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She’d been at it for the better part of two hours, and the only thing she had to show for her efforts was a jumble of story notes that read like the diary of a distraught teenager.
He touched my back and lingered. What does that mean?
He kissed me. I almost swooned.
I kissed him back. Was it good for him?
He made me run. I think I liked it.
Then we went all the way. I definitely liked that.
She slammed her laptop shut.
Crap. It was all crap.
She and Mitchell had been seeing each other for a week now, and she didn’t have a clue what direction to take the story in. Julie had really thought that it would be coming together by now. That she’d have some zippy little opening line about how the quiet ones were the ones to watch out for, and then she’d launch into a description of the first date, the second date, the moment his lips had met hers, and how she’d known he was one of the good ones.
She hadn’t yet decided how much detail she’d go into on the more intimate moments. She’d take Mitchell’s name out, of course—the man deserved some privacy—but Julie hadn’t anticipated that she would want to keep it private for her own sake.
She’d tried explaining it to Riley, who’d snorted derisively. “Really? A suit from Wall Street can’t be that good in the sack.”
Oh, yes, he freaking could.
And that wasn’t the only thing that was bothering her. This undercover-girlfriend plan had been toeing the line of decent-human-beings-don’t-do-this from its very inception. Now that she was actually in the midst of the operation, she could barely look the man in the eye without wanting to grovel and apologize.
But she couldn’t call it off. Not yet. Not after Grace had overheard Kelli pitching a spin on the story to Camille. This was her story.
She just wished she could do it without dragging Mitchell into it.
Nothing was going as planned. She’d been expecting to merely tolerate him. She figured that as long as he didn’t violate anything on her “absolutely not” list, she’d be able to suffer through a month of playing the girlfriend. As expected, a man who knew his way around Wall Street didn’t have any major strikes against him. He wasn’t cruel to animals, women, or old people; he didn’t chew with his mouth open; and he didn’t use the word babe. There was nothing not to like.
She just wished she didn’t like like him. Wished he didn’t make her laugh when she wasn’t expecting it. She liked the bizarre joy on his face in the middle of a run (although she still didn’t understand that one). Liked the fact that he stripped out of his suit and put on jeans and a T-shirt as soon as he was done with his workday. Liked that sometimes he let her strip off his suit.
She liked the way he kissed. Liked the way he did other things. Really liked that part.
However, none of that did squat for her story. The entire point of this little charade was to track the progress of dating to something more. Trouble was, it was turning out to be pretty freaking hard to see the forest for the trees when you were in the middle of the damned forest.
Maybe it would all come together if she just kept at it.
Or not.
Julie set her computer aside and wandered over to the fridge. Nothing. Well, there was nonfat yogurt, but what good was yogurt against a story that wouldn’t write itself and a man she couldn’t figure out? It didn’t even have fruit on the bottom.
She tapped her fingers and glanced around her apartment. Her eyes fell on the hot romantic suspense novel on the coffee table. She was halfway through. She should finish it. Except … she wasn’t in the mood.
She glanced at the TV. She could catch up on her shows. It had been weeks, and there was bound to be something good. Nope. Not in the mood for that either.
A walk? Nah.
The gym? Hell, no.
Nap? Not tired.
She could call the girls, but Riley was in Florida visiting her parents, and Grace and Greg were staying with friends in the Hamptons for the weekend.
Come on, Greene, it’s not like you don’t have a million errands you could run or a dozen friends to catch up with.
Julie slumped against the refrigerator door and faced the truth. She wanted to see Mitchell. Not to enhance her story notes, not to study him, not to analyze anything. She just missed him.
