The Problem With Pretending Read Online Emma Hart

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Funny Tags Authors: Emma Hart Advertisement1

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I hadn’t given much thought to it until Katie had dragged me to Freya’s room along with Morag for all those little things that happen before a wedding. I’d managed to get out of photos, thankfully, except for a couple that I’d had no choice about. It had been awkward, but not the end of the world.

For my part, I’d specified that I not be part of the album due to the newness of my relationship, and Morag had slowly nodded in agreement.

Katie and Freya had laughed. Obviously, they knew the truth about me and William, but they’d wanted a photo anyway. Katie for nostalgia, and Freya because I was almost certain there was no way I’d get away with never speaking to her again.

We were friends.

Disentangling myself from this family was going to prove to be harder than I’d thought.

Partially because I didn’t want to.

I didn’t want to separate myself from Katie and Stuart, people who had stories about my lovely mum to share with me. I didn’t want to kill a rekindled friendship with Freya, who was genuinely one of the nicest people I’d ever met, even when she was up to her eyeballs in stress.

And William…

God, I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to build a wall between us, either even though I was scared of the consequences of not doing so.

Would I be able to forget what it was like when he kissed me?

Would the memory of his arms around me as we slept eventually ebb away?

Would I ever be able to go back to my life where he didn’t exist anymore, and my heart didn’t pitter-patter at the mere sound of his footsteps?

Would my stupid, stupid little heart get over those delirious, warm fuzzies it felt whenever we were together?

Too many questions. Too many things unknown. Too many scary, scary options.

I just… didn’t want it.

I didn’t want it.

That was it. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want him in my life with these silly feelings, but I didn’t want him out of my life, either.

I didn’t want to go back to Oxleigh, knowing he lived nearby, and we could bump into each other at any moment. What if my heart didn’t get over its little crush? What if he didn’t feel the way I did and met someone else? And I saw him with her?

Would I be okay with that?

Would I be happy he was in my life?

More than that, could I be friends with someone who made me feel as magical as he did?

Well, I’d read enough books to know the answer to that.

And my best friend couldn’t stop going out with a man who’d given her accidental anal—more than once—because of the way he made her feel, so I also had real-life experience to know the answer for it.

I wouldn’t be okay with it, I wouldn’t be happy with it, and I couldn’t be friends with him.

Not now that I knew what it was like to be more than that with him.

Not that I was. I didn’t know what we were. I didn’t want to think about it being more than friends, because it was fucking ridiculous. It’d been a week. Granted we’d spent almost every waking second together over the last week and we had a long history, but that didn’t mean that the way I was feeling was normal.

It wasn’t.

It scared me.

I was telling myself it was all down to the castle and the wedding and all the magic things surrounding us. I mean, it was right out of a movie, wasn’t it? A snowy Scottish castle, a future duke, a chaotic wedding… It was literally the makings of a love story.

But a week?

No.

I was insane.

I was slowly losing my mind, and despite how I was feeling, I couldn’t wait to go home on Monday. I was smart enough to recognise that I needed some space, some separation from this situation I was in, in order to work through how I really felt.

I just had to get there without completely losing my mind.

“You have a face like a smacked arse,” Granny said, putting a glass of wine in my hand and sitting in the chair next to me. “It’s a wedding. Smile.”

“She can’t. She’s too grumpy,” my brother said, leaning over the back of my chair.

I reached up and smacked him. “You’re a brat.”

Granny eyed him. “Did you bring your mother over here with you?”

My chair rocked as Vincent laughed. “I’m not that stupid. She’s trying to network.”

“She’s trying to set you up with someone, you mean,” I retorted. “Find you a nice suitable wife.”

Granny snorted. “Don’t date whoever she suggests, then.”

“Granny,” I warned her.

“No shit,” Vincent said. “I don’t think she’s actually doing that. I think she’s just scared of Olive.”

The woman in question preened.

I shifted and looked up at my brother. “Is that why you’re really over here? So Carmen will give you a break?”


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