Page 136 of Charming Deception

“You’d think.”

As I leave the room, I give Peter a departing nod.

I know why Savannah keeps the old man around. He’s one of her last living links to Granddad.

I can also see why my sister is alone, probably as easily as she can see my problems. All my siblings are unmarried, and it’s not a coincidence.

I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how to let people in.

Chapter 30

Megan

“I’m freaking out,” Jameson mutters.

I tear my gaze away from the dreamy bed of fluffy white clouds below, which I’ve been zoning out to quite happily. We’re in a private jet owned by his family, flying direct to Paris overnight.

Over the two and a half weeks we’ve been “engaged,” we’ve settled into a mostly comfortable rhythm as a fake couple.

Our daily schedules mesh. He works while I write. Simple. We eat most meals together. We work out together in his home gym sometimes, with his trainer. He takes me along with him to business dinners, parties, and any other events he feels like attending, and I’ve met some of his friends.

We even drove down to Seattle so he could take me to a Dirty concert, and at an afterparty, he introduced me to Jesse Mayes and his wife, Katie. (Who seemed extremely surprised that Jameson got engaged. Which makes me wonder what kinds of parties—and women—they’re used to seeing at his house.)

He’s been attentive and supportive, making an obvious effort to ensure I’m happy, and regularly checks in to ask me how I’m doing, if I need anything, and how I feel about my book, the one I’m writing. He has fresh flowers delivered to the house for me every other day, and lavishes me with gifts and surprises, including bringing me along on this business trip to Europe.

We share a bed every night, while neither of us acknowledges the physical relationship that we don’t have, and it just kind of works.

I haven’t spied on him since that first night, I try not to think about whatever he’s doing when he’s in his bathroom, and I make sure I masturbate in the privacy of my bathroom instead of in bed next to him like a maniac. I face away from his side of the bed when I fall asleep, he seems to avoid coming to bed until I’m already asleep anyway, and we’re making it work.

Maybe because he’s so extremely nice to me, I’ve somehow managed to neatly look past the fact that he won’t touch me. For now.

I keep telling myself it’s just for now.

And that it will possibly change at some future date when he decides he’s ready.

We’ll be sleeping on this flight, waking when we arrive in Paris, and I couldn’t possibly be more delighted about it. I mean, it’s Paris.

I almost cry, I’m freaking out, too!

But when I look at him across the aisle, he’s carefully setting his tablet aside, like if he doesn’t handle it just right, it might burst into flame. His expression is nothing short of grim.

I sit up, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the end of the book and he just fucked her and now there’s a cliff-hanger and they’re about to arrive at the citadel,” he rambles agitatedly. “He’s going to leave her there, with people who will continue her bridal march and take her the rest of the way to her intended husband, to save himself.”

My first thought is: Oh, jeez. He just finished book two.

My second thought is: Holy mother of all that’s good and holy, he’s wearing glasses.

I gape and blink, trying to wake up from the dream I’m obviously having that the most delicious man who ever lived is sitting right in front of me reading my book, and wearing glasses in which he looks so fucking hot there’s no logical way I could be awake right now.

But I am. I know I am when he swipes the glasses off and rubs at his eyes with his tattooed wrist, and my ovaries groan.

How did I never catch him in the act of reading my book before? And realize that the man wore reading glasses??

I don’t even know if I should be elated or fucking terrified that my fake fiancée not only checks off all the boxes on my list—I even caught him working with tools the other day, helping his handyman guy install more bookshelves for me!—he’s destroyed the list. Incinerated it. Absolutely killed it dead in all its irrelevance.

Because he is the list.

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