Page 40 of Gracefully Yours

Shit, had I taken the kiss in the car the wrong way earlier? I should have reassured her it wasn’t fake. That I’dwantedto kiss her. Not that I was playing pretend.

“I mean…” Charlotte blushed. “I know you probably have… needs. We don’t have to, you know… sleep together. Again. It’s… not that kind of marriage, after all.” She peeked up at me, practically hiding behind her curtain of blonde hair. “Right?”

What kind of marriage was it?Was it really just one ofconvenience?

“Charlotte, do you…” I swallowed roughly. What was I about to ask?Do you want to?God no. Just the thought of asking her after she’d all but ran out of our hotel room in August, how she was clearly pushing me away…

I needed to step away. Let her go. Put some distance between us, because maybe she was right. Maybe jeopardizing our friendship for sex would just ruin everything. And I didn’t know what I would do without her in my life.

She wasn’t just some hookup, not that I was prone to doing those, anyway. But it wasn’t like we hadn’t both seen other people over the last few years. Even some part of me burned with the thought of someone else touching her like I had.

But if I opened my mouth, I was bound to admit things she wasn’t ready for. How I couldn’t stop thinking about her, ever since the wedding. How sometimes I would dream of her underneath me, her blonde hair spilling over my sheets as I moved inside of her. How waking up from those dreams was the worst, because it meant coming back to a reality where I didn’t have her in my arms.

No, it was better to stay on neutral ground here.

We were getting married, and we’d agreed on having kids together, but that didn’t mean we had to do it the typical way. No matter what I wanted. All that mattered was that I had her in my life.

That she was going to be my wife.

That she was happy.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, okay? I don’t expect that.”

She looked away, practically burying her cheeks in the neck of her coat. “Okay.” She looked like a turtle when she finally popped her head back out, and I saw her face grow determined, like she’d decided on something.

“Okay.” I nodded. “Now, should we go look at the rest of the property? Dad already said we can use the inside of the house to get ready on the day of the wedding, as well.”

“Do you think…” Charlotte’s eyes tracked towards the door to the barn. “We could go meet the horses?” Her eyes lit up.

I resisted a laugh.

“Whatever you want, Charlotte.”

I always meant it when it came to her.

CHAPTER9

Charlotte

“You’re sure about this, right?” Daniel asked, looking over at me briefly as he drove us to Benjamin and Angelina’s new house.

I nodded. “We need to tell them.” I wanted my best friends involved in planning my wedding. Wanted to tell them it was happening. It felt weird that we were planning our wedding without our friends even knowing.

His hand squeezed mine before he gripped the steering wheel again. It was like he always knew that his little gesture reassured me, because every time he squeezed my hand, everything felt like it was going to be okay again.

I couldn’t deny the truth to myself for much longer. I’d been dancing around my attraction to him, trying to pretend I didn’t want to feel his body against mine again. Because I wasscared. But last week, at his dad’s house… I’d seen that flicker of desire once again.

And when he’d kissed me, I’d almost begged him to take me right there.

But we were already gettingfakemarried. It was just a marriage pact. I had to remind myself about that, because I wasn’t a hook-up kind of girl. I couldn’t do no-strings attached sex. I’d given him my virginity, a decision driven by alcohol and pureneed,and there was no part of me that regretted that, but if I slept with him again…

When he parked in front of their new house, he looked over at me again. “Before we go in there, I… uh… I have something for you.”

“You do?” I raised an eyebrow.

He pulled something out of his pocket, leaning over to drop it into my hand.

“What…” I stared at my hand as he pulled his away. “It’s beautiful, but I…” The ring sat in the middle of my palm, the stone set into a band of white gold, individual tiny diamonds set around it. “I didn’t get anything for you.”

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