Page 28 of Better Left Unsaid

I pushed my burger aside. I didn’t think beating around the bush was going to get me far. I needed to come right out and say it, say how this could involve her, too. Too bad that was easier said than done. All right, let’s try again. “They want the models to be a real-life couple.”

“Oh, really?” She picked up another mozzarella stick. “That’s new.” Then she swallowed. “Although, I have to say, it is a great marketing tactic.”

Sure was. “I thought the same thing.”

“But you don’t have a girlfriend,” she noted, chewing her mozzarella stick and pointing the second half of it my way.

I raised an eyebrow and waited while she got there.

Then she dropped her food and swallowed hard. For a second there, I thought she might choke with the way her eyes went wide, and her cheeks flushed. “Wait! We’re not a couple, Dom,” she whisper-shouted at me, leaning over the table, eyes intense. “Did you tell Jeff we were?”

“No. Of course not.” Because that would be wishful thinking.

Exhaling a breath, she looked all too relieved. Now you saw why I’d never told her how I felt? Something (read: everything) told me the feelings were one-sided. “Thank goodness. So, what’s the plan? Find a fake girlfriend? Ohmigod, is this why you asked me about modeling?”

A fake girlfriend?Why in the hell would I want to do that? That would only add unnecessary complication to my already complicated situation. Plus, I didn’t want to date any woman, fake or otherwise, unless her first name was Maria and her last was Morelli.

This was taking too long. I needed to rip the bandage off already. I drank my soda and looked at Maria. Here went nothing. “It’s about chemistry and attraction, so I don’t think I need an actual girlfriend, just someone I have those things with. Someone like you.” There. I did it. I said it. Damn it, someone hit me upside the head because I hated the way I sounded to my own ears.

“Like me?” Maria brought a hand to her forehead and rubbed it. “I don’t know, Dom. I’m not a model, and, like I said, I’d be uncomfortable.”

I shrugged casually. “You don’t have to be. I’ll be there.”

“That’s sort of a main reason why.”

“How come? We sleep together. It’s not like anything can be more intimate than that.”

Her eyebrows formed a deep V. “Why me? You can’t find any other woman to do this with?” Her eyes wandered off to the side.

It was a good question, and I wished like hell I had a good answer, but I didn’t. All I had was the truth—that if (and that was a bigif) I did this, I wanted to do this with Maria. “I thought it could be fun. We’re friends, sure, but we have pretty good chemistry.” Don’t ride my ass, I already knew my answer was lame.

“Don’t you think people would find it odd that I’d be doing it with you?”

She wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it mattered. “Who gives a shit? Haven’t dozens of people thought you and I were an item anyway over the years?” I mean, I didn’t have actual stats, but I was pretty sure. Someone was always assuming we were more than best friends. And sure, they would’vetechnicallybeen right these past few years about us being more than friends, so what was the difference now?

“True.” Maria picked up her soda and sipped, and I could see the gears in her head turning. “I guess I’d be open to learning the details. Do you know when it’d be? Where?”

Pulling my burger back in front of me, I picked it up for another bite. The hard part wasn’t over, but I’d definitely made progress. “I don’t, but I’ll find out. So you’re open to it?”

“Why not? It’d be good for your career, I assume, otherwise Jeff wouldn’t even entertain the offer, and this feels like a very small thing I could do for you, so yeah, I’m open to it. Just let me know the details.” Maria smiled and looked back down at her food.

See, she thought the conversation was over. It wasn’t, though. She was still missing one teeny, tiny piece of information. It really was such a small, almost insignificant detail, right? She already agreed, so was being naked in the shoot going to change her mind? It could be argued that she’d be fine with it since we were naked together a lot, what with our lack of significant others and healthy sex drives. I’d hesitated enough. Now for the hard part, and with her not looking at me, it made it easier somehow. “I do know one detail.”

“Mmm.” Maria swallowed. “What’s that?”

She was still looking down at her food, and I was calling that a win, so I blurted out, “We’d be nude.”

Maria’s head shot up, and she looked like she was going to choke on her food again. After slapping a hand on the table to compose herself, she swallowed and stared directly at me. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Did you say nude? As in no clothing?”

I nodded.

“You and me? Photographed without clothes? For the whole world to see?”

Again, I nodded. “Yep.”

“Are you out of your mind?” She wiped a finger around her lips. “You kind of buried the lede, Dominic Deluca.”

Shit.“So that’s a no?”

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