The Perfect Bargain
by Jessa McAdams
Copyright © 2015 by Jessa McAdams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Chapter One
Sloane was ready. She knew what she had to do. She’d rehearsed in the tiny bathroom of the self-catering cottage she’d rented, and now all she had to do was walk into the Black Thistle and make the damn call. Simple.
And yet, she didn’t move.
She stood outside the whitewashed pub set against the blues and greens of the Scottish Highlands and surveyed its shabby appearance. It was a shame, really, because the pub could be so cute. Not in its current shape, no—the flower boxes beneath the windows were empty. The faded metal sign with The Black Thistle that hung perpendicular to the building creaked with every breeze. Rusted wrought iron chairs sat on an overgrown lawn, with an equally rusted table sitting lopsidedly between them.
Frankly, the pub was the perfect setting for a slasher movie.
Sloane couldn’t think about that. She had to make the call. She adjusted the messenger bag with her laptop over her shoulder and hesitated again. For the love of all that is holy, just do it.
What’s one big fat fraud between friends anyway?
She strode forward with determination, almost reaching the door before coming to a halt when a cow with shaggy hair moseyed around the corner and onto the flagstone path before her and began to eat the weeds.
What was it with the livestock in this town? It was maddening! For two weeks, every time Sloane tried to enter the Black Thistle there was a cow or sheep or some random dog guarding the door. Was it a Scottish thing? Or was it something peculiar to the little village of Gairloch?
The cow didn’t seem to notice her, intent as it was on eating the grass between the flagstones. Why didn’t someone just weed whack around here? Wouldn’t that be a whole lot easier than relying on livestock?
“Will you shoo?” she asked the cow, waving a hand at it.
The animal swung its head and stared at her with one enormous brown eye for a moment before returning to its grazing.
“Shoo,” Sloane said, a little more emphatically, waving with a little more enthusiasm.
The cow casually studied her as it chewed its cud.
Apparently, she’d have to resort to physical violence for the third time this week. “I said, shoo, you piece of leather,” she said, and slapped the cow on the rump.
The cow lurched forward a few steps into an overgrown kitchen garden and began to munch on the leaves of a cabbage.
“I’m not going to let anyone blame that one on me,” she said, pointing to the cow’s destruction, and stepped around the bovine’s back end and swishing tail to the door of the pub.
The Black Thistle was the only place in the quaint little sea village of Gairloch with both wifi and decent cell reception. Sloane had tried Padraig’s, the Italian restaurant in the local inn. They had wifi, but the cell phone reception was horrible. It was only at the Black Thistle, which sat up on a bit of a hill, that Sloane could get a signal all day long.
That she was even here in this backwater village was her own damn fault. In her eagerness to get away from her meddling, sometimes overbearing, we-know-what’s- best-for-you friends, Sloane had picked the most remotely populated place in all of Scotland for their summer trip. She thought the location might put them off, but no. Her friends would be arriving in two weeks.
But that still gave her plenty of time to pull off her plan.
She stepped into the pub and stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dingy light, wrinkling her nose at the pervasive smell of beer. It was two o’clock, and the regulars were already at the bar, hunched over their pints. Three of them turned in unison and, seeing it was just the uptight American, turned back to their ales.
The bartender was here, just as he was every day, polishing an empty spot on the bar and eyeing Sloane warily. She’d figured out that he was also the owner. Maybe because he was the only one whoever seemed to work here. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a head of thick, shaggy auburn hair and icy gray eyes. Today, he sported a shadow of a beard, and she idly wondered if he’d had a rough night. He lifted his chin toward the window and said in his deep Scottish brogue, “I thought we had that chat about beating the coos, did we no’?”
“Why don’t you go ahead and turn this place into a barn and be done with it?” Sloane tossed back, exasperated. That was the way it had gone the whole week with him—tit for tat. He seemed annoyed that she would come and sit at his table and use his wifi and order only tea. She was annoyed that he seemed to judge her by her drink of choice.
