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Do I want him to?
I stroke his hair, hardly breathing, waiting for Cole to say it again.
He doesn’t. Not as our heartbeats return to normal. Not as we clean ourselves up. Not as we slip out the back and head home to his apartment.
Not as we’re falling asleep together, curled up in his bed.
I watch the moon, brilliant and untouchable outside of his window.
And that’s when I know. I want Cole to have meant it.
Because I’m falling in love with him too.
21
COLE
After the gala Amelia and I aren’t worried about someone finding out our relationship is fake. Possibly because it’s becoming less and less fake as the weeks go on.
She gets along with my kid. She gives me a reason to leave the office and come home for dinner. She shares her dreams for her graphic design company with me. She also shares her truly terrible taste in television with me. There’s even a night where I have dinner with her and her best friend, the one who knows the truth about us. It’s surprisingly comfortable.
When this fake relationship started, I thought I was inviting Amelia to live in my world for six months. My apartment, my family, my company, my life. But bit by bit the lines are blurring, and she’s pulling me into her world. A world where people spend time with each other, count on each other.
Hell, her parents like me. They called the other day to talk about something while she was in the shower, and Amelia yelled for me to answer her phone in case it was something important. I ended up talking to her dad for fifteen minutes while Amelia got ready for the day.
Our lives are bleeding into each other and that should scare me, but it doesn’t. It feelsright.Like this woman I didn’t even know I was waiting for has finally come home to me.
The only dark spot is the fact that Amelia never responded to me telling her I’m falling in love with her. I hadn’t planned to say it, not like that, but Amelia makes me lose control. I don’t know if she never mentioned it because she doesn’t feel the same thing, or because she heard me but thought it was sex talk that didn’t mean anything, or if she just didn’t hear me.
I think she heard me, though. She came really fucking hard when I told her.
Now it’s a week before the board meeting where I go up against my dad. And I’m standing barefoot in my kitchen on Saturday morning, staring out at the gray clouds, and trying to figure out how to keep Amelia, for real.
I could lay my heart out there for her, tell her the truth again. But if she doesn’t love me back, and I tell her in a way she can’t brush off or ignore, then this thing between us ends. Amelia won’t want to lead me on, because that’s the person she is, so she’ll break up with me. She might even move back into her apartment, now that everyone believes we’re engaged, and I’ve swayed the board members to vote the way I need them to.
I pace the kitchen, running my hands through my hair. What if she loves me, what if she wants something real too...I can’t even let myself imagine it fully. It’s too damn sweet. I want it so bad, it’s like an ache in my chest.
But if she’s not ready yet, or worse, will never be...
I blow out a shaky breath. I can’t take that gamble. It’s too risky.
But maybe I can come up with a way to hold on to Amelia a little longer. Give her more time to fall in love with me. I go to my office and get the napkin contract we wrote our original relationship contract on.
When Ameliafinally wanders into the kitchen—she’s a late sleeper, which is kind of adorable—I have her coffee, grapefruit, and toast ready for her.
She doesn’t even carry her plate to the kitchen table. Just leans against the kitchen island and starts eating while standing up.
I try to time my offer for when she’s had enough coffee to hear me but is still relaxed and sleepy enough not to realize I’m pulling one over on her.
“This engagement deal has worked out pretty well for us,” I say.
“I’ll say.” Her appreciative eyes trace my body, lingering on my dick, and I’m half hard from that alone.
No, I remind myself.Focus.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say. “If you actually marry me, you’d get a seat on the Ashford Marketing board. I’d have the voting power to make the kind of long-term changes I want.”
And I’d have you, I think.
