Page 46 of Gracefully Yours

But damn, if there hadn’t been a little thrill that ran through me when she called me her fiancé for what was probably the first time.

“Do you want dinner?” I asked her, hoping she wouldn’t retreat into her room now that I was practically holding her in my arms.

“You made something?” She asked, looking surprised.

“Mhm. I prepped something earlier. I figured you’d be hungry after moving all day.”

She was still holding onto my hand, but Charlotte surprised me by wrapping her other arm around my back, squeezing tight.

“Thank you,” she finally said when we broke apart. “I think I needed that.” Charlotte exhaled deeply before turning towards the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” She made a face, looking skeptical.

Did she think I didn’t know all of her food preferences? Going out anywhere new always proved a challenge with her gluten free diet, so most of the time, we went to places she knew and loved.

I grinned. “Take a seat. You’ll like it, I promise.”

Pulling out a bottle of wine—white, because that was what she preferred—and two glasses, I raised it up in question. Thankfully, she knew what I was asking, the sort of wordless communication we’d developed over the last almost decade of friendship.

Part of me wished that wordless ease extended to other aspects of our lives.

She nodded, and after I filled the glass and handed it to her, I caught her playing with the stem of the glass, deep in thought. “Listen, I think… maybe we should set some ground rules.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Rules?” Taking a sip of the wine, I let the sweet flavors of it sit on my tongue. We’d started this conversation before, but had never finished it.

“Yeah. For living together. For this fake marriage.” She gestured wildly around us.

God, there’s that term again.Fake marriage.I hated it so much. Why did it grate on my nerves when I was the one who proposed this agreement in the first place?

Trying not to let myself react, I gave her a brief nod as I pulled the lasagna out of the oven. Angelina and I had come from an Italian-American family, so they had passed a lot of the recipes I loved to make down to me from our relatives.

“What are you thinking?”

“Well,” she wrinkled up her nose, deep in thought. “What do people in marriage of convenience books normally agree on?”

I crossed my arms over my chest as she appeared deep in thought.

“Um… knock before entering the other’s room?”

“How old are we?”

“Daniel. I’m serious.” Her brows furrowed. “And no sex.”

She really liked to drive that point home, didn’t she? Had it been that bad?

“So am I, Char. We’re adults.

“I just don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

But what if I didn’t want to be just friends with her anymore?

“I have some rules, too.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

Nodding, I continued on. “We eat dinner together every night. Go out on a date at least once a week. Tell each other what we’re thinking. Feeling.”

“Right.” Charlotte mumbled. “Honesty.”

I could feel that she was holding something back from me, even as we sat at the table, eating lasagna and the garlic bread I’d made.

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