“We’ll start with the Montrachet.” Graham’s eyes sweep down over the wine list. “But if it’s not sweet enough for my counterpart, we’ll be ordering something else.”

“Very good, sir.” Our waiter turns on his heel and walks away from the table, his gait smooth and graceful. I’d bet anything he’s in one of the Broadway shows. If I was here with Everest, I’d ask her about it.

I’m not here with Everest.

Graham puts the wine list at the edge of the table. “Should we start this battle now, or when the wine arrives?”

I blink at him. I don’t know what Graham Blackpool’s game is, especially given— “Do you always bring thousand-dollar bottles of wine to a gunfight?”

“A gunfight?” A little grin quirks at the corner of his mouth, curling up from the set line of his perfect lips. “I don’t think things need to be that...antagonistic.”

“I disagree.” My heart flutters, has been fluttering since the moment Graham’s driver pulled up in front of my apartment building. I’m probably sick, probably burning with fever. That’s the only explanation for how hot and flushed my skin feels beneath the perfectly modest little black dress I bought in a fit of nerves earlier this afternoon. “You basically called me a whore.”

Okay. Not perfectly modest. The neckline plunges a little more than I’d wear to a meeting at, say, the White House.

His green eyes flash in the candlelight. Graham was the one who insisted on having our meeting at the Inn at Little Washington. He wouldn’t take “any meeting room” for an answer.

“It might have been a joke in poor taste.” Goose bumps prick the back of my neck. I don’t know Graham Blackpool, but I know that when he asked me if I’d rather be his whore than anything else, he wasn’t lying. “But we’re not here because of what I called you. We’re here because you called me.”

I smirk at him. “Clever.”

“I thought you were a stickler for accuracy.”

“I’m not proud of the fact—”

The waiter comes back with the wine and pours two glasses.

Fuck me. It’s delicious.

“I’m not proud of the fact—” This place is so upscale, even the tablecloths feel like they’re a thousand-thread count. That doesn’t mean our table isn’t snugged up to one on each side. So far, one’s empty, and the other is occupied by an older couple who seem to be communicating mainly through raised eyebrows. The entire place could be listening in, for all I know. “You know, the fact that I had to stoop so low.”

“I can’t imagine what would make you feel like you had no other option but to acquiesce to a scumbag like me.”

“I don’t think you’re a scumbag.” I take another sip of wine. “I think you’re irresponsible.” Why can’t I stop blushing? Why can’t I cool it, literally?

Graham laughs. “You say irresponsible like it’s a curse word.”

A defensive tightness grips my throat. “It is a curse word. It’s—” Echoes of my mother’s court appearances swim up in my brain before I can tamp them down. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

He looks at me, a searching glint in his eyes. “Let’s talk about what you came here to propose.”

It kills me. It kills me to say it to Graham Blackpool. It kills me to go back on everything I believe in.

But my back is against the wall.

So, I swallow the acid embarrassment and look him in the eye. I channel the courtroom. I channel my future. This is the only way to get from here to there. “I’m here to accept your proposal.”

Graham takes a languid sip of his wine. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

The heat in my cheeks ratchets up to an inferno. “You’re right. This was a mistake.” I reach for my purse.

Graham reaches for my hand. “Stop.”

I look back, into his eyes, and try to ignore the pleasant cool of his hand on mine. “Why the hell should I?”

“Because I’m an asshole.” His voice is even and smooth, and I want to wrap myself in it. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You shouldn’t have said a lot of things.” The panic in my gut swells into a tsunami. “You should have taken your money back.”

“Sit down.”

“I am sitting down.”

“You’re halfway out of your seat. Do you know the couple to my left?”

“No.”

“Then let’s keep them out of this. Sit down, Bellamy.” I don’t sit. He lowers his voice. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t believe him. I believe that he wants something from me, and that’s why he agreed to meet me. The only part I can’t square is why we’re in this kind of place and not his office.

I slip my hand out from underneath his and sit down. I miss the warmth of his skin as soon as I do it.

It takes is a few seconds with my eyes closed to gather myself. I used this trick all the time in law school, when the sheer volume of work seemed like a mountain about to crawl over me and crush me to death.

All of the bullshit falls away.

Graham is still sitting there when I open my eyes, still making waves in the eddies of the air around us. He is capable of anything. I know it at a glance, and I want to fall deep into that darkness.

But I can’t.

“I don’t have any other options.” I take a fortifying swig of wine. “I lost my job.”

“Shit.” He has no idea what it’s like to lose a job, I’m sure.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get another one, unless all this...blows over.”

He cocks his head. “Didn’t you pass the bar?”

“Jesus.” I can’t help a quiet laugh. “Do you have people tracking my every move?”

“Brian mentioned something about it.”

“Then Brian”—really, who does that guy think he is?—“doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Results won’t be in for another nine weeks.”

“People get offers all the time, before they’ve officially passed the bar. There must be plenty of firms—”

I refuse to let the heat burn me alive. “Not when my name is all over the Internet with rampant speculation that I’m—” The couple at the next table is reading over the bill. “You know.”

“Right.”

“So, we’ll need some boundaries.” I’m grasping at solid ground. Negotiation is a thing I’ve been practicing for three years. “No to living together.”

Graham raises one eyebrow. “That was never on the table. If you hadn’t left so abruptly—”

“If you hadn’t been a jackass, I wouldn’t have left.” I have to get this out. “Yes to fake dates.”

“I took that as a given.”

I can still feel the solid weight of his hand over mine when I look him in the eye. “No sex.”

Graham doesn’t smile. He doesn’t lean back; instead, he leans in. “None?”

The green of his eyes is a lightning bolt hovering between us. Justice. I think of justice, and honor, and his body between the sheets. “None.”

“But?”

I remember to breathe. It’s a near thing. “If we need to...exchange kisses—chaste kisses—”

“Of course.”

“—for the purposes of authenticity…” I hate myself.

“It’ll likely be necessary.”

“Then I would do that.”

He picks up the bottle of wine and pours another inch into his glass. “I agree to the terms.”

The thunder that always follows lightning booms, and I let out a nervous laugh. “Is it really that simple?”

“It’s that simple. We present the perfect united front until this is all a distant memory, then we move on with our lives. No strings attached.” He tilts the bottle toward my glass. “More wine?”