Page 35 of Read My Lips

“A book. Originally.” The pedantic arsehole stood there, nodding along, willfully ignoring my reaction to his chosen term of endearment. And all the rest. Grinning at me.

Right. Fine. Nothing to see here.

With a little tight tug at each sleeve, Simon removed his jacket. I stared as he conjured a coat hanger to put it on. Who brought their own coat hanger apart from car thieves in the 1980’s and Mary bloody Poppins?

“You know what? I don’t care about the pig.”

“Okay.” Humour quirked his lips. “And the real problem is..?”

“Are you laughing at me right now?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Hooking a finger into the neck of my t-shirt, he stretched the fabric forwards. I rooted myself to the spot to keep from stumbling into him.

“Ben. My lover. This needs to come off.”

I swallowed. Hard. And stepped back sharply, dusting his hand away.

“Don’t you my lover me. You went a bit bloody overboard.”

“Did I?” He stepped closer, grinning, and I collided with the edge of the billiard table, trying to keep space.

“You know,” he said, entirely too earnest to be believable, “the whole point of being here is to do the fake boyfriend bit. Not just talk about it.”

“Yeah, but Temp”—oh god, I was calling her that now—“knows it was you two. We’re literally here to fake footage.”

He shrugged, staying put instead of stepping forward again. Ducking down to unlace his shoes, Simon blinked up at me from one knee. Because he was lip reading. Not because the most beautiful man I’d ever known wanted me to unzip and shove my hopeful cock in his face. Get it together, Cooper.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather they didn’t think my love life is barren enough I have to force my interpreter to fake a sex tape with me.”

“Yeah. No, right. That’d be awful.” The back of my neck itched with heat. What did he want from me? “Is it the interpreter bit that’s the problem?”

Shoes neatly parked, he stood, fingers halted on the buttons of his waistcoat. “It’s the me paying you bit that’s the problem.”

Concentrate. I needed to concentrate. On anything other than him getting naked.

“It’s that if you hadn’t stepped in with this ridiculous plan, I wouldn’t have had someone else to ask to do the same. Because I don’t date. And the pair of them know it.”

A V of skin opened out as he worked down the line of his shirt buttons. He had a bit of fuzz on his chest. I wanted to lick it. Shit. No. Focus. What did he mean he didn’t have anyone to ask?

“You – uh. You must have someone you’ve been… Not-dating?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do keep up. That would be Richard, wouldn’t it? You may have noticed I’m something of a workaholic. I don’t have any intention of wasting my free time on arcane courting rituals for the privilege of swapping bodily fluids with someone on a regular basis.”

“You what?”

His lips thinned. “I don’t see the point of burning my very limited downtime with a rotating gallery of strangers on a media-enforced playbook of empty gestures, which are somehow supposed to initiate intimacy that, in my experience, nobody wants anyway.”

I blinked at him. “Wow. You really don’t like dating.”

“No.” He held my eye. “I don’t. And even if I did, I couldn’t afford it. I spend all my disposable income on my interpreter.” Teeth flashed at me between his smiling lips, eyes twinkling charmingly. “He’s fearsomely expensive. Worth every penny of course.”

The bastard knew exactly what he was playing at. “I thought you were spending it all on your vintage suit collection.”

“Mmm. And the shoes. You wouldn’t believe the price of a pair of handmade wholecut Oxfords.” He tilted his head. “Come on, it can’t be entirely inconceivable to the rest of the world we genuinely like one another. So does it really matter if we lean into that today?”

“I guess not?”

He was right. Where was the drama if Temp and Richard thought it was as real as we were trying to tell everyone else it was? Why should we be inconceivable? Other than Simon being the epitome of A-list glamour and me being the guy tagging along trying to be invisible. And the bit where it sounded like he’d rather chew his own arm off than date anyone at all. Oh god, what was I doing?