Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (bts books to read TXT) 📕

and I are besties, and she knew nothing about you until that first day. So what is it? I haven’t been able to come up with a damn thing.”

My first reaction is to play it off, be evasive. She goes over to the bed and sits down, pulling her legs up to her chest and looking at me with a wide, trembling gaze.

I want to lie, but the way she’s looking at me is like a mute, desperate plea for some sort of truth, some way to understand in this world of lies. She’s drowning. I’m telling her that I demand to go through with a sham marriage after a sham week. As much as we’ve gotten to know each other, as much time as we’ve spent over the past week, I know she’ll know if I’m lying.

I can’t do it. I won’t lie. “I lost to him in a game of poker.”

“A game of poker?” She furrows her brow. “You’re doing this over a game of poker? Are you fucking nuts?”

I lick my lips. I hate to say this. “I wish it were that simple, that I’m insane. But it’s more than that. He beat me out of a little more than half a million dollars.”

The breath escapes her in surprise. “No wonder you agreed to do this,” she says when she regains her voice. She shakes her head angrily, then looks at me with venom in her smile. “Gavin fucking owns your soul, doesn’t he? So this whole week, you’ve been just trying to do what he asked, and I know what he asked of you. He said to show me a good time, be everything I could dream of. Be the perfect fiancé, and by God, you did it!”

“I agreed to be your fiancé,” I agree. “But since then—”

“So you telling me you loved me the other night, that was just part of you trying to get your half mil back, wasn’t it? I was such a fool. I even started to get lost in the whole damn thing. I was beginning to believe it. But now I know. This whole thing has been fucking fake. How much was that I love you worth, huh? A hundred thousand? Two?”

Anger tightens my chest. It’s like she’s accusing me being some sort of gigolo, a whore doing this for money, when she was the one who wanted and needed someone. “Isn’t that what this is supposed to be? Fake. Why are you acting like it was supposed to be anything else?”

I know my words are angry and hurtful, but I speak before I think. I’m out of control, the pain too damn much. “I did my job, Princess.”

She hangs her head, tears streaming down her cheeks to drip onto her thighs like diamonds on caramel. “You heartless son of a bitch.”

“You’re going to call me names now? I’ll let you fucking know that I have more than enough money. Losing that much is never fun, but I didn’t need that money, Mindy. And I told Gavin to kiss my ass with his request and was just going to pay up until I saw . . .” my voice trails off, my voice blocked again.

“Saw what?” she asks, getting off the bed to look in my face. She’s hopeful, I can see it, but I’m too afraid of what I’m trying to say.

Instead, I swallow it all back, forcing it into the depths of my stomach where it sits like a sour pill, roiling and churning at my gut. “Nothing. You have no right to be mad. Yeah, at first I was doing this because of money, but all of that changed when I got to know you. I’ve had a good time, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t supposed to be real at first.”

She crosses her arms, scowling at me.

“It’s the truth. I don’t make up lies to save my ass.” Fuck. I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. I wish like hell I could take them back. “I didn’t mean—”

Mindy’s hand lashes out, unthinking and fueled by the hurt and shame that’s boiling inside her. She hits me with every ounce of fury in her tiny body, probably even before she knows she’s doing it, whipping my face to the side.

“I hate you!” she hisses, spit flying from her curled lips to splatter on my cheeks. Her manicured nails, shaped and done just for the wedding today, slide down my face as she pulls away, and I feel red hot fire as they almost break my skin. “Fuck you!”

It doesn’t really hurt . . . stings a little, but not truly painful. What hurts more are the words, and anger boils up within my stomach. She hates me? She thinks I don’t fucking care about her? When I’m willing to go through this whole charade for her and even do this sham wedding?

“Fuck me, Princess?” I hiss, grabbing her by the arms. “Whatever you might think, that wasn’t part of the deal. I could have slept on the fucking floor this past week. So if anyone wants to talk about fucking, it should be you, because you’ve loved every damn minute of it!”

“You fucking . . .” Mindy rasps furiously, but I cut her off by pulling her into me and smashing my lips into hers in an angry kiss. For a moment, she resists, but then she seems to melt into me.

“Fucking?” I growl when we pull back, my hand wrapped in her hair. Her green eyes are blazing in want and fury as I push her onto the bed, grabbing her t-shirt and pulling. It tears like tissue paper, and her lithe, sexy body tenses as she pants. “I’m going to show you fucking.”

“Asshole.” Mindy hisses like a cat as I pounce on her. I pin her arms above her head in one powerful hand, giving her another bruising, battling kiss before I use my free hand to maul her breasts,