“I think I’ll give the pub business a go first,” he said. “What will it be today, your highness? Tea and crumpets?”
“Crumpets? That’s a definite improvement over yesterday’s offer of crackers.”
“No’ really. They’re still only crackers. I’m fancying them up for you.” He smiled. At least, Sloane thought it was a smile. It might have been more of a devilish smirk.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” she said pertly. She walked to her usual table in front of the window and pulled her laptop from her bag, then her notebook and her green pen that had been neatly stored in the built-in leather loops along with four more identical pens. She’d be working after she made The Call. There was so much to do—six-month progress reports, proposal reviews—she had a lot on her plate.
Sloane pulled out her phone and took a deep breath. She scrolled through her contacts. Of all her friends, Dylan was the one who had tried the hardest to fix Sloane’s life, going above and beyond the call of friendship...like way beyond. Frankly, the reason Sloane was forced to resort to any machinations at all was because Dylan would not let up.
Sloane hit the call button.
It took a moment for the connection to make, but when it did, Dylan picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” she said sleepily into the phone.
“Hey, did I wake you?” Sloane asked.
“Huh? Sloane? I can barely hear you.”
“I said, did I wake you?” Sloane repeated, loud enough that the three men at the bar turned and looked at her again.
“No. Well, maybe. Hey, I’m glad you called. I was going to call you later—”
“Guess what?” Sloane blurted, needing to get this over with. “I met him.”
That was not exactly what she’d rehearsed, but she’d go with it.
“Met who?” Dylan asked through a yawn.
“Are you kidding?” Sloane said. “Have you forgotten the reason you’re all following me to Scotland?”
“Speak up, I can’t hear you,” Dylan said.
“I said, I met him!” Sloane said again, a little louder than she intended. She glanced sidelong at the other patrons. No one was paying attention to her.
“Who?” Dylan asked. And then she suddenly gasped. “Ohmigod, tell me you met Gerard Butler. I love him. He’s gorgeous.”
“No, not—Listen.” Sloane had failed to factor in her friend’s tendency to wander off topic. She inched around in her chair so that she was facing the window. “I met my Jamie Fraser.” She tried to whisper that part, but it was more of a low shout.
“What? You’re kidding. When? Without us? Where? Details! Wait—you don’t mean the guy that plays Jamie Fraser on TV, do you? Cuz you’ll have to get in line to tap that, according to Us Weekly.”
Sloane rolled her eyes heavenward at her friend’s enthusiasm for celebrity gossip and the actor who played the hunky seventeenth century Scot on the hit television show, Outlander. “No, silly—someone like him.”
“This is so exciting! Where?” Dylan asked.
“Hiking.”
There was a pause. “Hiking. Hmm. That doesn’t seem like you,” Dylan said thoughtfully.
“That’s what you do here,” Sloane insisted. If this lie was going to work, she was clearly going to have to sell it harder. “Seriously, I’m learning to love the outdoors.” Which was half true.
Dylan was right. She wasn’t the hiking type, but she’d taken some very long and meandering walks along the shoreline since she’d arrived in Gairloch. This wasn’t exactly a hotbed of single female activity. Or any activity. She’d been walking a lot and she even liked it sometimes. When it wasn’t raining sideways, or a stiff breeze wasn’t knocking her over, and she’d not stepped in anything mushy or been attacked by rogue farm stock. Otherwise, it was magical.
“Okay, so tell me everything, and don’t leave out a word,” Dylan said eagerly.
Sloane did just that. She laid out the imaginary meeting of the guy her friends were so desperate to set her up with, and thereby set into motion the plan she’d been working on for weeks.
Sloane was generally very honest. But broken engagements did funny things to friends, especially when a wedding dress was involved. That Sloane already had hers when Adam broke up with her seemed to make his leaving that much more egregious. And because Sloane had been a wreck, her best friends insisted she be the first one to move on and show Adam what he’d lost.
