Excerpt of The Surrogate Husband by Wynter Daniels

Lucy folded her arms over her chest. “We can’t ask him to be my fake
husband. First of all, I haven’t agreed to play this game. Secondly,
Dex is my accountant, not my boyfriend. I hardly know him outside our
professional dealings. And I just met him in person for the first time
five minutes ago!”

“Let’s just ask him,” her mom said. “See if he’d even consider it.”

Through the door, Dex coughed loudly, as if to remind them he was
still waiting.

Lucy motioned toward the sound. “Come on. We can’t leave him out
there. He’s an important, busy man. I’m sure he has numbers to crunch
or something.” Swallowing hard, she pulled the door back open and
headed to the sales floor. And found Dex examining a pair of red lacy
crotch-less panties. He didn’t look in the least confused by them,
which sometimes happened to the more clueless men who came in to buy
something for their girlfriends or wives.

His gaze skimmed over her body so fast she wasn’t really sure she’d
seen it. Was he imagining her in those panties?

A warm flush started at her ears and worked its way down to her throat
and neck.

With a barely concealed amused expression on his face, he returned the
underwear to the display table. “Everything okay?”

Mom went over to him. “I…we…Lucy has a question for you.” Placing a
palm in the middle of Lucy’s back, she shoved her forward. Lucy
stumbled, righting herself just before she slammed into Dex’s broad
chest.

Coward.

A slow, sexy grin settled on his lips. “Something you want to ask me?”

Oh, God. Did he think she was going to ask him out? He did, she could
see it in his eyes. No one looked like he did and didn’t get regularly
propositioned by clients. Worst of all, the idea her mother wanted her
to propose was even more unprofessional than that.
Last thing she wanted was a man who was as orderly and mathematically
minded as Dex the accountant.

As her father. May his hyper-organized, abusive self remain far away
from her and her mom.

It didn’t matter that Dex was built like a linebacker and had a cleft
in his chin like Ben Affleck, or that he smelled like a redwood
forest. None of those things changed the fact that she went for
leather jackets, not leather briefcases.

He didn’t have a single tattoo or piercing, although who could really
be sure under his suit? But it sure would be fun to rumple him up in
the sack. In truth, the thought had crossed her mind more than once in
the last six weeks during their phone conversations. But then he’d
start talking about how her piles of receipts could be “more
organized” and her penmanship on invoices “less messy,” and that had
always been more than enough to bring her back to reality.

But the very thought of being in his bed heated her cheeks.