The green power smoothie in my hands falls to the floor of my tiny kitchen, the glass shattering on the tile and coating it with swampy goo as I gape at the TV.
Oh. My. God.
He didn’t.
He did.
Holy. Shit.
My cell phone rings, and I blindly grope the countertop for it. I don’t bother looking at the display. I know exactly who it is.
“Please don’t start screaming, Tana.”
Instead of the screeches I expect to hear, my friend speaks very calmly. “Holly, they’re talking about you on TV, but they don’t know they’re talking about you on TV.”
“Yeah. I figured that one out myself.”
“Please tell me you’re going to go,” she says.
“Are you serious?” I screech.
It was just supposed to be one night. A Christmas Eve fling. No one was supposed to know. Well, no one but me, the guy in question, and Tana, who demanded all the details when I told her I had a single amazing night with her potential backup husband.
“Holly—”
“What do you think would happen to my career if I did this?”
Tana is silent for a few beats before she answers. “It might be exactly what you need to get out of the disaster with JC. New Year’s Eve in New York, baby. You can go one way or the other.”
Holy crap, she’s right. But still . . .
“The label? My contract? What about those minor details?”
Homegrown will blackball me and find some way to slap me with a breach-of-contract suit if I don’t show up to this New Year’s Eve farce with JC and let him propose.
“Creighton Karas has enough money to buy your way out of your contract, if not the entire damn label. And he wants to marry you!”
I’m not sure why Tana is a dreamy-eyed romantic all of a sudden, but it’s misplaced. Either way, I’m now a cynical realist when it comes to things like my career.
Besides, Creighton Karas does not want to marry me because he’s in love with me. He’s probably in lust after all the things I let him do to me four days ago. All those things . . . I wasn’t even able to give Tana all the details because I was too dang embarrassed to put them into words.
My body heats just remembering. I’m still not sure where I found the courage.
Oh, that’s right—whiskey.
“He doesn’t want to marry me, he wants to marry my . . . pussy.” Crass, but it’s probably the truth. “With a prenup. And with his track record, that prenup is going to come into play sooner rather than later.”
After spending that night with him—the one where I left him buck naked and asleep in bed while I hopped in a cab to JFK, I did just the tiniest bit of research. All it took was one Google search to find out a heck of a lot.
Honestly, though, after reading the first few entries, I had to make myself stop. It didn’t matter because I was never going to see him again—not outside the zillions of pictures of him with other women. I also wasn’t the biggest fan of reading about his love ’em and leave ’em ways. Including his ex-wife, Shaw MacLeod, CEO of the chain of luxury MacLeod resorts.
“What the fuck ever,” Tana says. “Does it really make a difference? It’s Creighton Karas.”
“And I’m Holly Wix. I can’t take a chance this will blow up in my face, and I’ll never get to sing anywhere but the bowling alley on karaoke night again.”
Even though Monty said he’d screw my life over so badly I’d never even sing there again. Not singing isn’t an option. This is my life. My passion. Everything I have left in this world that truly matters. And because of that, I have to be smart.
“Lay it all out there when you go meet him,” Tana says. “See what he says. He’s already gone this far, so I doubt he’ll argue too much. He’s the one who’ll look like an idiot if this stunt of his doesn’t work. I think you’ve got leverage; you might as well use it.”
I think about her point. Leverage. That’s something I’ve never really had before. But still, the idea of marrying a guy I’ve met once? It’s insane. Certifiable. Almost as insane as the label thinking I should get engaged to JC.
Why do both of my options involve a diamond ring?
I squeeze my eyes shut, wanting to run back to a tour bus, climb on, and pretend none of this ever happened. I just want to sing, damn it.
“Holly? You still there?”
“Sorry, I’m . . . thinking.”
“What’s there to think about? Marry a billionaire with a giant cock, or get engaged to a has-been who will almost certainly ask you to try fucking him in the ass with a strap-on.”
“Tana! Jeez. Don’t ever say that.” But her blunt words give me more to think about. “I don’t even know the guy.”
“You don’t know either of them, but that didn’t stop you from sleeping with the oh-so-sexy Creighton Karas,” she unhelpfully points out.
I sigh. “You know why I did.”
“I know. But still, what do you have to lose?”
Everything, I want to say. But I don’t.
My first one-night stand, and the guy had to screw it up by telling the world through some PR stunt of a marriage proposal. I guess that’s what happens when you pick a demanding billionaire.
“You know what I do with naughty girls? Whatever I want.”
I still remember the conversation, and my nipples pucker in my bra. How can he still have this effect on my body? That can’t be normal.
“Holly?”
“I’m thinking.”