Turned out, Adam was the first to move on. Within a month. To Cassie Vandermeem, a Chicago socialite and probably a bitch. Not that there was anything wrong with that.
After her friends threw her a cheer-Sloane-up party that degraded into a screw-Adam-drink-a-thon and ended with a sobbing Sloane cutting up Adam’s remaining clothes into Barbie ensembles, her best friends of fifteen years were on a mission to help her move on to Mr. Better Man.
At first, Sloane had gone along with it, but the guys they’d fixed her up with were so not her type. So she’d tried to slow things down. She thought she’d found an opportunity when they were all gathered at Paige’s apartment for their weekly viewing of Outlander, their do-not-miss time together. Sloane told them what she really wanted was a Jamie Fraser. “You know, a real man.”
“Except that he’s totally fictional,” Paige had pointed out.
“I mean a guy who is all brawn, and fiercely protective of his family...and great in the sack.”
Paige snorted. “In Chicago? Those guys aren’t in Chicago.”
“No, wait. Maybe they are,” Dylan said, looking far too enthused. “I bet we could find one if we put our minds to it.”
Sloane had laughed at them. “You’ll never find Jamie Fraser in Chicago,” she’d scoffed. And that, she realized much later, was her unwitting throw of the gauntlet. Because her friends were on a mission to find a Highland hero through Tinder, Match.com, Twitter, and, God help her, Instagram.
She’d begged them to stop, but the more she’d begged, the more convinced they were that it was exactly what she needed. When Victoria found a Scots ex-pat group and insisted that they all attend a meeting, Sloane had tried to deflect the idea with an airy, “Can’t.”
“Why not?” Victoria had asked.
“Because I am going to Scotland this summer,” she’d blurted. “I’m going right to the source.” Of course, she’d had no intention of setting foot on this soil, but she’d hoped a red herring would buy her some time. She should have remembered she’d never really been that lucky.
Victoria had gasped with delight. “O-M-G, why didn’t we think of that? We can all go—”
“I don’t know when, exactly,” a panicky Sloane said.
“We’ll make it work,” Victoria eagerly agreed. “Yes, let’s do it! Let’s go to Scotland.”
Sloane was horrified. She could picture the old, have- you-met-my-friend-Sloane routine being played out in pubs across Scotland... Oh hell no.
When it became clear her friends were going to Scotland or bust, Sloane conceived a new plan during one long bubble bath. She would suggest that she fly to Scotland a little early and set up a rental cottage for them. A place in the Highlands, which would sound dreamy to her friends, but where Sloane knew there would be fewer men for them to sort through and catalogue.
Once there, she’d give it a week or two then announce that she’d met the guy, The One, the Jamie Fraser from Outlander they all swooned over. Two weeks later, when her friends arrived, Sloane would have broken up with the phantom Jamie. Naturally, her heart would be broken, and naturally, her friends would let it go. How could they not? Her plan was a little devious and a lot perfect. Game, set, and match.
When Sloane finished spinning that tale, Dylan said, “This is perfect. Does he have any friends? Never mind, we’ll find out in a few days.”
“That’s right, only two more weeks,” Sloane said, looking at her watch. Now that this was done, she really had to get to work. She glanced down at the notepad in front of her and saw loopy hearts she hadn’t realized she’d doodled all over the page. She started crossing out each and every annoying image.
“No, in a few days,” Dylan corrected. “I was going to call and tell you.”
Sloane’s stomach did a crazy little flip and her pen froze mid-cross. “Tell me what?”
“We changed our flights. Remember that teaching job I applied for? If I get it, it starts in August. So I should get back sooner. And Paige and Tori and I had drinks, and I was telling them about it, and they said, let’s go early! So we’re flying into Glasgow on Thursday. Surprise!”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Sloane didn’t like surprises. She hated surprises. Her pulse began to race and there was a strange buzzing in her ears. “Wait, what? You’re coming Thursday?”
