“You know about Jo?” For the first time, Dani sounded kind of . . . off. Upset, maybe.
“I don’t know nothing about nothing.” Clearly. Zaf shoved the final bite of his sandwich in his mouth to shut himself up. In hindsight, he probably should’ve done that a good ten minutes ago.
Her lips quirked, and the tension faded from her mouth, her shoulders. “Okay. Well, I’m not gay.”
He swallowed. “Right.”
“I’m bisexual.”
“Got it.” He crushed his sandwich wrapper into a ball and reminded himself that just because Danika was into guys didn’t necessarily mean she was into security guards with the social skills of a fucking brick wall.
“And, no, I don’t have a partner,” she went on. “I don’t do the commitment thing. Ever.”
Well, shit. Zaf wasn’t exactly in a hurry to find a relationship—he had his own crap to deal with, and sometimes that crap seemed never ending. But he still valued commitment. He still envied old married couples. He still remembered the love his parents had had, the love his brother and Kiran had had, and wanted it despite the danger of loss. If commitment wasn’t for Dani, then she and Zaf weren’t for each other.
So stop thinking about her like that.
Yeah, yeah. Easier said than done. “Ever?” he repeated, trying not to sound too invested in her response. “Like . . . you don’t want to find some nice young, erm, person, and settle down and—?”
“No,” she said, looking unusually severe all of a sudden, shadows obscuring the light in her eyes.
“Are you, erm . . .” Right on time, he forgot the technical term he’d been looking for. “You don’t . . . get those . . . feelings?” he asked, then wondered why the fuck he was delving even deeper into what was clearly personal shit. Like he hadn’t talked himself into enough holes today.
But Dani didn’t seem irritated by the question—more by the topic itself. “Am I aromantic? Sadly, no. Coupledom simply doesn’t suit my constitution. Aside from which, I am entirely too busy for dating and ego-stroking and sharing my feelings and meeting people’s parents.” Her expression grew more and more disgusted with each item she listed. Zaf might have laughed, if something about her carefully disinterested tone wasn’t setting off alarm bells in his head.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “But—you know that sharing your feelings is always important, right? Whether you do the romance thing or not.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is this part of your workshop? Are you going to make me throw a ball, too?”
He sighed. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just describe rugby as throwing a ball.” He was also going to pretend that the cold weight of disappointment in his belly had nothing to do with his personal feelings for Danika Brown. He was only bothered by all this because, if she had no time for a relationship, she wouldn’t have time to fake one. It had nothing to do with her smile, or how smart she was, or the fact that she brought him coffee no matter how busy she got, or anything else like that, because if it did, he might have to admit that his crush was a little bit more than a crush.
It wasn’t, though. More, that is. Definitely just a crush.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. No relationships for you. You know what? Can we just forget about—?”
“No relationships for me,” she interrupted, “which means that I’m perfectly free to fake date you.”
It was a good thing Zaf had already swallowed the last of his sandwich, because if he hadn’t, he might be choking right now. “Erm,” he wheezed. “What? Wait, seriously? Danika. Are you fucking with me? Because—”
“Yes.” She rolled her eyes.
“Yes, you’re fucking with me?”
“Yes, I’m serious. It’s a smart plan. My grandmother used fake relationships for publicity all the time.”
Was he hearing things now? “Your grandmother did what?”
Dani waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. If this will help you shine a spotlight on your, erm . . . Tackle It situation, well”—she shot him a wry smile—“I’ll consider it my good deed of the season.” She turned slightly, her gaze focusing on something to their right. “We have company, by the way.”
It took Zaf a minute to process that, since his thoughts were still scattered by disbelief. “What?” He looked up, saw the trio of girls hovering a few meters away with their phones out, and scowled. “For fuck’s sake. I came out here to eat because everyone kept staring at my desk like I was a giraffe.”
“Do you want publicity or not?” Dani asked sternly.
No was his instinctive response. But the right kind of publicity, he reminded himself, could help in countless ways, so he’d better buck up. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Then fix your face,” she told him.
“What?” Zaf was saying that quite a lot at the moment. Understandably, he thought.
“I’m the catch of the century on paper, if not in reality,” Dani said. “No one’s going to believe you’ve been blessed with my affection if you stand there glaring at everything like the world pissed on your pillow.”
“What does that even—?”
Before he could finish the question, she closed the space between them, her hands sliding over his shoulders and her tits—holy fuck—her tits pressing firmly against his chest, so soft and ripe and full he felt like he might pass out. The blood rushed to his cock so fucking fast it left him dizzy. Actual dark spots blinked in front of his eyes for a second. Apparently, Dani’s chest was as dangerous as a spear tackle.
Made sense.
In that moment, everything inside Zaf—including the cold marble of worry that lived in his gut—got really still and really silent, really fucking quick.
An instant later, his body boomed back to life, every part of him hotter and harder than before. Raw, animal want ignited in his belly, spreading fiery
