Page 33 of Friends Who Fake It

Silence, and then, “This weekend.”

Her heart stammered. “Yeah?”

“Are you coming?”

Her heart pounded. Was she? It was a fair question. It was just, no matter how many times Willow thought about this, she couldn’t come up with a straight answer. He’d left it up to her, and Willow had vacillated a thousand times.

“Would you prefer I didn’t?”

The second she asked the question, she winced. It was too needy. Too desperate. Suddenly, she was that little girl again, who’d been so desperate for love and approval, she’d sought it out constantly, only to be resolutely ignored by Meredith. Made to feel that unless she was perfect, she wasn’t worthy of affection.

“Frankly, Willow, right now, it’s the last thing on my mind. Just do what’s best for you.”

Silence fell. A strange, prickly, angry silence.

“Francesco…”

“Go back to Tom,cara. You wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

Tears stung the backs of Willow’s eyes as she made her way into the restaurant, but she refused to let them fall.

ChapterNine

“WE NEED TO GET something straight,” Francesco’s voice was grim, as he stood on the other side of Willow’s door, barely glancing at the small suitcase beside her.

Willow blinked quickly. In surprise, at how it felt to see Francesco now, after only a week apart. It was an almost physical reaction, like her body was being flooded with too much electricity.

“Well, hi to you, too,” she said, frowning a little as she took in the serious set of his features. “Are you okay?” She thought back to his call the other night, the tone of his voice, the way she’d thought he’d been about to say something, before Tom had interrupted.

“Of course.”

“Really? Because you look…annoyed.”

“I’m not annoyed,” he countered. “But we need to talk.”

“Yes, you said that,” she murmured, brushing an invisible piece of hair from her sleeve.

“What happened between us last weekend,” he said, eyes briefly raking lower, to her breasts, so heat spun through her body.

“You mean us sleeping together?” she prompted.

His eyes glittered when they met hers. “Yes.”

“What about it?”

“You know what my expectations are,” he said, gruffly. “You know what my relationships are like.”

“Practically non-existent?”

And despite the glowering look on his features, for a moment, a smile lifted his lips, twisting them in a gesture of amusement that was gone again almost straight away.

“Short term. But I also expect monogamy, Willow.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I enjoyed having sex with you. I would enjoy having sex with you again, this weekend, frankly. But if you are sleeping with him, it’s not going to happen with us.”

It took Willow a second to understand his meaning, and then, her eyes widened. The phone call. Dinner with Tom. Francesco actually thought she’d gone home with Tom again? Only days after sleeping with him?

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