going to be doing... this, then I don’t think it can really be avoided.”

“You’re sure?” I ask.

She smiles. That smile is really growing on me. It’s not classically beautiful, but it puts all those fake, bleached-white supermodel smiles to shame with how genuine it is.

“Alright,” I say, grabbing her hand across the table without thinking.

I lock eyes with her. “You don’t have to call it ‘this,’ or be weird about it. We are dating. This is a date. Unless you’re still on the fence.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. She squeezes my hand back. “I jumped off the fence a while ago.”

“To my side, of course,” I say with a knowing smirk.

“Of course,” she says, laughing.

“I’m going to pick the place next time,” I say. “I know you’re not a gold digger—you’ve made that very clear—but if you’re going to date a billionaire, you should at least get to live it up a bit.”

“How much better is a billionaire bar?” She asks, giggling.

“There are no actual ‘billionaire bars,’ per se… millionaire ones, maybe—” I tease.

“Okay then,” she says, “For example, what is so much better about a millionaire bar? How much better is a thousand dollar bottle of vodka verses a twenty dollar bottle?”

“Well,” I say, “the thousand dollar bottle costs about nine hundred and eighty dollars more, that’s the main difference. Though the view is usually better. A few places I frequent, you can see the whole city from eighty stories up while you drink.”

“Doesn’t your own apartment probably have a view just as good?”

“It does,” I say, grinning, “Are you implying you’d like to see it?”

She turns red, in a way that makes me really want to get her back to my place. I feel my cock twitch a bit, and I realize I really do want her. It’s not even about the bet—I just want her.

“Uh…” she says. “Maybe on the next date?”

My heart pounds, and a hunger starts to fill me up. “What are you waiting for?”

“I just… I don’t know, but next time, I want to see your place. Okay?” she says hesitantly.

Her hand is still in mine, and I lean across the table. I try as best I can to peer through her thick glasses, but I see her lips part, and I know it’s time to strike.

The table is thankfully very small, and it barely keeps me away from her. Our lips get closer and closer, and her eyes close just before I close mine.

The last few inches between us close together in darkness, and then an explosive feeling hits me as our lips crash together.

The wet warmth of her lips presses against mine, I slide my tongue between her lips as I run my hand up her arm.

Her scent fills me up as I drink her in, and I feel her hands grab at my biceps as her tongue presses against mine.

Before I know it, we’re both standing up, the table abandoned. I press her up against the wall, and my hands grip her waist as we lose ourselves in the kiss.

My cock is rock-hard again, and when she grabs my ass, I can think of nothing more than her hand wrapped around my girth. Then I think of her on her knees, her lips spread wide as she takes me in. I let out a growl at the thought and bite her lip.

I have a hand on her throat, and I can feel her moan vibrate against my hand as I devour her with my mouth.

We lose ourselves in each other, and only after what feels like several minutes does a creeping silence break us from the spell.

I look into her eyes, and then I realize that it’s eerily quiet in the bar. We both look away from each other to see dozens of phones pointed at us, and the stunned silence turns to laughter, and then to applause.

A few women pat Ruth on the shoulder. “You go girl!”

Ruth looks at me and laughs nervously. “Let’s go.”

I grab our jackets and whisk her out of the bar.

She laughs loud and genuine when we step out into the cold. “That was crazy!”

“It was good,” I say, running a hand up her throat and across her cheek.

“It was…” she says.

“You realize those photos—“

“I know. I knew it would happen sooner or later, so it’s best to get it over with, right?” she says this with a bravado that I’m not sure she really has.

“I can think of another thing that will happen sooner or later,” I say, eyeing her body up and down as my cock throbs behind my zipper. “That would be best to—”

She puts a finger up to my lips cutting me off. “Eric,” she chides. “I have work tomorrow. Early.”

I look at her in disbelief. How can she resist this urge?

“You don’t get it. Do you?”

I feel a sudden surge of frustration. “I guess I don’t. We both want—”

“Right,” she interrupts. “We do. And how good does this feel?” She waves her hand between our bodies.

I stop and think about it. My heart is racing, and there’s a fire burning inside me unlike anything I’ve felt in a long time.

“Pretty good,” I say, downplaying my feelings.

She nods. “I’m not going to say we should wait for marriage—“

“Don’t even joke about waiting that long,” I hiss.

“I’m just saying that this feeling... it’s something you should enjoy. I want to text you when I get home and tell you how much I can’t wait to see you again. I want to think about you all day tomorrow—I…don’t want you to bite my ear off.”

I laugh, hard. “Damn, using my own words against me now? Tomorrow then,” I say. “That’s as long as I can wait. I need to see you again tomorrow.”

“Pick me up after work then,” she says, her smile spreading nearly from ear to ear.

* * *

As expected, the photos leak instantly. When I get to the office in the morning, my secretary Lana is eyeing me with a mix of jealousy and confusion.

Yeah, I fucked her once. It probably wasn’t the best decision, but it’s not like I could fire her afterward. At least I didn’t repeat the mistake with her.

She’s probably jealous because we had a quick fuck in my office, and in the photos with Ruth, you can see just how hungry she makes me. We are clearly on a date and by the looks on our faces, it’s abundantly clear how very into each other we are… it’s not a question of if we will fuck, but when.

Lana can pick up on all that, I’m sure.

“Morning, Lana,” I grunt as I walk past her.

“Good morning,” she says in a neutral voice.

I shut the door to my office and turn on my computer. I know I should get straight to work—I’m nearly buried in it—but I decide to check the gossip sites to see what people are saying. Last night, there were just a few leaked photos without any commentary. Now, the hive mind should have had time to reach some kind of consensus.

The headlines I see are... troubling.

Eric Prince’s New Charity: Dating down? Way down!

Billionaire and the Beast!

A Billionaire’s Fidget Spinner: Nerdy girls from Brooklyn.

“Shit,” I curse to myself.

How is Ruth going to take this?

I checked all the worst tabloids first, in part to soften the blow for the more mainstream ones.

Checking the less clickbait-type sites, the consensus is at least somewhat more favorable. Most of the sites seem sympathetic toward me. They think I might be “turning a new leaf” or “softening” or, as one of the more blunt sites put it, “Growing a heart.”

Still, even the most positive sounding of the articles has used Ruth as some kind of stepping stone to make me sound good.

I check the super left-wing feminist sites to see if maybe they are casting her in a good light.

The first site I check has an article written as if it were directly talking to Ruth. It tells her to dump my ass, and that she’s selling out as a “real” woman by even considering dating me.

I lean back and sigh.

If I were just worried about New York’s Best Couple and the bet, I could definitely salvage this. If that were my only concern, I’d probably be thrilled by this development. I’d just need to get Ruth to clean up a bit, then keep being seen with her, and we’d have it all in the bag.

But Ruth isn’t just a fucking “Billionaire’s Fidget Spinner,” she’s a real person and she’s not going to be happy about all this.

It will be up to me to convince her that all of these viewpoints shown in the media are wrong, and that how we feel about each other is what really matters.

But then there’s the bet. I can’t lose, or I lose her. I know Dmitri. If I failed to honor my end of the bet, he would commit all of his resources to ruining me. And Ruth.