Page 82 of Pretend To Be My Cowboy
Forever.
He took a step back like he’d been sucker punched and dropped his hands from her waist.
Her eyes brimmed with emotions, but not one of which he could decipher.
She was waiting for him to speak, to say something. Anything.
He turned to head to the house. “Goodnight, Emma.”
26
Emma was a fool.
And a coward.
Also, she couldn’t figure out how to do her hair to save her life. “Stupid...tangled...ouch!”
The sound of her phone ringing to announce a video call cut through her efforts to tame hair, which had decided today was the day to be thoroughly unmanageable.
Lizzy’s face popped up on the screen. “Hey, Em—uh oh, what’s wrong?”
Emma let out a rough exhale. Apparently, she looked as bad as she felt. “My stupid hair won’t cooperate.”
She sounded like a petulant child, and she knew it.
“Okay,” Lizzy said slowly, in a condescendingly gentle tone like she was talking to a petulant child. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to set down the brush before you tear your hair out.”
Emma threw down the brush with a sigh.
“Next, you’re going to sit down, take a deep breath, and tell me what’s got you so upset.” Before Emma could reply, Lizzy added, “Because I know it’s not your hair. You’ve never been one to freak out over your hair.”
Emma fell onto the bed, taking a deep breath like her sister ordered.
“Okay,” Lizzy said after a beat. “Let’s start with the fact that you’re wearing your good dress.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “I have more than one dress, you know.”
“Yes, but this is the only one you ever wear to fancy events, so spill. Where are you off to and why are you freaking out?”
Emma didn’t know where to begin and after a few stutters and huffs, she launched into the truth. The whole truth. From how nice Nash was on her very first day to the fact that she’d agreed to pretend to be his girlfriend to help ease his family’s pressure, to the epic kiss that had taken over her brain and made her physically incapable of thinking about anything else.
“I’m such an idiot,” Emma ended, covering her face with her hand.
“Oh sweetie, you’re not an idiot.” But Lizzy’s tone said she wasn’t entirely convinced of this. She sounded like she was trying to reassure them both that her older sister hadn’t lost her ever-loving mind. “It’s so like you to go along with something so ridiculous even though you have nothing to gain.”
Emma sniffed. Tears were threatening but she refused to cry. She was a big girl and she’d known what she was getting into.
Had she hoped that maybe Nash would have a change of heart? Had she been a total coward after the festival and tried, but failed, to nudge him into confessing that the kiss had been real?
Yes and yes.
But she wasn’t going to cry about it. She refused.
It’s so like you…
Her sister’s words had her brows furrowing in annoyance. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve never pretended to be someone’s girlfriend before.”
And she’d certainly never fallen for a fake boyfriend. She would definitely have remembered this particular brand of pathetic self-pity.