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Dylan exclaimed. “We can meet him! What’s his name? Should we bring something from Chicago for him? Like...well, I don’t know what.”
“No.” This was a disaster. A complete and utter disaster. Sloane dropped the pen on the offending page and dropped her head on her hand. Her perfect, beautiful lie was unraveling before her eyes. “Are you coming to Gairloch on Thursday? Because, you know, you could hang out and see Glasgow, and then Inverness—”
“Oh no, lets do that together,” Dylan said. “We’ll be there Thursday afternoon. We’re taking the bus, can you believe it?”
Jesus, today was Sunday. Sunday! Sloane needed more time than that. This was a nightmare—she’d just told the biggest lie of her life, and what, now she would have to tell Dylan it was a lie? No way—she needed to find her damn Jamie Fraser. Fast.
“Oh, geez, I almost forgot. There is something I need—”
“That’s great, I’m so excited,” Sloane said quickly. “So listen, I have to run.”
“Why, is Jamie there?”
“Yep. Right here. Text me when you land.”
“Okay, but—”
“I’ll email you directions to the cottage. This is so great,” Sloane said, trying not to sound panicky. “Talk soon.” She hung up before her friend could ask more questions, threw her phone into her messenger bag, and stared at the dusty picture of a bagpiper on the wall. She was so screwed.
What about her carefully constructed, bulletproof plan? She felt like a fool for having just told Dylan that extravagant story. If they found out what she’d done, they would redouble their efforts. They would read some psychological trauma into it—which, in all honesty, Sloane hadn’t completely ruled out herself, hello—and believe the only cure for her was to find a real man.
Well then, she was just going to have to find a real Jamie Fraser and then stage a break-up just as they got here. She sat back up quickly. That was it. A whirlwind romance, a big let down, and then, of course, they’d need to get out of here and go nurse poor Sloane’s wounds. Preferably at the spa resort she’d found and pointed out to them. Turned out, it was just over the hills.
Okay. Sloane took a breath. First things first: find the right guy.
She turned to review the bar patrons for potential Jamies. There was the really big guy, a daily regular, who sat like Jabba the Hut on the same barstool every day, his brogue so thick that Sloane never understood a word he was saying. That could come in handy. Then there was Mr. Andrews, who had stopped by her table the first day to say hello. He was old enough to be her grandfather so he was out. Ned, the lech-y one, leered at her breasts every chance he got and, if she hadn’t imagined it, reached for her ass on one occasion. The thought of giving him any license to get grabby made her cringe.
No, no, and definitely not.
Down at the other end of the bar, washing mugs, was the annoying bar owner. Sloane cocked her head to one side to consider him. He didn’t have classic good looks; he was more rugged than that. His hair was never combed, his face shaved only every third day or so, and he had an undeniably smoking hot body. He looked like what she envisioned the Vikings who invaded Scotland a million years ago to have looked like—rough and manly. She pictured him in a fur, carrying a sword, his wild hair sporting a braid like a Viking, and the tiniest shiver shot through her.
Even better, she could actually understand him when he spoke, which she couldn’t say for everyone in this village. She very clearly understood him when he told her this
wasn’t a restaurant with a fancy tea service. Or, as far as he knew, loos needed only a throne and a wee bit of paper to be considered “functional.”
And...considering the sorry state of the bar, she figured he could use some extra money. She couldn’t help the slight curve upward at the corners of her mouth. Yes, this just might work.
She swung all the way around to face the bar and crossed her legs, examining the bartender on a scale of one to ten— Jamie Fraser being a ten, and your average guy a five—and this guy was a nine. He might need a little polish, but he could work. The problem would be convincing him. He struck her as stubborn. More so than the damn cow outside.
She really didn’t have time to debate it. Desperation was driving her now, and Sloane stood up and sauntered over to the end of the bar where he was working.
