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Leighton suddenly had a knot in her gut and it wasn’t from an overload of sugar.
He reached over and wiped the corner of her mouth. “You have some chocolate there.” Instead of licking his finger himself, he eased it between her lips. “How does that taste?”
Delicious. Like sex and a future she couldn’t have.
Stunned at how upset that made her, she reared back so that his finger fell out of her mouth.
“Are you ready, Axl?” she asked, standing up so quickly her chair wobbled. “Autumn, I’ll call you to confirm everything but it sounds like we’ve made a decision.
The tiny shop suddenly felt too warm and stifling. The scent of baked goods in the air was nauseating and the lemon-yellow walls were closing in on her.
“What’s wrong?” Axl asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just got sick to my stomach all of sudden. It’s hot in here.” She waved her hand in front of her face and started toward the front door, abandoning her purse and her laptop. She’d come back for them in a minute. She needed fresh air desperately.
“Is she pregnant?” Autumn asked Axl in a low voice. “That’s how I felt when I was first preggers with Jayden.”
“No.” But then he added. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
Of course she wasn’t pregnant. They’d had sex once, two nights earlier. Well, sex twice two nights earlier. She was just on emotional overload. She’d warned Axl she wasn’t that great of an actress. Keeping up this farce was intense and confusing. Between instead of acting, she actually wasn’t. Being with Axl, she felt more like herself than she ever had with most men.
She was afraid she was going to lose track of what was real and what was fake.
Because it felt real.
As she burst out onto the sidewalk and took a deep breath of the summer air, she hated that the actual relationship was all fake.
Except her orgasms.
“Too much sugar,” she told Axl when he followed her outside. “I’m not used to it, despite what my co-workers seem to think.”
“Did you eat dinner?” he asked, looking concerned. “Let me go back in and get you some water.”
“I ate some cheese and some grapes in a little pack from the hotel snack shop. Things have been crazy today trying to redo everything. I mean, I guess I could just give us Winnie’s and Todd’s wedding crash. I planned and booked everything six weeks ago. Filming couples with their requests is a formality for the cameras. Doing a wedding in three days isn’t real.” It was the logical thing to do, to just use the wedding she had already planned. Yet, she was resistant and she wasn’t sure why. It shouldn’t matter.
“If we just use someone else’s wedding, aren’t people going to figure that out? I mean, what did you have planned for them?” Axl put his hand on her back and rubbed gently.
His touch was very distracting. It was comforting and sweet. And maybe, just a little bit arousing. “A church wedding with the boy’s choir performing and a barn reception.”
Leighton pulled her phone out of her purse and started swiping. She had a folder filled with images of the color scheme and the venue. “What do you think?”
The church was a stone chapel. The barn was rustic. The elements she had employed were all natural. Wood arches, wine barrels, chandeliers twisted with ivy. The predominant color was a butter yellow, and an entire sunflower garden was supposed to be created at the entrance to the barn. It was a beautiful event, but it was not Leighton’s personal style.
“It’s okay. But I do not see you when I look at this.”
Leighton glanced up at him, amused. “And how do you know what I would like?”
“You told me you like books and roses. Your clothes are always floral patterns in pastels. This isn’t you,” he said confidently.
He was right. But the fact that he had listened and paired that with his own skills of observation was intriguing. Yet one more thing to like about him, damn it. “You’re right. Rustic isn’t me. But does it matter?”
“I think if we want to be believed it matters, yes.”
“What do you want? Were you being honest in the interview yesterday?”
He shrugged. “I’m not picky. But yes, I was being honest.”
“Then I guess I should change up some things. Any venue ideas? We can’t get married in a church, obviously.”
