Page 132 of The Paid Wife: A Lesbian Romance

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think they must have grown them. Isn’t that sweet?”

“It is,” Dani had to agree.

Normally, this kind of thing would set off all sorts of

alarms. This looked very much like attachment. She’d slept

with Emily and Emily was staying with her. They were fake

married, except the marriage was real in the eyes of the law, so

Dani couldn’t run. Not that she was a runner. She’d been

forced to move on all her life. It was a general rule that she

couldn’t let herself depend on another person or even be

friends. She knew she was past that now, she was an adult in

charge of her own life, but old habits were hard to break, and

Emily doing something nice for Dani caused her heart to beat

faster, but it was equal parts fear as it was happiness. In the

past, this would have been dangerous. This would have hurt

her deeply.

This will hurt me deeply, because even if I don’t run, it still

isn’t real.

Dani knew she’d gone too far with Emily already. All day

she’d been planning how to tell her that. She’d rehearsed the

words in her head all afternoon, and no matter how lame they

sounded, she knew she had to say them. They died on her

tongue as Emily walked over to the stove and took out a

casserole dish.

“It’s shredded chicken, pasta, cheese, and red peppers. I

normally don’t cook anything, so I had to look it all up, but I

think I got it right.” Emily inhaled as she set the casserole dish

on top of the oven. Dani’s red oven mitts looked adorable with

Emily’s yellow blouse and tight skinny jeans. Dani nearly

groaned when she saw just how tight those jeans were,

cupping Emily’s shapely bottom and defining the sleek

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