He spared her a glance as he set soapy mugs on a drain board. “Tea’s brewing, lass. Afraid we’re fresh out of china, however.”
He’d definitely had his nose out of joint since the first day she’d refused his offer of whisky. “I never drink that,” she’d said, as if he’d been offering her a can of oil. She hadn’t meant to offend; she’d just meant she’d be on the floor if she drank it.
“That’s okay,” she said airily. “I didn’t think china had miraculously appeared on the supply boat. But I still think it’s a good idea to have some around. You know, just in case a woman ever steps foot in here. Which is why I still think flowers and scented candles in the bathroom are a good idea.”
“And the luncheons,” he said. “Donna forget what a brilliant idea you thought that was.”
Well? She got hungry and there was nothing to eat here during the day but a communal bowl of nuts.
“So what helpful suggestion do you have for us today, your highness?”
“No suggestion. I thought I would...have a whisky,” she said brightly.
He paused, up to his elbows in sudsy water, and looked at her. “A whisky,” he repeated skeptically.
“Yes, please.”
He withdrew his arms, folding them across his chest without concern for getting wet. “What kind, then?”
There were kinds? “Jameson,” she said, grabbing at the first thing that came to mind.
“A fine whisky I’m sure, but an Irish one. I donna serve Irish whisky here. Try again.”
“Umm...McAllister?”
“I’ll assume you mean Macallan.”
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“Hmm.” His gaze flicked over her. He said nothing as he walked down the bar and lifted a bottle off a glass shelf. He picked up a highball glass, poured some of the contents into it, then walked back and slid the highball across the bar to her. “Slàinte,” he said and turned away.
“Wait—”
The bartender sighed and shot her a droll look. “I told you, lass, sandwiches only after five.”
He reached for the bowl of nuts, but Sloane quickly threw up her hand to stop him. As if she’d ever dip her hand into a bowl that had seen the hands of every Scotsman this side of Inverness. “No, thank you. I was hoping...the thing is...”
He arched one dark brow high above the other.
She swallowed as heat crawled up her neck. Jesus, this was going to be harder than she’d thought. She nervously fidgeted with the short strand of pearls around her neck. “I have a proposition for you,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve.
“Do you, now,” he said and turned fully toward her, his gaze slowly moving down her body, to her chest.
She refused to acknowledge the tingling in her belly and lifted her chin. “Not that kind of proposition.”
“Pity,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “What’s the proposition, then? Bangers and eggs for a breakfast crowd?”
She sighed, slightly annoyed. “What I said was that you could get a breakfast crowd that way. But no, not that.”
“Dancing in the evenings?”
His gray eyes, she noticed, were actually lovely when they were shining with sarcasm. “I never said that, but it’s not a bad idea.”
“It’s as barmy as the rest of them. Let’s have it—what’s your proposition?”
Sloane took a drink of the whisky and tried not to wheeze as it burned down her throat. “An offer to help you,” she said hoarsely.
“Donna drink it like water,” he said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “More help, is it? You’re quite full of it, are you no’?”
Sloane squirmed a little and put down the glass. “I have a lot of money,” she blurted.
He looked stunned. She felt stunned. Who said something like that? It had come out all wrong. “That is not what I meant,” she said with a shake of her head. “I am trying to say that maybe we can help each other, and I’m good for it. My name is Sloane Chatfield.” Boy, she was butchering this every which way. Was it the whisky that was settling like fire in her belly?
He looked at her blankly.
“As in Chatfield paper products?” Surely he knew the name on every ream of paper sold in North America and the UK.
But the bartender made no sign of recognition. He looked at her as if he suspected she was crazy. Which, admittedly, was a fair assessment thus far. “Maybe you’ve heard of the Chatfield Foundation?” she asked hopefully. “We grant hundreds of thousands to worthy causes every year.”
Nothing. The man gave her nothing.
