Page 36 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

“Hung up on your ex?”

“No! Anyway, it’s not relevant. If everyone thinks we’re going steady—”

“‘Going steady?’ Who says that?”

Daphne let out a cute little growl. “Having a conversation with you has got to be the most frustrating experience of my life.”

Calvin relented. “Fine. So, we convince everyone we’re a very boring couple with boring lives, you go to the event with me, and in exchange, I help you leave the island when the time comes?”

“All I ask is that you don’t trash my reputation. I’ll do the same for you, of course. We can say we discovered we were very different people and a relationship was never going to work, which everyone will understand because we are.”

A hum left Calvin’s throat. They were different, but Calvin wasn’t quite so sure he concurred with Daphne’s analysis. Agreeing with her scheme meant that he could take her to his mother’s vow renewal, which would save him from having to come up with some excuse as to why he’d lied to his mother in the first place. It would mean he’d get to keep an eye on Daphne and make sure she didn’t put herself in the way of an angry man with a mean left hook again. But it also meant there was a predictable end to the agreement, and that she’d use him to make her next escape off the island.

He’d only just admitted to himself that he wanted her. Now he had to give her up?

“Flint?”

“I’m here,” he said, frowning. The alternative was not getting to be with her at all, so in the end he had no choice. All he could say was “I agree to your terms” and then listen to the sound of Daphne’s sigh.

“Okay,” she replied. “Okay. Good.”

“We’re officially dating.”

“We’re taking things slow.”

“We’re banging each other’s brains out.”

“Flint!”

He laughed, wishing he could see her face. He’d bet her flush went all the way from her cheeks down to her neck. “We’re taking things slow,” he said, conceding.

“This is a terrible idea.”

“It’s only a few weeks.”

“A lot can happen in a few weeks,” she replied, sounding glum.

“That’s true,” Calvin replied, hoping she didn’t hear the eager note in his voice.

“Well. I’m going to bed. Nice doing business with you.”

“Same—”

Calvin pulled the phone away from his ear, clicking his tongue when he confirmed that she’d already hung up the call. He tossed his phone aside and exhaled, scrubbing his palms over his face until the image of Daphne’s blush had dissolved from his mind.

He was officially fake dating the woman he was already half in love with. And she was right about one thing.

It was a terrible idea.

Chapter 14

Concealed on three sides by a vinyl booth, Daphne leaned over her coffee at the Sunrise Diner and met her grandmother’s gaze. Greta sat to Daphne’s left, and Harry was beside Grandma Mabel. The three older ladies considered Daphne’s announcement, but they said nothing.

“So when you said nothing was going on between you and the sheriff ...” Grandma Mabel’s brows lifted.

“I may have overstated the case,” Daphne admitted.

She’d thought about this long and hard last night, and decided that she’d tell her grandmother her plan to get the pot back. She’d hemmed and hawed with herself about how to explain the chain reaction that had led to Flint inviting her to his mother’s event, and she decided that partial truths were the way forward.

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