Page 96 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

She felt... Special. She felt like she was sparkling. Nothing had ever been like this before, and it was tempting, so tempting, to let herself get lost in the fantasy.

To let herself get lost in him. Especially when he closed his large, firm hand around hers and pulled her out of the car.

His touch made her flutter. She couldn’t deny that.

And then he looked at her and she... She melted. Inside.

She knew that it was a game. They’d just talked about how they both had the ability to hide themselves when they needed to. It should reinforce that this was fake and so were they, but it made her feel closer to him.

This man who was...only a day ago he’d been her boss. She’d watched him touch other women, but never her.

She’d never even let herself fantasize about it, and now here she was.

He was a force. It wasn’t a mystery why women flocked to him, but there was something more in this moment. In being next to him and being so aware of the heat of his body, the masculine scent of him.

And how this had never been her before.

She was the one who took care of people. Who arranged things. Organized them. She was like a very accomplished stapler.

She didn’t feel like a stapler, or wallpaper, or like a girl who had been stuck in her house for years taking care of her mother.

Right now, she felt like a woman.

That it was a game didn’t change that. If anything, itheightenedthe way she felt.

So far away from the girl she’d been. A woman who was sophisticated enough to play games with the world’s most renowned playboy.

She didn’t feel like Auggie, not right now.

She was Matias’s date.

He reached for her hand, and as his fingers wrapped around hers, her breath left her body in a gust.

She found herself relishing the feel of his touch. Rough hands, strong. His walk was sure and certain as he led her down the sidewalk to the restaurant. She looked to the left, and the right, she could see people taking photos of them with their cell phones. She didn’t see any paparazzi, as he had said.

“If there are official photographers it will take them a while to arrive. Though I have deliberately taken us to a high-profile place. Where there are certain to be many celebrities out and about, which means there will be paparazzi.”

Of course. It was a game, she knew that. In her sort of jack of all trades type of work, she had managed schedules, images and a great many other things. She didn’t know how every sausage was made, but the fact was, she knew that the world was primarily comprised of complex sausage. It didn’t just make itself. There were whole teams that were in charge of cultivating images, and making sure people were elevated in the right spaces and places. She just wasn’t used to being the sausage.

That metaphor had run itself out. But she was trying to distract herself. Trying to get a handle on her emotions. Because this wasn’t real.

Anyway, she had never wanted this. She had never needed this kind of fantasy. It wasn’t her. She didn’t harbor secret dreams of being Cinderella. She didn’t need that sort of thing.

Not even a little bit.

But it was a heady thing, feeling like she was part of this, even for a second. Having a man that looked like him on her arm. Yeah. It was a little bit more intoxicating than she would’ve imagined. She suddenly understood. Why women did this, even for a night. Nothing could’ve made her feel more beautiful than standing next to him, and she would’ve thought that it was quite the opposite. But no. To be seen as someone who was worthy of his attention... It was like a drug.

Powerful.

She hadn’t realized that she was susceptible to such things. She truly hadn’t.

But here she was, high on it and him. On feeling beautiful and shiny because she was in his orbit.

“You must endeavor to look happy,” he said.

It was funny that she didn’t look happy, because she was actually enjoying herself. “Iamhappy,” she said, looking up at him and smiling.

She knew that she had a very convincing smile, even when she was feeling other things. But she did feel happy now. It was just an enormous sort of happy that came with a weight, and an end point, and it made the happy feel weighted down. Sad at the same time as magical.