Page 25 of Always Been You

"Who else am I going to ask? Kennedy? Laura?"

She considered this for a moment. No, please don’t, she thought.

"I don't want to lead anyone on. I also don’t want to spend the entire summer not knowing who is going to randomly show up at my door with cookies, or whose car is going to be broken down on the side of the road, and I don’t want to be tagged in hundreds of Facebook photos so that young Patty Duke can see them."

"Who?"

"Nana met a doctor on her cruise who she thinks is perfect for me," Ethan explained.

"Dr. Susie."

"She told you about her?"

"Yep. She thinks you and Dr. Susie would make beautiful babies."

"See?" Ethan ran his hands through his hair, and Jess watched as the muscles of his forearms flexed. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Damn. Her mouth watered as if she'd just bitten into a sour treat.

"I don't even want kids,” Ethan finished his thought.

"You don't?" That news took Jess by surprise. She wasn't sure why she'd always assumed that he would want kids. She guessed she just assumed everyone did. Everyone except her. Hearing him say that made Jess realize that could’ve been another reason she'd kept him at arm's length. Self-preservation. What if she’d gotten close to him only for things not to work out because they wanted different things out of life?

"No." Ethan shook his head, his voice deadly serious. "I don't."

She bit the inside of her lip. He was asking her to be his fake girlfriend. Could she handle that?

"Just a month I wouldn't want to cramp your style."

The way he said that had Jess snapping back, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I saw you out on the boat with those guys today."

"Are you jealous?" she repeated the same accusation he'd made to her at Lanterns.

The look he gave her told her that he was not in the least bit threatened by Kingston or Miko. And why would he be? He was just as ripped and chiseled as those men.

"Well, no need to worry, those two guys are happily married."

He gave her another look, one that said she was naive if she thought a ring made a difference.

"To each other," she explained.

And then she saw it. A brief flash of relief. He had been jealous. Maybe not of their physiques, but of the attention they showed her. That thought had her heart pitter-pattering like a gang of kids running down the stairs on Christmas morning.

He quickly covered his initial reaction. "Look, it’s just four weeks."

"Four weeks?"

"Long enough that people take it seriously, not long enough to shock people when it doesn't work."

Jess had to admit, she didn’t hate the idea. But she wasn't about to tip her hand. She might not have a poker face for shit, but she could negotiate with the best of them. "What exactly am I going to get out of this?"

"What do you want?"

His voice rippled over her like a breeze, if that breeze was made up of hot-man breath. The deep rumble had her core clenching with need as goose bumps broke out on every inch of her bare skin. She lifted her hand and ran it down the side of her neck, suddenly feeling much more exposed than she actually was.

Before she had a chance to pull her thoughts together, the movie started playing again. Her DVR automatically did that after it had been paused for a certain amount of time.

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