Page 36 of Fiancé for Hire
It was already going to be hard to resist his sweet kisses while pretending they were engaged. There was no way they could add sex to the equation without her falling for him headfirst.
The bathroom door opened, and Drevon exited the same way he’d gone in there—gloriously naked.
This man’s body was truly a work of art. He deserved whatever millions he was getting paid to model. Wide shoulders. Broad chest. Muscular pecks. Impressive biceps. There was no fat nowhere. The man was a god.
And when her gaze dropped lower to his semi-erection, she swallowed hard.
“We can’t have sex again,” Antika blurted, and he pulled up short before he reached the bed. “I’m not even sure if I can handle kissing you while we’re engaged,” she continued.
He started moving again and climbed under the covers next to her. “Seriously? You kiss me senseless and used my body for your pleasure all night, and now you tell me we can’t do it again?” he said, his lips quirking as if trying not to smile.
“I’m serious, Dre. We have to keep things platonic going forward. Remember, our engagement is temporary. After that, we go back to our old lives. No sense in making things harder for either of us when it’s all over.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled her close and wrapped his arm around her. Reluctantly, she settled her head on his chest and snuggled against him.
Cuddling with him was a bad idea, but she couldn’t help it. He was so warm and when he held her like this, she felt treasured…and protected. Though she shouldn’t get used to it, she might as well enjoy it for the night.
They lay there in silence for the longest until she said, “Tell me what happened between you and Kendall. Why did you two break up.”
“Damn, babe. Way to ruin the mood,” he said it jokingly, but he eased his arm from around her and slid it behind his head.
Antika pulled the sheet securely over her breast and raised up on her elbow to stare down at him. “At least tell me what the final straw was that made you break things off with her.”
“She wanted me to marry her, and I couldn’t.” He released a rough sigh. “I didn’t love her. Hell, I didn’t even like her, especially toward the end. We were only together a few months, and even during that time, we didn’t see much of each other because of our work schedules.
“One night, when I was in New York, I stopped by her apartment. I had to break things off, and I didn’t want to do it over the phone.”
“Such a gentleman,” Antika said, and he chuckled.
“I told her that there was no future for us. That we weren’t a good fit, and she lost it. Started cursing me out and throwing things around her apartment. The angrier she got, the louder she got and before I knew it, we were in a heated argument. One of her neighbors called the cops. When they showed up, she was still riled up, and told them that I had thrown a lamp at her.”
Antika gasped. “Seriously?” She didn’t know Drevon well, but she knew that he’d never do something like that.
“Yeah. They believed her and hauled my ass off to jail. I spent the night in county lockup. By the time I bailed out the next morning, she had spread lies about me on social media. So much so that I had my lawyer file a suit against her for defamation of character and anything else he could come up with.”
“Did that work?”
“Yes, but the damage had been done. I was crucified on the internet until my publicist came up with a game plan to discredit her. This happened over eight months ago, and it wasn’t until recently that we settled out of court.”
“I’m sorry, Dre. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you. I love that celebrities allow us to see inside their lives. Yet, I know it must be hell when negative stuff is leaked out and the public starts weighing in.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. Which is why I returned to Atlanta with every intention of laying low for a while.” He looked at her pointedly and smiled.
Antika grinned. “Yeah, and then I came along and messed everything up.”
Before he could respond, her cell phone ding, and Antika frowned. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Way too late to receive a text message. It dinged several more times, and then Drevon’s phone vibrated with several incoming text messages.
They both sat up and snatched their phones from the nightstand.
“Oh, no,” Antika breathed, horrified by the photo that Tamera had found on social media.
It wasn’t a bad picture; as a matter of fact, it was sexy.
But it was a picture of her and Drevon kissing on the dance floor.
More photos came through the text messages of them laughing and dancing at Tamera’s party, looking like they were having a good time.
Her friend had also sent a couple of links to social media sites that led to posts. Each one had numerous hashtags attached to them, and though the photos hadn’t gone viral, according to Tamera, there were a ton of comments.