Page 24 of My Vampire Plus-One

I thought of all the Tinder dates I’d been on where sex had been expected from the get-go. Might as well address that now.

“Sex won’t be part of this arrangement,” I said.

Reggie started coughing. Whatever he’d expected me to say, it clearly hadn’t been that. Once he’d recovered, he shifted a little in his chair. “I…Okay. Understood.”

“Sex just isn’t what this is about, you see,” I continued.

“No, of course not,” he agreed, quickly. “I wouldn’t have assumed otherwise. This will be one of those good old-fashioned platonic fake dating arrangements.”

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. So that wasthattaken care of. “The only other thing I probably should tell you is there’s an engagement dinner before the wedding,” I said. “Could you come to that with me, too? I think at least one family event before the wedding itself needs to happen to convince everyone.”

“Makes sense,” he agreed, stroking his chin. “Most of your family will be paying attention to the bride at the wedding, not to me. Or to us. The impact of our little practical joke will be greater if it’s a multiple-event ruse.”

Damn, he was good at this. “That’s what I’m thinking,” I said. “But I admit I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. I haven’t—”

“Thought this through?”

I bristled—both at the admonishment and at the fact that he was right.

“How did you know what I was going to say?”

He snorted. “If there’s one thing I can recognize in another person, it’s when they’ve embarked on a course of action before they’ve thought the whole thing through.” He inclined his head towards me before adding, “It’s the way I tend to operate, myself.”

Somehow, that didn’t surprise me. “Well, it isn’t the wayIoperate at all.”

“Isn’t it?” He peered at me. “The two encounters I’ve had with you—one: rushing out the door of your office without looking where you were going, and two: asking a complete stranger to pretend to be your boyfriend to get back at your family—suggest otherwise.”

“I’ll—I’ll have you know I’m anaccountant,” I spluttered, feeling like an idiot.

“I am well aware.” There it was again—the softness in his tone that I just didn’t know what to do with. Then he added, “It suits you, by the way. Your choice of profession.”

I didn’t know what to do withthat, either.

“Right,” I said lamely. I needed to regain some semblance of control over this conversation. “Anyway, the engagement dinner is on Sunday. It’s in Winnetka and it starts at six-thirty. And although my mom says it’ll be casual, we’ll probably be expected to dress up a little for it.” I looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction. “Are you free?”

I expected him to pull out his phone to check if he had anything scheduled. But he answered without missing a beat. “I am wide open at six-thirty next Sunday and I’d bedelightedto come with you.”

I fidgeted with the handle of my coffee mug to distract myself from the way he had lingered on the worddelighted. As if he really meant it. “Great,” I said. God, what the hell was I doing? “It’s a date.”

“It’s a date,” he agreed.

“I should warn you, though,” I added, “I can’t promise the food will be any good. Especially if you’re lactose intolerant or a pescatarian.” I shook my head. “If you happen to have the bad luck of being both, like me, there probably won’t be much you can eat besides dinner rolls and raw veggies.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t usually eat at events like these anyway.” He cleared his throat and looked pointedly down at his mug. “But why does your family not provide food thatyoucan eat? Do they not know about your dietary limitations?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, they know. They just tend not to think much about me when planning these things.”

He looked seriously affronted. “And yet they make you feel obligated to attend anyway?”

I shrugged. “At some point I just got used to them ignoring my polite requests for fish or bean dishes and gave up trying.” When he didn’t say anything in response to this, and just continued staring at me, I added, “I usually try to eat a small meal before getting together with family. It’s fine.”

I tried to play it off as not that big of a deal. I could tell by the intensity on Reggie’s face and the tight set of his jaw that it wasn’t working. I didn’t like that he was reacting to this so much. It made it hard for me to keep pretending that it didn’t hurt that my needs were seldom considered at family events.

And then, a moment later, he shook it off. He cleared his throat again. “Okay. So, there’s the dinner on Sunday. Are there other wedding events I should attend?”

My face burned. There was no way I was inviting a stranger to join me on a couples’ weekend up to Wisconsin with my family. “The engagement dinner on Sunday is the big one. But”—Ilooked away, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear—“I’ll let you know if others come up.”

Reggie nodded. “Fine.” He held out a hand. “Your business card?”

---