“Well, okay, I guess that’s not important,” she said, waving her hand at her family wealth. “My point, which I am obviously making very badly, I think because of your whisky, is that I need help, and I think you can help me, and if I paid you, you could put the money to good use—”
“I will ignore your slight of my whisky one time. And what do you need help with?” He leaned against the bar, crossing his arms across his broad chest again. He smelled like freshly mowed grass and horses and something that made her think of sex.
Sloane shook the annoying scent from her head and tried to find the words to explain her predicament without sounding desperate. “Here’s the thing. I have these friends coming to Gairloch. There are four of us and we all go waaaay back,” she said, gesturing lamely behind her, as if he could see her past stretching out like a ribbon of awkward moments, bad hairdos, and a few face plants into pints of ice cream. “Like their parents know my parents and we practically grew up together. At least Paige and Tori and I did, then we met Dylan at Mount Holyoke and—”
“Hurry it along, lass.”
She fidgeted with her necklace again. “Fine. This is going to sound weird,” she said, conceding that point before he could make it, and took a last, desperate sip of whisky and wheezed, “but I need someone to be my boyfriend.”
His eyes widened.
“And then break up with me,” she quickly added. “A big, splashy break-up. Just for a few days. See? Not so bad.”
“No’ so bad?” He cocked one brow in disbelief. “No. Bloody hell, no.” He shook his head emphatically and started toward the other end of the bar.
“What if I offered you two thousand dollars?” Sloane offered hastily.
That certainly caught his attention. He slowly turned back and stared at her. “Are you mad? Have you escaped from a lunatic’s asylum? Or are you just daft?”
“I most certainly am not. I have my reasons, but you really don’t need to understand them to agree to this.”
He suddenly strode back to where she stood and leaned across the bar, his gray eyes boring into hers. “No,” he said. “No’ now, no’ ever. Take your madness somewhere else, lass.”
Wow, he was so adamant. “Is it because you have a girlfriend?” Sloane asked curiously. “It’s the redhead, isn’t it? The girl who brings bread?”
He stared at her in bafflement. “No.”
“I’m just asking,” Sloane said. “She seems totally into you.” That girl was so into him, she’d probably kill a unicorn to get him naked. “So if that’s not it, why won’t you help me?”
“By God, you are mad. What, then—you propose that I magically wake up one day in this wee bit of village with a new girlfriend, and a foreign one at that?”
“Come on, haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?” Sloane tried.
“Aye, and I’ve heard of trolls and fairy tales, too.”
“I’ve been in here every day. We could explain it that way, right? Who knows what happens after hours?”
“I know what happens after hours. I work after hours. We willna be explaining anything,” he said, gesturing between them. “I donna have time to play act with a rich American girl with nothing better to do than think of barmy lies and waste everyone’s time.”
“I am going to let that go,” Sloane said, her ire only barely controlled. She hadn’t suggested they rob a bank for heaven’s sake.“Because I get that this must seem a little cray- cray to you. But all I’m asking is a couple of appearances as my boyfriend,” she stubbornly continued. “Act lovey-dovey with me after my friends get here, and then, after a couple of days of make believe, I dump you.” She thrust her arms out, palms up, to indicate how simple it was.
He stared at her. He opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it. Then managed to sputter “Why?”
“Why?” She thought about that a moment. “I think the easiest reason would be to say that you cheated.”
“I donna mean why—” His face darkened dangerously as her words sank in. “I donna cheat.”
“Okay,” she said quickly. “I’ll think of a plausible reason to dump you. Maybe you drink too much.”
He stared at her, his gaze piercing her so completely that he could probably read the tag on her bra. “Forgetting for a moment that I’d never do such a thing, no’ in your wildest dreams... Who says you are to dump me?” He sounded as if he was trying very hard to keep from shouting.
“Obviously because I am the one paying for it,” Sloane said. “Two thousand dollars at that.”
