Page 58 of The Fake Date Agreement

“You sure we’re just gonna study?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?” His eyes dip to my mouth.

“This is just pretend,” I remind him.

“Is it?” He leans toward me, and I stop breathing.

He’s going to kiss me again.

Why am I not stopping him?

Why, in fact, am I leaning toward him?

I’m staring at his mouth, a death grip on my bag as I prepare to close my eyes.

“After you,” he says with a smile.

I glance to the right.

He has the door to his dorm building open.

He bent to open it, and I thought he was getting ready to kiss me.

Idiot.

Face hot, I turn to enter when he grasps my arm. “Tobie?”

I twist around. “Yeah?”

“Pretend can stop anytime you want it to. You know that, right?”

“Why would I need to know that?”

“Just telling you the most important rule of Project Headless Ex. That’s all.”

“I thought it was revenge. And getting girls off your back.”

He holds the door farther open for me. “Is it?”

Chapter 15

Javier

“I don’t need lingerie, Javier,”Tobie whispers from behind the lingerie store’s dressing room door.

The only reason Tobie agreed to this shopping trip to La Perla was by deception. I told her I wanted to take her shopping but was vague about what we would be shopping for. By the time I was escorting her into the store, it was too late for her to back out.

I close the magazine a sales assistant offered me and place it on the glass table in front of me. “We’re not here to get you lingerie. At least, not only. You need something else.”

“What?”

“Confidence. You were easily the hottest girl at the party, yet you spent it hiding in a corner. We need to do something about that.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she denies.

“You were. Why do you think all the guys were staring? And why do you think your ex was so pissed you were with us?”

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