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As if all attention was equal, and everybody felt the same way about it.
Instead of what she actually felt right now:
Like she had made a grave mistake.
And apparently, Alfie pretty much thought the same way.
Or at the very least, he did not enjoy any of this type of attention. He seemed absolutely baffled and furious when she explained what was happening on social media. And even after she’d calmed him down, he was wary of telling anyone he knew. She had to seriously persuade him to tell the two people whodefinitely needed to know he was dating someone—his assistant, Daisy, and his sister, Edith.
And both of the calls he eventually made were incredibly short.
Will I get to meet her, she heard Edith say.
Then he repliedabsolutely not. And that was the end of that.
As if he was scared of making things worse somehow, it seemed to her.
So even though this had been his idea, she couldn’t help feeling for him. He clearly hadn’t imagined all this—her being insulted and him being seen as some gold tick in her dating column. And it made her want to reassure him, in weird ways.
Even if we were really dating you’d be more to me than that, she thought.
But then she felt embarrassed about even briefly imagining this as real, and had to think about something else for a long time, until it went away. Which took a good deal more time than she really wanted it to. In fact, it lingered, all the way through everything else they had to do that day. She showed him the notes she’d taken and the sort of start she’d made, and he seemed pleased. Then she suggested that perhaps he should try writing some of it himself, considering he definitely could. And he seemed markedly less pleased by that.
Though he did help her fill in some blanks.
He got into it a little more after she’d warmed him up.
But regardless, all the way through there it was:
This unsettled feeling. Thiswill he think I think this is somethingfeeling.
And how on earth she was going to avoid that when they were supposed to be pretending to do the opposite.I will just have to let him take the lead on everything, she thought—which seemed like a good plan. It made sense in her head as they got ready to leave his place to get her back to hers.
Then they stepped outside.
And he did the usual things:
He locked the house, nodded to his driver.
Put his keys in his pocket, checked he had his wallet.
Oh, and as they walked to the car he reached out.
And tookholdof her fuckinghand.
Just like that.
Like it was nothing.
Like he was grabbing his phone.
He didn’t even look at her when he did it, that was how casual the move was.
Even though she’d never experienced anything less casual feeling in her whole life. It was honestly like getting struck by lightning. Like he’d suddenly become Storm from theX-Men,and had accidentally set his weather-creating abilities on maximum before making contact. She almost screamed at him to turn it down. And she couldn’t even stop the other reaction from happening.
Her whole body just tried to yank away from him automatically. Hard, too. Really hard, in a way that should have worked. It should have detached them, immediately—and then most likely given anyone watching a right weird eyeful of their completely not real relationship. But they were saved by one simple fact: pulling away from Alfie Harding, when Alfie Harding was quite clearly not expecting it, was apparently a very difficult thing indeed.
Morethan a very difficult thing.