“Only two?” He snorted. “Have you looked in the mirror, then, Miss Prim?”
Sloane gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think you’re some great prize?”
His mouth curled up in one corner, and Sloane couldn’t help noticing that in addition to lovely eyes, he also had some very nice lips when they weren’t smirking. The bastard.
“Sorry, love—but if we were the last two people on earth, I’d definitely dump you.”
Sloane tried not to take offense. But she did. He was so adamant that an old wound in her opened a little, and she was more than a little self-conscious. She took another burning gulp of whisky and felt the fire spread through her veins. And still, it didn’t burn away the image of Adam. “You’re too hard, Sloane.”
While that unpleasant memory danced around in her brain, the bartender cocked a brow, silently daring her to disagree with him.
“All I’m asking for is a few days of your self-proclaimed superior company in exchange for some cash,” she said curtly, all business. “It’s not that hard.”
“It appears I’ve ruffled the bird’s feathers,” he said lightly. His gaze drifted to her mouth, and to her neck, and down to her breasts, which Sloane liked to lock up tighter than Fort Knox with her clothing. “Desperate, are you?”
She snorted. “I wouldn’t say I’m desperate...”
He frowned skeptically.
“Okay, only a little.”
“Aye, as I thought. What do you want, exactly?”
“I told you. A boyfriend-girlfriend situation. You’ve at least had a girlfriend right? You sort of know how it goes?”
He chuckled. “I’ve had many, lass,” he said in a voice that dripped like honey down her spine. “How lovey-dovey?” He leaned over the bar and reached for her hand. “Is there hand-holding?” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Is there kissing? Anything to make it a wee bit pleasurable for me?”
The touch of his warm, wet lips to her skin turned Sloane’s mind to mush. She couldn’t take her eyes from his mouth, his enormous hand holding hers. “Umm...some of that,” she said uncertainly.
The bartender was clearly beginning to enjoy himself. He let go her hand, folded his arms on top of the bar, and fixed his sultry gaze on hers. “Some of what, exactly?”
“Some of what you said.” Why couldn’t she look somewhere other than his mouth?
“Perhaps we ought to start with the basics, aye? How much are you willing to pay for a kiss?”
“What?” She had an insane urge to touch his lips. “Two thousand dollars.”
“You offered two thousand dollars to dump me. It will cost you more if you want a kiss.”
He smiled. Not completely, but in a way that made Sloane feel a tiny bit overheated. It was bananas, but she could almost feel his kiss, the press of that lush mouth against hers, especially when he was looking at her all Highland sexy and totally kissable. “I have to pay you more?” she repeated, a little dazed.
“Aye. One hundred ought to do it.”
“That is outrageous,” she said, dangerously distracted by his broad chest. “What if I kiss you?”
He chuckled. “You willna kiss me.” He made a vague gesture to the back of his head. “A little too prim for it, aye?”
Was he talking about her hair? She clipped it back to keep it out of her eyes, thank you. “I’m not prim,” she said, defensively, and all the mushy softness in her began to firm up.
“Well then, if you’re no’ as prim as you look, you may kiss me for free. I’ll allow it once or twice. But if I must put forth the effort to kiss you, it’s one hundred.”
Sloane thought she ought to feel outraged by the idea that she would have to pay someone to kiss her, but she recognized that her bargaining position was not great. “One hundred dollars?” she said incredulously. “For a stupid kiss?”
“My kisses are no’ stupid, lass—they’ll melt your knees. And no’ dollars, aye? Pounds.” He leaned across the bar. “And if I use my tongue, it’s one fifty,” he added with a roguish wink.
A shock of anticipation raced through Sloane’s veins as she imagined his tongue in her mouth. And in her... “You’re unbelievable,” she murmured. His eyes were the gray of the mist that settled on the hills every morning. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
“I’m unbelievable?” He laughed. “Have you no’ heard a word you’ve said, lass? Now then—what about sex?”
