Free The Reverse of Perfection (Bad Decisions Book 2) by Christi Barth

that Riptide used, was part of the fallout. It took months for me to get another job. I’m at PKCL only because I delivered Riptide to them on a silver platter. But now I have to prove that I’ve got what it takes, or I’m out the door. Every move I make is being watched. They gave you to me as a test. My success is tied to your success.”
    “Ariel, nobody told me.” Dylan reached for her arm, but she jerked away.
    “Because they expected you to fall in line. Follow the program. When you screw up, though, it reflects badly on me. So if you’re late to the bus, someone notices. It gets tweeted. Or texted. You get buzz, but not the good, sexy kind. Not the ‘oh, look, he’s a hot rocker’ kind. No, it’s the ‘look at that kid who needs to grow up’ kind of buzz. Which, yes, probably isn’t helped by me shouting at you in a hotel corridor. If you look bad…well, I end up looking for another job. Except that I won’t find one, because I’ll be branded a failure.”
    “Would you come in already?”
    She braced herself for whatever random skankiness might be inside. As he closed the door behind her, Ariel gaped at the room. Or what would’ve passed for a room in a nineteenth-century bordello. The red carpet led to red and gold paisley wallpaper with drapes in the same gaudy pattern, but with the colors reversed. An old-timey red velvet love seat was set between two walls of windows overlooking the dark hulk of the Flatirons, illuminated by the full moon. But what really gave her pause was that they were the only two people in the room.
    She whirled to confront him. “Where are your dates? Hiding in the bathroom?”
    “The raffle girls, you mean? I ditched them an hour ago. After signing various body parts and taking tons of pictures. I promise, I showed them a good time. Followed your orders to the letter.”
    Oh, she knew. Ariel had never been so upset with a client for doing every last little thing she asked. “I saw the photos on Instagram. It’s how I found you. I followed the timeline of both them and tweets like bread crumbs.”
    “Pretty genius, huh?” Dylan flashed a cocky smile.
    “I don’t follow.”
    “You told me to make it look like I was serial-dating my way through this tour. I provided plenty of photographic evidence of just that. Did you catch the artsy, sideways shot of just the bed with my jacket on it?”
    Ariel glanced over at the white coverlet with its distinctively old-fashioned fringe. “Yes. But… it still looks untouched.”
    “Of course it is.”
    So…what...he had sex with them all standing up against the wall? And she was supposed to applaud his strength and stamina? “I don’t understand.”
    Dylan spread his arms wide. “This room? I got it for us. Nobody else has been in it. I’m seizing the moment. With you. That’s why I sent the bus on without us. Nobody will know.”
    Everything Ariel thought she knew about tonight, everything she felt in this moment, suddenly tilted in the completely opposite direction. The room was a skank-free zone? Dylan wanted to be with her , only her, just as he’d said? She could trust him after all?
    “It’s the perfect cover,” he continued. “The world will see me as a bad-boy rock star, the reverse of the perfect image I started with. All they know is that I’m shirtless with three women hanging off of me in a hotel room. Nobody knows that I sent those women on their way. That I told them the next three raffle winners had me for the rest of the night.”
    “There were no other winners,” Ariel murmured slowly.
    Dylan widened his stance and drew her in between his legs. His arms went around her waist in a loose embrace. One that rested his linked hands right on the curve of her ass. “I’m hoping you’re the winner by the time the night is over. Because I don’t want to be bad. I want to be good—be perfect—for you.”
    Her heart threatened to burst. She could trust him. Not only that, but Dylan had gone out of his