Page 34 of Strictly Pretend

“She thinks I’m still pining after Will, I guess.”

“Are you?” I ask, feeling suddenly vulnerable myself.

“No. But I didn’t like the way she felt she could say that to me. So I told her I was going with you.”

“Good.”

“Is it?” she asks. “Because I feel like I’ve completely messed up. They’re going to figure out that we aren’t really together, aren’t they? They’re all going to know and I’m going to be a laughing stock.”

“No,” I tell her firmly. “You’re not. We’re going to make this work, the two of us.”

“We are?” She doesn’t sound so sure.

“Yes.” I say, sounding certain. Because there’s nothing I like more than a challenge. “We are. You’ll show them they can’t keep you down.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now you said you had terms. What are they?”

There’s a pause. “I’m only agreeing to look at the unit. Not take it.”

“Agreed. What else?” I ask, because I’ll worry about that bit when the time comes.

“This is a pure business arrangement. There’ll be no… funny business.”

“Funny business,” I repeat. “Does that mean I can’t do the comedy skit I had planned for you?”

She almost laughs. I can tell. And I like it.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Okay. There won’t be any funny business. But there’ll need to be the appearance of funny business,” I tell her.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to have to appear to be wild for each other. Even if we’re not. It means I might touch you. Kiss you. Tell you I’m taking you to bed.”

“But you won’t really be taking me to bed?”

“No. But we’ll have to share a room.”

She lets out a long breath.

“But there’ll be no funny business in there,” I tell her. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she says softly. “And don’t worry. I can pretend to be wild for you.”

“Thanks. I think.” It’s my turn to smile. “And if we’re going to do this properly, we need to get to know each other. What you said about the secrets? You were right. We need to have all those cute little conversations. The ones you have when you’re getting to know each other.”

“The ones you have after sex,” she says. And my body tightens.

“Yeah,” I grunt out.

“We can do that. We have a couple of weeks.” She doesn’t sound so sure.

“Of course we can.” A plan is forming in my head. And to be honest, it feels like a welcome break from the usual thoughts in there. “I’ll call you every night. During the day I’ll send over a list of questions. You can do the same for me.”

“I’m not sending you a list. I’ll just ask them as they occur.”

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