She couldn’t really blame him for being skeptical of the idea that they could repair his image problem by pretending to be in a relationship together. It was a long shot at best. “Trust you?” he said, as if she’d just asked him to jump on a live grenade. For some reason, she kept persisting. “Yes, trust me. Give me a chance, Jake, and if you don’t like the way it’s going you can always end things.” He shook his head, but she could tell he was giving it serious thought. “The story won’t hold up,” he said, after a long pause. “It’ll look like a PR stunt—which is exactly what it would be.” Raven smiled at him. “How can you be so sure it won’t work?” “We’ve only known each other a few days,” he said. “If this crazy idea was going to have any chance, we’d need to have been dating a lot longer than that.” “How would anyone know how long you and I’ve known each other?” she said. The elevator doors had closed and now the two of them were simply facing each other in the hotel hallway, Jake still looking skeptically at her. “You don’t get it, Raven. This isn’t like going into school and telling your teacher that the dog ate your homework.”
