Page 19 of Sugar and Spice
“Told you. I like cash,” I lied.
She raised her eyes to look at me. She knew I was lying. Shit.
“Liar. We said no lying, Austin.”
Double shit.
“Look, dunno what to tell you, Daisy. Piper came to me with a crazy plan, but she’d already done the hard part. All I have to do is play along and I get to be on TV, my bakery gets exposure, Clarity looks good and-”
“You have to pretend to be married to me.”
“I get a great pay day for like, three days of work.”
“It’s five days, and everyone knows we’re lying,” she pointed out.
I scoffed. “I’d hardly sayeveryone. I feel like we have a good amount of the town fooled that we are married.”
“It’s nuts, when the hell would we have even been able to do that? No one is asking the hard questions!”
“Maybe because it seems right,” I said, before I could stop myself. I winced when her eyes became sharp on me. Daisy was a smart woman, I knew she wasn’t going to let that go.
“Right? How is it right? We hate each other.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’d say we have a history.”
She rolled her eyes and stood, taking a step towards me as another gust of wintry wind blew past us, pushing her hair into her face. She shoved it to the side and I tried to ignore how my fingers itched to comb it from her face. “A history of hating the hell out of each other.”
“I never hated you, Daisy,” I said.
She froze and shook her head. “No, you do. We don’t...we don’t get along. Like at all.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, and this time I reached for her. My fingers caught hold of a lock of hair that blew against her cheek. I twisted it gently around my fingers and ran my thumb across her skin. I heard the intake of her breath at the brush of my finger. If she freaked out, if she yelled at me to stop touching her, to get away from her, I would take it. I would move away from her. There were no cameras around now, the crew was speeding towards Clarity with a snowstorm on their heels.
There was no reason for me to touch her. No reason other than I wanted to.
“Doesn’t mean that I hate you,” I told her.
She looked down at where I had her hair in my hand and swallowed hard, the sound of it audible even above the now rushing wind. The trees swayed around us, the rattling of branches nearly deafening, and I knew the storm was about to hit.
“Why are you-” she stopped and licked her lips, before trying again, “why are you saying that? Why are you touching me? You’re helping me for a reason other than money. I know it. Don’t lie to me, Austin.”
“I want to,” I said plainly. This time I moved into her space and settled my hand on her side, fingers splayed out across her hip. “I want to, Daisy.”
God I hoped she wanted me to touch her.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. “This doesn't make any sense.” A snowflake swirled in front of us, landing on her bottom lip. I almost groaned at the sight of it. Of course the first snowflake would land there, make me want to kiss her on top of it all. I was fucking envious of that snowflake.
“Let’s get inside. I’ll explain.”
She nodded and followed me when I went past her, hating that I had to take my hands from her, stop touching her, but it was necessary. We couldn’t stand out in the now falling snow staring at each other with her thinking I hated her.I had never hated her.How had it gotten so twisted? There was a reason I had helped her that went even beyond me wishing she had a chance to choose where she went. To leave Clarity if she chose. In all the years of our back-and-forth, our mutual mission to piss the other off in the worst way possible, I finally realized that while I didn’t hate Daisy, I had no idea if she hated me.
And that scared the shit out of me.
CHAPTER9
DAISY
“Why are you pacing?” I asked Austin as he moved restlessly across the length of the small cabin. He was a big man, but even if he hadn’t been, there would have been little floor space for him to pace. The furnishings inside were sweet and nice with thick rugs covering the hardwood floors, a big bed with piles of cozy bedding sat in the middle of the shared living room/bedroom space with a television across the room. It would be nice to lie in bed and watch television...you know if I had half a mind to do that with Austin, which I didn’t.
