“Did you hear something?” I asked, rising up from the bed.

Tilting her head, she looked back at her door and listened. “I’m not hearing anything.”

“Sounded like someone opened a door. Who’s home? I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about this. I got my warning right before he dropped me off.”

“Marcus isn’t in and Char is not feeling well. Last I checked she was sleeping.”

I relaxed. “Still, let’s keep it down.”

“This fake marriage, this is your opportunity, Olive. This is your chance to make him fall in love with you.”

“I’m not sure if we are still talking about the same thing here.”

“Look,” she started in her, ‘I’m a very patient person’ tone. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you? Always have been, and I believe, always will be. I saw those photos, Olive. He is into you. You can’t fake that kind of chemistry. Okay, maybe he is not in love, at least not yet. I’ll give you that much. But you have to give yourself a chance. You said you’ll be living with him for crying out loud. What more do you want?”

My reluctance already dissolving, I turned my hopeful eyes up to Lucy. “You’re right. I know you are right. I want to marry the fuck out of him. But he is also the fucking Jason Thorn, Lucy. If he was a normal guy, just working a normal job, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. But he is Jason Thorn. I mean, he could do much better than me.”

She smiled. “But he chose you, didn’t he? And what the hell, let’s say it didn’t work out. What do you have to lose? Your next ten books are already bestsellers if you marry the guy.”

“Why are you the second person to say that to me tonight?” Falling back on her bed, I released a long breath. “I want to marry him so bad, Lucy.”

Lucy climbed up and lay down next to me.

“What’s holding you back?”

“I think I’m scared. To be that close to him, to fall in deeper. He already broke my heart once when I was just a kid, and he didn’t even know he was breaking it. This time around he’ll ruin me.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to clear my mind. “I came this close to jumping on him and holding on for dear life.” I lifted my hand and gestured how much with two of my fingers.

Turning on my side, I looked at Lucy. “Did I ever tell you that I asked him to marry me? The first day I saw him at our house? When I was eight years old.”

She propped herself up on one elbow and studied my face. “Nope. Tell me now.”

I recounted everything I could remember from that day. “Even I had forgotten about that, but apparently he still remembers.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I think I’m going to say yes.”

“Damn right you are!”

“Should I text him or something?”

She chuckled and whacked a pillow on my face. “No dumbass. Let him think about you until he hears back. You’ll tell him tomorrow.”

I pushed the pillow away from my face. “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Go to sleep?”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.”

“Do you want to make a plan?” Her eyes were twinkling with mischief.

“A plan for what?”

“A plan for how to make Jason Thorn fall in love with you.”

“I’ll pass.”

“But it’ll be fun!”

“I have no doubt about that, but I already have a plan.” Scooting down from the bed, I backed away toward the door. “I’ll just love him right to his face.”

“That’s my girl! Show ’em how it’s done.”

“If it all blows up in my face, you’ll help me pick up the bits and pieces of my heart, right?”

She jumped down from the bed and gave me a big hug.

“Hoes over bros. Always.”

“Great to hear. I’ll just go and try to calm down in my room.”

“I’m still gonna make a list of what you can do to him. Just in case you need it. There is this thing I do to Jameson that makes him extra, extra horn—”

“Okay, love you. Have a great night.”

Leaving Lucy’s room as quietly as possible, I lay down on my bed and watched the ceiling for hours before I finally fell asleep with a small smile etched on my face.

The mystery beauty is not a mystery anymore!

Ahhh, sorry ladies, looks like our very own sex god Jason Thorn is out of the sex pool for now.

You remember the mystery beauty he was caught with recently? She is not a mystery any more. We’ve learned that the strawberry blonde is Olive Taylor, a childhood friend of Jason who is also the author of the new New York Times Best Seller that is being adapted for the silver screen. Can you guess who the leading actor is? You guessed right! Jason Thorn will be taking on the role of Isaac, a troubled actor who reconnects with his first and only love who he left behind years before. Do you think Miss Taylor wrote the book to get her old friend’s attention? If so, it definitely seems to be working for her. After claiming the number one spot on every bestseller list, is she laying claim to our bad boy, too?

The couple, who have been the talk of the town this last week, were spotted at the exclusive hotspot, Soho House. According to our source, the pair had a lovely dinner together in the main dining area. “They were talking to each other with their eyes, and they were absolutely beaming with happiness. They were definitely on a date,” the source adds. “There is no way they are just friends. Their interaction was intense.”

The hunky star left Miss Taylor’s side only once, and that was to greet a group of business associates who were having dinner just a few tables away from them. The romantic outing ended early when Jason decided he couldn’t wait to finish his dinner, grabbed the bestselling author by her hand, and ran for the exit.

“It was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen in my life. One minute they were smiling at each other, sipping their cocktails, the next minute they were hand in hand running for the exit,” another onlooker said.

You think Jason is in love with his childhood friend? The people who watched their every move on the hot date seem to think so.

Do you think he’ll keep her? Will she be the pop to his sexy corn?

Chapter Eighteen Jason

“The damn bastards are quick,” I said after reading the article they had on us. I put the tablet on the table, next to my empty lunch plate. “The thing is, I have no idea who these onlookers are who watched yesterday. The way they are describing things…the only true thing on there is that I only left her side once. The rest is complete bullshit. We barely said a word to each other the entire meal.” I shook my head and reached for the French fries on Tom’s plate.

“The way they are telling the story works for you so I’d say stop complaining.”

Licking the salt on my thumb, I kept silent. I had made a fool of myself in front of Olive the night before. I’d thought I would breach the subject while we were having dinner, but for some reason it seemed wrong to ask Olive to marry me as if we were out on a business meeting. In the end I’d still fucked it all up, but at least we’d been alone when it happened. It wasn’t like it would have made a difference if I’d gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry me to save my career. There was no good way to ask someone to marry you so they could help you get out of the grave you’d dug yourself into.

Speaking of that, I still hadn’t heard back from Olive.

“She hasn’t answered yet. Don’t get too excited.”

“It’ll be a huge boost to her writing career. She’d be a fool not to say yes. It’ll change her life more than it’ll change yours,” Tom interjected.

“She is not like all these women you know,” I said, gesturing around the café.

“All these women?”

“You know, the women in this industry, or the models you seem to enjoy every now and then.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And can I ask what makes her so different?”