Page 83 of The Fiancée Farce
“You do?” Was that wise?
“Better the devil I know than the one I don’t.”
That wasn’t nearly as comforting as Gemma’s expression said she’d hoped it would be.
“Tansy.” She reached out, hand settling against the back of Tansy’s. Her thumb slipped beneath the sleeve of Tansy’s sweater, finding skin, and Tansy’s breath caught, her next inhale audible, ragged. “It’s all right. Let me worry about Brooks.”
“Are you implying youareworried?”
Gemma chuckled softly. “Not particularly. Granted, blood doesn’t exactly preclude perfidy, especially not in my family, but I’ve always liked Brooks, and he’s proven himself loyal.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, chewing on her thumbnail. “He has?”
Gemma’s thumb made circles against the thin, fragile skin of Tansy’s wrist over where her pulse pounded—harder now, at Gemma’s touch. “He overheard a conversation between Tucker and my father. Sterling, too. About me not seeingsomethingcoming. It was vague at best, but Brooks brought it back to me and has now taken it upon himself to be my, quote unquote,inside man.”
Dread washed over her, dousing her like a bucket of cold water. Her stomach cramped. “Tucker’s planning something?”
Gemma’s flippant eye roll did nothing to calm her. “I’m not concerned. Unless he has proof—and I’m talking actual evidence—that you and I have lied, then whatever hethinkshe has is circumstantial at best. It’s his word against ours.”
Again, that wasn’t nearly as comforting a sentiment as Gemma seemed to think it was.
“Hey.” Gemma reached out and tugged Tansy’s hand away from her mouth, stopping her from biting her already ragged thumbnail to the quick. “I understand why you’re concerned. I do. Given everything that happened, what Tucker did to you in the past, his duplicitous assholery, for lack of a better word... how could younotbe worried?”
At least Gemma understood where her fears were coming from, that her anxiety wasn’t unfounded.
“But like I said, he has no proof. Everyone who needs to believe us does. Though it absolutely wasn’t my motive, it doesn’t hurt that we’re together now. For real. Maybe the timeline we told everyone else wasn’t honest, but you and I are legit.”
When Tansy’s brain, her anxiety, was anything but logical, hearing Gemma spell it out helped.
“And Tansy, I need you to know that I’m not going to let him or anyone else in my family hurt you again.” Gemma cupped Tansy’s jaw, thumb sweeping along the curve of her cheek, soothing. “I take care of what’s mine, okay?” Gemma’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “And youaremine, aren’t you?”
Her heart pounded against the wall of her chest, so hard it almost hurt.Almost.
Warmth seeped from her chest down into her belly, and she had to swallow twice before she could speak. Even then, the most she could manage was a whisper, for fear that her voice would crack and, with it, she’d split down the middle. “Does that make you mine, too?”
No one had ever looked at Tansy the way Gemma was looking at her now, eyes soft and smile so fond it put a lump in Tansy’s throat. “I’m yours.” Her smile widened. “For better or worse.”
Until death do them part? Or until their two years were up?
She shoved that thought aside and focused instead on the dwindling distance between Gemma’s face and hers.
Gemma’s lips, as soft as Tansy remembered, pressed a kiss to the corner of Tansy’s mouth. Sweet and chaste, but no less bone-melting. That first kiss led to another, just as gentle, but this one pressed against the center of Tansy’s bottom lip.
By the time she parted her lips, ready to deepen the kiss, Gemma was already gone, sitting back on her haunches, a sly smile on her face.
Tansy blinked at her. “Why’d you stop?”
“I was thinking.” Gemma had the audacity to stand. “We’re dating now, right?”
Tansy nodded. “Right.”
“And it’s been awhile since I actually dated someone, let alone seriously, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to be said for not putting out until the third date?”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
Gemma was going to make her wait? Because of some stupid, arbitrary, antiquated rule that made no sense, considering Gemma had already had her fingers inside Tansy.
Immediately, Gemma burst out laughing. “Of courseI’m kidding.” She held a hand out for Tansy to take, helping her stand. “But itisgetting late, you’ve got work in the morning, and I never got around to researching Crenshaw Global like I planned. Plus, I fear the mood’s been a little dashed with talk of my family.”
