Page 59 of The Fiance Dilemma

I watched him, gauging how serious he was about his answer. To be completely frank, I’d only added all those things to make light of the gloomy feeling in my gut. “You do?”

He gave a serious nod.

“That’s all? No remarks? No comments about how out of the blue that was? Not even about the yeti?”

“I asked you for your thoughts,” he said matter-of-factly. One raspberry went flying into his mouth. “Why would I complain about your sharing with me?” Another one. “And if you want the remarks,” he continued, meticulously closing the bag and pinning me with a glance as if he was about to get down to business. “The world would be boring without magic, so I choose to believe it exists. Regarding the juju matter, well, I’m fully convinced I was cursed at least once in my life. Premonitions are tricky, but there have to be people with a direct line to all those things we normies can’t really see. Ghosts are objectively probable. Fate explains things that would go unanswered otherwise. Manifestation is scientifically proven. And the yeti just makes sense.”

I blinked at the man who had just called himself anormiewith a serious face. I was many things right now. I was surprised, for one. I was also determined to ignore that fluffiness I felt in the middle of my chest, as if my heart were about to start levitating and float out of my mouth. I was also a little—

“You’re incredibly turned on,” he pointed out with a knowing smile. My cheeks flushed. “Do you want to grab my ass?”

A strange-sounding laugh left me.“What?I—Wh—I’m notgrabbing your ass.” I looked around, spotting Willa Wang’s set of cold eyes right on us. She was standing next to Andrew, and although she hadn’t approached tonight, she’d been watching us. I cleared my throat. “Sorry to bring you down from whatever cloud you’re on right now, but talking about the yeti doesn’t exactly do it for me.”

“Oh yeah?” Matthew leaned a little closer, until all I could see was him.

I swallowed at his nearness, then tried to stay in the game with a cold face. “Yup,” I said, going up on my tiptoes to glance over Matthew’s shoulder. Willa was murmuring something to Andrew, and he was nodding his head. God, he looked so out of place. So foreign. As if he was crashing a party instead of attending his own. As if—

“You’re breaking my heart,” Matthew murmured, his nose almost brushing my temple.

My body stilled, my mind quieting. “Why?” I whispered.

“Because I’m trying to flirt and you’re not paying attention to me.”

I tipped my head back so I could look at him. His smile was a contrast to the deep, hushed tone those words had been whispered in. “You’re smiling too much for someone heartbroken,” I told him, feeling that fluffiness return. Expand. “And is that what you want to do? Right in the middle of my father’s slightly awkward welcome party? Flirt? For me to grab your ass?”

“Of course,” he said, lips inching even higher. “I’m your fiancé. Isn’t that my role here?”

I licked my lips. Everybody was watching. Almost the entirety of Green Oak was here. Our midnight farmers’ market was popular, but it had never attracted this kind of crowd. Maybe my assessment of the dinner we were supposed to be having instead of this had been wrong. Even Diane, who had always complained about this event being held on a school night, and Otto, who claimed Coco’s bedtime was more important thansome market—had showed up.The only people missing were Gabriel and Isaac, who were down in Charlotte for the night.

As if manifested into reality by my own mind, Diane’s high-pitched voice grew closer. Anxiety started bubbling inside me.

“Eyes on me,” Matthew instructed. That silky sensation in my chest thickened when my gaze obeyed, meeting his. And I quivered when he grasped my hand. He tugged at my arm, bringing it around him. I arched my brows in question, wondering what he was doing, and why. He arched his own suggestively in return, in that goofy way that always managed to make me smile. Then he slipped my hand into the back pocket of his jeans. “Mmh,” he hummed. “So much better now.”

I huffed out a laugh, and his eyes sparked with amusement and… something a little huskier than that. “For you or me?”

“Hopefully both.”

Definitely both.“If Grandpa Moe catches us, he’ll get us that huge box of hand warmers he threatened me with. It’s already in his cart. He showed me. You’re reckless doing this.”

A chuckle rumbled out of Matthew’s chest. “I’m not breaking any rules.”

Our rules. Not Grandpa’s.

We don’t get married but stay friends. We kiss if we must. We can touch.

I swallowed. “I guess you’re not. This can’t be uncalled-for-ass-groping if it’s you moving my hand to your butt.”

“I have a great butt too,” he told me, eyes glinting with something I really liked. “Some might say it’s a magical one. I think you should touch it more often. As often as you can, in fact. It’s something we can do.”

It was so hard not to smile. So hard not to notice what he was doing and how much I loved that he was doing it. “You’re distracting me.”

He nodded his head and took one step closer, keeping my hand in his back pocket. To anyone looking, we were an engaged couple having a moment. He was joking. She was smiling. There were hushed words. The memory of the last time they danced and stood like this, so close together, noses almost touching.

To me, it was a story someone had fabricated. Me. It was a girl, standing in a barn, a bad feeling in her gut, and a man who was trying his best to keep ahold of the mess she always made of things.

“I’m so sorry, Matthew,” I said.

His gaze filled with concern. Shock too. “For what?” he asked, and there was frustration in his voice. Well, I was frustrated too. And I did silly things when I was under stress. Perhaps this was one of them. Saying more than I should. “Josie—” He stopped himself, his eyes shifting behind me. “We’ll talk about this later.”

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