Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“That’s it. The ‘’sup jerk,’, and I’ll not say a word to you.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like the answer to this.” I tapped the pen against the notebook. “And if you win?”
The biggest self-serving, shit-eating, smug grin spread across his face, and I knew exactly what the smarmy git was going to say before he said it. “We stay friends.”
I stilled. “Just friends?”
“Did you think I was going to bargain for more?”
“The shit-eating bastard of a grin on your face suggested it.”
He looked over my shoulders and over my upper body, frowning.
“What are you looking at? What are you doing?”
“I was looking for your brain-to-mouth filter. It’s missing,” he replied wryly.
“Oh, good luck with that,” I replied with a sigh. “I’ve been looking for twenty-eight years and have yet to find it.”
“I thought as much. Well?” He met my gaze expectantly. “Do we have a deal?”
“Are you promising you won’t try and hit on me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then no deal,” I replied. “I will begrudgingly accept a deal of being friends after this hellish weekend, but nothing more. I have no interest in dating you. No offense.”
“No, it sounded like a compliment.”
“I didn’t—” I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, God. I didn’t mean it like that.”
He dropped his arm from the back of the sofa, wrapping it around my shoulders, and pulled me into his body while he laughed. “I know how you meant it. To my great disappointment, this relationship will always be fake.”
“Great disappointment my arse,” I muttered into my hands.
My cheeks were flaming—both with embarrassment and the lie.
William wasn’t the problem.
In fact, I had the sneaking suspicion I was liking him a bit more than I should have been.
All right.
It was no suspicion.
I was far too comfortable with him. Even now, with his arm around me as I hid my face and he laughed… it felt like the most natural thing in the world. The way his thumb had stroked my ankle during our conversation and the tenderness in his voice when I’d told him about my mum had… Oh, God.
There really was no other way to describe it.
It was just… comfort.
A feeling I couldn’t truly put my finger on. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know how I’d ended up here, how I’d ended up bargaining our relationship over a bloody bingo card we were scraping together to get through the weekend.
I really didn’t ever want to see him again after this.
When I said that, I wasn’t lying. I never would be lying if I said it.
If the thought of kissing him was dangerous, then acknowledging these wispy, annoying little emotions that were whizzing around my body? That was even worse.
Attraction was one thing.
An emotional attachment was something else entirely.
And I had no right to feel this way. It’d only been… Crikey, not even forty-eight hours yet. It wasn’t like we’d spent all that time together, either.
Here I was, though.
Happy. With his arm around me. Him laughing at my silliness and me hiding my face because I didn’t want him to know I was blushing.
Easy.
It all came just so, so easily.
I knew the reality was that we had something. Something I couldn’t explain. Something I didn’t want to understand. If I understood it, that meant I had to accept it, and I didn’t want to do that.
But we had a connection. One that felt like more… more than.
Just more than.
And it terrified me, really, but what could I do about it?
Nothing.
I peeled one hand away from my face. “All right, fine. If you win, we’ll remain friends when this weekend is over.”
William held out his hand, and I scrunched my face up like a petulant child as I slid my fingers against his and we shook on it.
“Now this weekend is interesting,” he said, taking the notebook from my lap. “We’ll finish this tomorrow. It’s getting late.”
I looked at the old grandfather clock in the corner of the room. “It is, and I suppose it’ll be another crazy day tomorrow if the forecast is correct.”
“Yes, but at least we’ll have James’ family here tomorrow to help us manage Freya.”
“That’s very true.” I put the notebook on the table with the pen and got up. “Well, that was an interesting day.”
“There’s never a dull one here,” he chuckled, retrieving the pillow from the other chair. “Go on. I suspect it’ll be an early start to the day for us tomorrow. As you learnt this morning, Freya isn’t great with boundaries.”
I smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear, and ducked towards the bedroom. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Grace.” He smiled warmly at me, then turned to get the covers.
I walked into the bedroom then stopped, looking back over my shoulder as he made his bed on the sofa.
I couldn’t leave him there.
“William?”
He looked up. “Do you need something?”
“You don’t have to sleep on the sofa,” I said softly.