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“We should pretend to be dating. You know, in front of Arianna and that cheat Rob. It galls me—what they did right under your nose. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of thinking you’ve just been pining away for her.”
“I haven’t.” I hadn’t, not really. But a blow like that takes a while to get over, even if you know it was right to have parted.
“Of course not. I didn’t mean to imply that her callous dumping of you had any effect on you at all,” Jamie said, teasing.
“Anyway, go on,” I said, drily.
“You want her to think you’re living it up out here without a worry, right? And this job you’ve taken is because I begged my boyfriend to do me the favor. Get where I’m going here?”
“I do. I most definitely do.” It would be nice to have Arianna think I was in love. And Jamie Wattson? She was beautiful and sexy and very accomplished. A man like me would be lucky to have her in their life. “You’d do that for me?”
“Heck yeah. We’re both Guy Clark-loving underdogs. We have to stick together.”
“What would we tell our friends?” I thought about my buddies and their new affinity for marriage. Would they get carried away and hope we would get together for real?
“They won’t have to know what we were up to,” Jamie said. “But if they do discover our little lie, who cares. They’d totally be on our side anyway.”
“Good point.” I grinned at her, feeling light-headed. It might have been the wine, but more likely it was the woman next to me. “Let’s do it. We get what we want from her and I save face.”
“Boom.” She made a fist in the air. “She’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. When you get off work, come on over and we’ll act all lovey-dovey in front of her and I’ll pretend to be surprised that you two know each other.”
“This is a little goofy, but I kind of love it. I kind of loveusright now,” I said.
“Me too. She’ll get to see what she’s missing.” Jamie pointed at me. “I don’t care how rich he is, there’s no way he’s as handsome or as smart as you.”
I thought about that for a second, flattered by the compliment. However, Rob was a good-looking man—blond and tanned. Plus, money made people better looking. “He looks like Ken.”
“Ken?”
“As in Ken and Barbie.”
She made a gagging noise. “Give me a break. You have to get over the feeling of, ‘I’m less than this guy.’ You know that, right?”
“Easier said than done.”
She cocked her head to the right, watching me, clearly trying to figure me out. “If you could see yourself as I do, you’d never feel bad again.”
I couldn’t speak for the lump in my throat. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“If so, you need better friends and family.”
I laughed. “Maybe so.”
Then her eyes lit up. “I have an idea. Let’s take a cute selfie for my social. Maybe I can friend Arianna and she’ll see my cute, fake boyfriend and eat her heart out.”
“I doubt there’ll be any of that but sure, why not?”
Jamie grabbed her phone and sat next to me on the couch. “Try to look like you adore me,” she said.
“How do I do that exactly?” It wouldn’t take much acting on my part, whatever the pose. I did adore this woman. I had from the beginning, I realized, remembering how we’d connected about books. How sympathetic she’d been about my plight. And I could honestly say, for the few hours she was in my arms, I hadn’t thought about Arianna. Strange, now that I thought about it. I would have guessed that I’d have felt odd, touching someone else after all the time with Arianna. However, it had felt natural and good. Oh so good.
She turned to face me, her blue eyes lively. “Let’s do one with you kissing my cheek as I snap the selfie. Totally cheesy. Which is perfect.”
I leaned closer and pressed my lips to her cheek. She raised the phone above us and snapped a photo. I gasped when she turned her face to mine and kissed me on the lips.
Everything went black for a few seconds as this unexpected peck lingered into a real kiss. Was she still taking photos? I couldn’t care less. I kissed her back, sliding the tip of my tongue into her soft, warm mouth before I realized what I’d done and abruptly drew away from her. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
She brought the phone to her lap, avoiding my gaze. “It’s all right. I started it.”
