Page 28 of My Favorite Holidate

What even are words?

“Yes, it is,” Wilder says with a hint of amusement as he takes his seat.

I glance around but can barely focus on the other diners or anything but this out-of-sync beating in my heart. “This place is…nice. For, um, eating.”

“Yes, restaurants can be good for food, I’ve heard,” he says.

Get it together, girl.

“The owner is nice. That’s nice for…”

“Owning?” he asks with a warm smile.

Oh god. I set a hand on my sternum and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know…Do you feel sorry for me?”

What the hell is it about Wilder Blaine that makes me say things I normally wouldn’t?

“No,” he says with kindness, certainty, and crystal clarity.

“I hate when people feel sorry for me,” I admit. I can’t seem to stop with him.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” He tilts his head. “Do you feel sorry for me?”

I scoff. “God no. Why would I?”

“Exactly,” he says, cool and in control. “I could say the same about you.”

He’s quiet for a beat, while his words sink in. He doesn’t see me differently. He sees me…as an equal. We may be boss and employee, we might be a billionaire and just a woman who’s barely paying off her college loans, but here tonight, in the context of our pretend Christmas romance, we’re on even footing.

He nods to the empty wineglass on the table. “Do you want wine? Champagne? Water? A stiff drink?”

I laugh, full of relief and gratitude. Then, because we are on even footing, I find mine once again. “Are you saying you think I need one?”

“Perhaps.” He smiles, the corner of his lips lifting in an electric grin that makes my chest squeeze. With his chiseled jaw, light dusting of dark stubble, and emerald eyes, Wilder Blaine is obviously good-looking. Of course I’ve always known that. But I’ve known it in a distant way. An inaccessible way. In the way you admire the ocean, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or a photograph in an art gallery.

He’s been out of reach.

He’s not distant now. He’s the man sitting across from me on a December night as holiday lights twinkle on the heated patio. He’s the man who wants this fake romance as much as I do. Which seems wild, because this time two weeks ago I was dating someone else. Someone who turned out to be a lying, cheating jerk. Funny, how seeing someone’s true colors can help you get over them real fast.

I lift the wineglass, considering it as I meet Wilder’s gaze. “I probably could use a very stiff drink, but I’m pretty sure it’s a sin to order anything but red wine at an Italian bistro,” I say.

There. I’ve got my groove back. I’ve got my words back. I can do this.

“I wouldn’t want you to be guilty of that,” he says, then gives a chin nod, presumably to a server.

When she appears seconds later—seriously, did she teleport?—he says, “We’ll have the Italo Cescon Pinot Noir.” He adds the year, and I’m seriously impressed.

“As you wish,” the server says, then returns shortly with a bottle. After she makes a show of presenting it to him, she pours a glass for us both and he thanks her. When she leaves, he raises his glass to me. I expect him to say, “To getting to know my fake girlfriend” or “to destroying Brady.”

Something playful. Something that picks up on our reasons for being here.

But he says, “To being the best fake daters ever.”

Once again, the man has surprised me. But he’s also delivered an excellent reminder. This is fake.

I shove these nascent, fizzy feelings far away, then lift my glass.

“No one will know this isn’t real.” Then I take a beat and add, “Except us.”

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