I’m floored. I can feel the blood pounding in my head, my heart racing from what Ashley just said.

I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve never met anyone like her. Ever. Not out of the hundreds of women over the years. She’s completely different. She’s real. She’s honest. I can tell she doesn’t care in the least about who I am or about getting a piece of me. Not about being on television or being infamous for bringing down the notorious Head Hunter.

“Wait,” I say, holding my hand up, my palm flat. “Hang on just a second. You like me?”

Ashley squirms in her seat, dropping her gaze in a way that’s both a little shy, and uncomfortable. It’s so fucking cute that I just want to pull her into my lap and kiss her stupid, restaurant and manners be damned.

Finally she lifts her eyes back to me and shrugs. “Maybe.”

I grin. “Maybe?”

She smiles back.

“So, you’re telling me that you aren’t here right now because you want to seduce me, take my virginity, or whatever you want to call it?”

“Let’s just see how it goes,” she replies simply.

That could mean so many things. Like, she wants to see how it goes because she does want to sleep with me? Or maybe it means she wants to see if there’s actually something there between us that isn’t about sex, or this TV show, or money, or anything else.

“How it goes?” I need her to clarify this.

She nods. “I just want to get to know you.” She bites her lip in a way that’s half sexy and half shy. “I really like you so far, and I want to know more about you.”

So it’s not about sleeping with me. I’m totally thrown for a loop by this. I don’t even know what to think. I’ve never had this happen. Every single woman has been after something. They’ve always had an ulterior motive. Money, mostly. Bragging rights. Or straight up animal lust and the need to see my cock for themselves.

While I’m sure Ashley is totally turned on by me, I can also tell that this isn’t about sex for her. At least, not completely. There’s more. And that’s fucking awesome. It’s almost too perfect. The one woman who I’m actually interested in to see more than once—who I can’t stop thinking about—is interested in me too.

“Ashley,” I say carefully, “you know about the prize money, right?”

She wrinkles her nose in a way that makes her look too fucking adorable.

“The money that you get if you sleep with me,” I clarify. “You know that if you actually do seduce me, there’s money in it for you.”

“Of course I know that,” she replies, and her clear eyes tell me she’s telling the truth when she also says, “I could care less about it.”

Oh my God. The server comes with our orders then, and we eat our fancy French dinners, but I barely even taste the exquisite cuisine. All I can think about is Ashley and the things she just told me. She’s one of a kind, and I’d be crazy not to pursue this and see where it goes.

I know I have a show to finish, and a reputation to uphold—money to win—but the idea of seeing any other woman for the next eight weeks makes me crazy. There’s no way that I want to have eight random women coming onto me and sucking my dick when the only woman I want is sitting across the table from me right now.

We converse some more over our meal, and the more we talk, the more I get to know her, the more convinced I am that I can’t keep doing the show the way we’ve been doing it for eight more weeks.

When my phone buzzes, I look down and see that it’s Chase. Perfect. Exactly who I need right now.

“Excuse me for just a minute,” I say to Ashley, giving her an apologetic smile, “I have to take this.”

Walking into the hallway of the restaurant, I answer the phone. “Chase, we have to talk.”

“Yeah, we do. I can’t believe what’s going down right now. Lola is going to love this.” He sounds so excited, and I don’t know what to make of it.

“Look, I don’t know what you mean or why she might love it, but we need to play that up. Can you talk to her for me? See about getting Ashley on the show again for next week? Fuck, for the rest of the season.”

I can practically hear Chase’s grin. “You got it, man.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I think this is exactly what we need to get ratings even higher than they already are. I mean, the audience has seen you resist a long parade of women for years. There’s nothing new there. But watching you resist the same woman week after week when you obviously want her? Yeah. That’s must-watch television right there.”

I didn’t think about it that way, but he’s right. People will be clamoring to see if I give in. There will probably be all kinds of bets taken all across the country. People just waiting to cash in.

But that means I’m going to have to suffer through weeks and weeks of waiting to have sex with Ashley. That’s a huge downside. But fuck, I’ll take that over having to film blowjobs with random women. I don’t even want to think of what she would think about that now that we’ve both realized there’s something here between us that goes beyond the show.

I finish the call with Chase and head back to the table to find Ashley getting ready to leave.

“Hey, where are you going?”

She stands up and says, “You know what, I’m just going to go home. I think that’s the safest thing for me to do right now.”

She comes up to me and goes up on her toes, wrapping her hands gently around my neck and pulling my head down to hers. She kisses me, softly and slowly, almost tentatively. Not at all like last night. It’s different, and I know we have a different dynamic between us now that we didn’t before.

Pulling away, she gives me a little smile, and then turns and leaves.

I stand there staring after her, totally blown away. This girl. Then I grin. Because we’re about to have eight weeks of Head Hunter together. Eight tempting, torturous weeks.