Page 17 of Fake It 'Til You Feel It

I should move. I should turn off the light, check my phone—anything but sit here, caught in the ghost of her warmth.

But I don’t.

Because if I move, I’ll have to acknowledge what just happened. That she kissed me back. That I wanted more.That I still do.This was supposed to be pretend. But nothing about the way she looked at me felt fake.

I scrub a hand over my jaw again, forcing the thought away. It doesn’t matter. It can’t.

When she emerges, she doesn’t look at me, doesn’t say anything as she curls up in the corner of the couch with her book.

Like nothing happened.

“Goodnight, Nathan,” she murmurs, her voice barely audible as she picks up the book she’d abandoned earlier, curling into the corner of the couch.

“Goodnight, Dana,” I whisper back, the words dragging out of me as I force myself to move away.

The soft rustle of pages fills the space. An unspoken truce settles over us, even as my body still burns with the memory of her. I retreat to my side of the room, but the thought of her—her touch, her voice, her body—lingers, inescapable, as I close my eyes and try to will myself to sleep.

Chapter Seven

DANA - THE GLOW

The coffee is hot. Too hot. I take a slow sip anyway, letting the burn settle deep in my chest, anything to shake off the sluggish weight of last night.

The morning sprawls out around me—golden sunlight, crisp linens, the quiet hum of yacht engines cutting through still waters. It should be peaceful. It should feel like any other morning.

But I feel her watching me.

I’m halfway through a perfectly cooked omelet when I feel it—Mrs. Harris’s gaze. The scrutiny. The mischief. Theknowing.

“Well, don’t you lookradiantthis morning,” Mrs. Harris muses, voice smooth as honey and just as sticky.

My fork pauses mid-bite. My stomach sinks.

“Excuse me?”

Mrs. Harris simply smiles, leaning forward like she’s settling in for a particularly juicy piece of gossip.

“You’ve got a glow, dear,” her eyes twinkle, amused and merciless. “The kind women get when they’re… happy.”

Happy?

I glance across the table at Nathan, who’s deep in conversation with her husband about the finer points of architectural design. My boss—the bane of my existence—looks as polished as ever, his tie loosened and his charm dialed up to eleven.

I roll my eyes and set my fork down. “I think it’s just the fresh sea air.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Harris says, waving a hand. “That glow isn’t from the ocean. It’s fromhim.” The same hand she waved now has a finger pointing directly at Nathan.

In broad daylight, no less!

I lift my glass, barely processing the absurdity of this situation—until Mrs. Harris leans in, her smile far too knowing.

“You two are magnetic together,” she muses, tilting her head. “It’s almost unfair to the rest of us.”

I choke. Coffee burns down the wrong pipe, and I lurch forward, coughing into my napkin. Nathan turns at the sound, his brow furrowing. A second later, Mrs. Harris is rubbing my back like I’m a child.

“Oh, come now,” she soothes. “Surely that’s not such a shocking observation?”

Nathan doesn’t say anything, but I catch the slow tilt of his head, the assessing look in his gaze flicks between Mrs. Harris and me. Like he’s piecing something together.

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