Page 20 of Accidentally Yours
“When’s the last time you kissed a guy?” Alice grinned. “Like reallykissed.”
Paige blinked. She hadn’t locked lips, cuddled, or held hands with anyone since her ex. Falling into Ethan’s arms the other night was the closest she’d been to a man in a long time.
“It’s been a while,” Paige admitted.
Alice leaned in. “Don’t you always say you need to experience things to write them well? Like when you took those karate classes, just to nail that fight scene?”
Paige scrunched her brow. Was Alice brilliant or diabolical? An evil genius?
“Maybe you just need to reframe how you’re looking at this fake dating thing. It could give you a great opportunity for someresearch.” Alice waggled her eyebrows.
“Now, that sounds like fun research,” Gigi added with a giggle.
Filling their glasses, Paige rolled her eyes, even as a spark of intrigue flickered in her chest. Could she really use this ridiculous arrangement to fill her creative well? To inspire her writing?
She laughed despite herself and set down the blender. She took hold of her margarita and raised the glass. “To research?” She looked at Alice and Gigi, like she’d just given the weirdest toast ever.
They grabbed their glasses and clinked them against hers. “Cheers!”
Harmless research.That’s all it would be. A little pretending . . . for the writing, of course.
Ethan wasn’t interested in her. He wanted his family heirloom, not a girlfriend. And she needed a stellar story, something to win back her fans. Pretending to date was simply a means to an end, for both of them.
And yet . . .
As she took a sip of her sweetly sour margarita, an image flashed through her mind—Ethan’s lips on hers. Warm, insistent. The weight of his hand on her waist. His deep voice whispering in her ear.
A tiny, traitorous thrill curled low in her stomach. She immediately pushed it away.
The line between fiction and reality could never blur.
Absolutely not.
. . . Right?
Chapter Nine
They’dspenttheentireafternoon working at their publisher’s office. Not so much writing as brainstorming and plotting—at least as much plotting as Paige allowed. And Ethan let her take the lead, partly because their contract dictated it, but mostly because she was unbelievably good at it, and had proven so over and over throughout the day. He’d been so caught up in the way her mind worked that hours had slipped by in a blink.
“The meet-cute happens at the first archaeological site, the midpoint is when the jewel thieves first chase them, and their happily-ever-after comes when they find the necklace together,” Paige said, perched on the windowsill, cross-legged and fully in her element.
The office had served as a neutral ground for their first official writing session, and they’d taken over a sparse meeting room. There was nothing but a table, a few chairs, and a wall displaying Windy City Press’s bestsellers—including his, and the first of her series. Ethan sat at the table, his gaze shifting from his laptop to Paige. The late afternoon sun bathed her in golden light.
“Yes,” he replied, typing a few notes.
“I love that Mary Anne was the one to save Aldean from the thieves.” Paige smirked over her screen, her enthusiasm palpable.
Ethan’s chest warmed. “Pops always said that was the moment he knew his heart was hers.” It meant more than he could say that Paige wanted to preserve the essence of his grandparents’ love story. He knew this wasn’t a biography. It couldn’t be. With his grandpa gone and his grandma’s memory fading, all he had were old news articles and the stories they’d passed down to him.
“She’s a spitfire,” Paige said, eyes gleaming. “And I love writing spitfire heroines.”
Ethan smiled. She was dang good at them too. That was one reason he’d devoured herLove, Lies & Alibisseries. Paige’s heroines hooked him with their sharp wit and sheer determination. And now that he was getting to know Paige, he could see where that came from.
An idea struck, and he typed a few quick notes, already envisioning a scene that would cement Mary Anne and Aldean’s growing connection. He was mapping out the chapters, adding scene ideas and notes for himself, but Paige didn’t want to know the details. She only wanted to outline the beginning, middle, and end—needing creative freedom to let the story develop organically between those points.
“What if we alternate chapters?” Ethan asked, glancing at her over his laptop screen. “You write Mary Anne’s. I’ll write Aldean’s.”
Paige stilled, her nose scrunching like she smelled something foul.
