“Face it, Noah. You like her.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re falling for her.”
“Don’t,” he repeated, more sternly this time. Not that his stern voice did fuck all to deter Liam.
“It’s not a bad thing. Fuck, it’s the only thing that matters at all. Falling in love with Min… it’s the only thing I’ve ever done right. And I’m so fucking grateful that woman loves me back. If you and Callie could have what we have—”
“I have no interest in what you have. I’m so goddamn happy that you’re happy, but you losteverything. Your career and—fuck, everything.”
Liam sighed, pity bleeding into his eyes.Fucking perfect.
“I lost my career. But what I have with Min—that’severything.”
“I’ve seen what it’s like when a love like that ends,” Noah said, fighting against the lump in his throat and the memories that threatened to drown him. “I promised myself a long time ago that I would never go through that, or put someone else through it.”
His chest tightened just thinking about losing Callie. How much worse would it be if she were actually his? He wouldn’t survive it.
“You can’t live your life in fear of the end. That’s no way to live.”
“I can’t do it.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes to blot out the images of his mother, unable to get out of bed, a shell of her former self. “I won’t do it.”
Liam sighed. “Then I guess it’s a good thing this whole thing is fake.”
Noah’s stomach twisted at the words. An illogical reaction. His relationship with Calliewasfake. She wasn’t his girlfriend, and she never would be. But then he’d kissed her on a blanket under the stars, and spent half the night writing accompaniments for her songs, songs she didn’t even know she was humming but that he felt like a brand on his skin…
No number of knots in his stomach could change the fact that he meant what he’d said, though. He was not interested in falling in love. More than that, he wouldn’t allow it to happen. It had never been a problem before. He’d never even been tempted to let someone close enough to have there be any real threat of breaking his rule against relationships.Except Callie. I almost broke my rules for her once before.
It was like she’d buried a landmine in his heart all those years ago and was just now coming back to claim it, digging it out of the place where it had scabbed over, scar tissue giving way to the explosive beneath. One wrong move and it would detonate. If only there was some way he could neutralize the threat, scoop out the weakened flesh and let himself heal anew.
“What if I’ve been going about this all wrong?” he asked, an idea beginning to take shape. It was insane—a hail Mary if he’d ever heard one—but it just might work. “What if I shouldn’t be trying to keep her away?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Liam said.
“What if the only reason she’s under my skin like this is because we’ve never given in to the attraction?”
“Wait a minute—”
“It makes sense.” His thoughts raced ahead as he tried to chase down the trail of logic that was already starting to sound shaky at best to his own ears. “I’ve never been tempted to get serious with a woman before. So, what’s different about Callie? She’s the only woman I’ve ever wanted and stayed away from. Maybe if we just fu—”
“Woah, that’s not… you can’t really think sleeping with her will make you care about her less.”
Noah wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Liam look so flabbergasted.
“Not less, just…differently. Maybe the only reason I’m even thinking about her like this at all is because we haven’t gotten it out of our system.”
“Yeah,” Liam snorted, “because that always works.”
“We’re already pretending to be a couple in public. What if we just acted like it in private, too. Just until the wedding is over. Then we could go back home and leave this whole thing here—the lying and the sexual tension and—”
“The feelings?”
“All of it.”
He knew he sounded like a mad man, but what other option did he have? If he didn’t do something, this landmine would be in his chest forever and one day it would blow him apart, and Callie with him. He couldn’t let that happen.
“This is the worst fucking idea you’ve ever had,” Liam said. “Every time you have an uncomfortable feeling, you try to fuck it away.”
