Page 64 of The Fake Out

“Thank you.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

I stood up and cleaned my paintbrushes and palette off in the sink. Blaise stood in my kitchen studying my painting. He was so kind and fun to be around. If I wasn’t so afraid of getting hurt again, maybe I would have given him a real shot.

“I don’t think she knows,” I admitted.

“Oh.”

“What do I even do?” I asked and turned back around to face him.

He shrugged. “Honestly, V? I don’t know. Are you sure she doesn’t know?”

“It sounded like it, but what if he’s doing it to her, too? I get that he chose her and their child. That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, but I get it.”

Blaise walked over to me and folded me in his arms. “You didn’t deserve that. But I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll still go with you to the wedding if you want.”

I nodded into his chest. “That was the deal. We pretend until the wedding, then we can tell everyone we broke up.”

He was quiet for a minute.

“We should talk about our breakup story,” I told him. I looked up at him, and he was staring at the wall, his face neutral.

“Right. Can we talk about it later? I’m really tired.”

I nodded and pulled away from him. “Sure. Why don’t you go back to bed? I need a minute to clean up.”

“I got worried when you weren’t there,” he admitted with a sheepish look.

“I’m a big girl, Blaise. Not like I would have left you in my apartment alone.”

“Come back to bed?” he asked again.

I dried my hands on the dish towel and let him take me by the hand back into my bedroom. I still couldn’t sleep, but it was nice to have this big man holding me. Nice to feel wanted, even if it was pretend.

Chapter Nineteen

BLAISE

I stared up at the ceiling of Veronica’s bedroom while my alarm blared next to my head. I had to get up so I could drive back into the city to catch the charter with the team, but I also didn’t want to move from this spot. Veronica was curled in my arms with her head on my chest, and my arm was numb from the weight of her. I didn’t care because this was a nice way to wake up.

And dammit…I had feelings for her. Maybe she’d want me if she hadn’t been so dicked around by her ex. I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it was when she showed up at my game wearing my jersey, but my heart was getting big ideas.

“Mmm…” she moaned into my chest all sleepily. I loved that sound coming out of her mouth. I shifted a bit to turn off my alarm and ran a hand through her hair. She snuggled down into me further.

“I gotta go, baby,” I whispered and kissed the top of her head.

I had to knock it off with the ‘baby’ shit, or she was going to figure out I had caught feelings. But she hadn’t minded when I called her that last night. Or when I called her ‘sweets’ which at first had been teasingly, but now I was skating on thin ice every time I used it.

“No,” she whispered into my chest.

“No?” I asked.

“Don’t go,” she begged.

I looked down and saw her eyes were still closed. I wondered if she even knew she was talking to me since she was still half-asleep.