Another, stronger shiver raced up Sloane’s spine. This man was actually making her blood run hot. Boiling hot. And yet, she heard herself say, “There won’t be any sex,” like a Puritan.
“No? No’ much a girlfriend then, are you?” He smiled.
“It’s all pretend, remember?”
“Ah, so pretend sex as well,” he said, nodding, clearly enjoying making her squirm. “Let’s suppose that I desire to peek under the hood,” he said, gesturing to her buttoned up blouse. “And let’s suppose that you enjoy it—which really goes without saying,” he added with alarming confidence. “How much do you propose to pay me then?”
“Oh my God.” Sloane was feeling completely flushed now. She was surprised she wasn’t openly perspiring. “Do you honestly think you’re all that? Newsflash, Braveheart, guys like you are a dime a dozen. Just forget I said anything. I’ll find someone else.”
He shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“I will.”
“Go on, then. Find your Prince Charming.”
“I’m not looking for a Prince Charming. I’m looking for a fake boyfriend. Those are two vastly different things.”
He laughed and picked up a towel. “Whatever you say. Good luck to you, Miss Prim.”
“Stop calling me that.” Sloane turned away from him and surveyed the other patrons—the three men at the bar, and a couple who had wandered in and taken seats at the table beside Sloane’s. Damn it, this was never going to work. She hadn’t seen anyone in Gairloch who could possibly do this. The bartender was her only alternative on such short notice.
She stared hard at the lech at the bar who was openly gazing at her chest. Hell. She glanced over her shoulder at the most annoying man in the world. “All right,” she said.
“Pardon?” he asked, without looking up from drying his mugs. “Did you say something? I donna believe I heard you properly.”
“I said all right.”
He winked at her and grinned. “They always come round, aye? Very well then—how much for sex?”
Sloane was fairly certain she hated him in that moment. “In the extremely and highly unlikely event that happens, I will add one hundred,” she snapped.
He chortled at that. “You’re a funny one. Do you know how many women want to bring me to their bed? Five hundred pounds and no’ a pence less.”
“Fine, all right, all right,” she said, not wishing to humiliate herself further by negotiating the price for him having sex with her. “How many, anyway?”
“How many what?”
“Women. You asked if I knew how many women want to, ah, bring you to...” She made a sliding motion with her hand to indicate a bed.
“Today? Only one that I know of,” he said, and arched a brow in her direction.
Sloane gasped. She was about to tell him to forget the whole damn thing when he added,“You’re a poor negotiator, lass. You might have had me for two fifty.” He laughed again.
She could hardly speak. The man was cocky and full of himself and probably a prick to boot. His only saving grace was that he was super hot. Sloane could put up with a lot from a man if he was super hot. “Do we have a deal or not?”
“Aye, why no’?” he said jovially. “But donna you want to know my name before we shake on it?”
“What is it?”
“I’m Galen. Galen Buchanan. And who do I have the pleasure of taking to bed, again? Because we both know I will.”
Well, forget clinging to the tattered shreds of her dignity. Sloane was certain that her face was fire engine red. “We don’t know any such thing. And my name is Sloane Chatfield.” She yanked on her cardigan, pulling it over her hips. “I’ll draw up some papers.”
“Papers.”
“Yes, papers. Every good business arrangement is documented.”
“You draw up whatever you like,” he said indulgently, then cast one slow, sexy smile that Sloane knew was designed to make women drop to their knees and blow him. She imagined it had worked like a charm in the past. She tried to think of something to say to him, something to put this appalling bargain in its proper place, to remind him she was only doing this to save face with her friends, but she couldn’t think of a word. So she pivoted about and marched to the table, clumsily gathered up her things, and fled the pub for the cottage on the hill.
She didn’t know how she might have possibly made her fraud any worse than it already was, but she was fairly certain she’d done just that.
And for that, she blamed her friends. She was going to get new friends, just as soon as this little jaunt through Scotland was over.
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