Page 8 of Fake It 'Til You Feel It

Nathan doesn’t look at me, but I catch the slight flick of his eyes away from the screen. “Anything I need to worry about?”

“Not yet. But if he pushes for that commercial lot expansion, we’re going to run into funding issues. You promised investors a residential focus, and Harris is trying to shift the scope.”

Nathan sighs, setting his phone down. The easy, teasing man from earlier is gone—this is the Nathan I know best, sharp and calculating. “I’ll handle it. He wants reassurance that we’re profitable. I can give him that.”

“Good. Because if he keeps stalling, I have a list of other financiers who’d be happy to?—”

“We’re not pulling the plug on Harris,” Nathan interrupts, his voice firm but not unkind. “Not yet.”

I exhale slowly, nodding.Business is familiar. Business is safe.

But as I lie awake that night, listening to his steady breathing from the other side of the bed, I wonder who I’m really trying to convince.

The bed feels both impossiblylarge and too small all at once. Every shift of Nathan’s body sends a ripple of warmth across my skin, a lingering awareness I can’t shake. I lie still on my back, watching the moonlight paint shadows on the ceiling.

“Can’t sleep?” His voice is gravelly with exhaustion. It startles me.

Once I’ve recovered, I feed him a lie. “Too much champagne.” I’m concerned by how easily that rolls off my tongue.

He rolls to face me. In the dim light, his usual sharp edges look softer. “Dana.”

“Don’t.” I close my eyes. “Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t.”

The sheets rustle as he moves closer. Not touching, but close enough that I feel his warmth. “Why does this scare you?”

“Because it’s not real,” I whisper. “We go home after this, when we’re done playing pretend, and everything goes back to normal.”

His hand finds mine in the darkness, warm and steady, his palm rougher than days ago. A slow exhale leaves him, like the contact settles something inside him. Or maybe inside me.

“What if I don’t want the old normal anymore?”

My heart pounds. His thumb brushes over my knuckles, the touch soft, almost absentminded, but it lingers. A quiet kind of possession.

“Nathan…”

“Get some sleep,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t let go.

I lie awake long after his breathing evens out, his fingers still locked around mine, grounding and unshakable. At one point, I swear he pulls me closer. Just a fraction. Just enough to make me wonder.

Now, I wonder how pretending turned into something that feels dangerously real.

Chapter Four

NATHAN - FAKING IT

Dana’s body feels both too close and too far away for my liking. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, but she’s pulling at my focus like a riptide, impossible to escape, dragging me under.

She’s still, her breathing steady. Asleep—or pretending to be.

The sheets carry her scent—vanilla and jasmine, warm and sweet. She’s curled on her side, facing away, hair spilling across the pillow in tangled waves. One hand rests between us, inches from mine. If I reached out, I could touch her.

I don’t.

Every inch of me feels off, like a string wound too tight, ready to snap if I move wrong. My fingers curl into the mattress.

“You’re fidgeting,” she mutters.

I shift to face her. “You’re awake.”

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