Page 41 of Cajuns. Love. Curves.

So I gird my loins—and by gird my loins, I mean wrap myself in a towel—and go out to face the music—and by music I mean Nick.

“How did you get back here so fast?” I ask blithely, pretending I’m not wearing only a towel. “You couldn’t possibly have—” I stop myself from finishing the sentence when I see the bag of food in his hand.

“I knew it was going to be a long day, and you’d be hungry when we got back. So This morning I asked the chef to have food ready.”

“I guess you thought of everything, didn’t you?”

He gives me a baffled look, shaking his head in obvious confusion. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad? I’m not mad. I’m fine.”

He has the gall to look amused. “You’re obviously not fine. You’re pissed as fuck. And we can either play twenty questions until I figure out what I did to piss you off or you can just tell me.”

“Nothing. You did nothing to piss me off.”

“And yet—”

“No. You did nothing. That’s what’s pissed me off.” When he still looks confused, I want to scream in frustration. “Okay, let me spell it out for you. This place is very romantic. You are a very good fake boyfriend.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“Yes, I mean, look at this place.” I gesture to the enormous bed. “A single king-sized bed. One bed. Trust me when I tell you that in every romcom, basically ever, if the couple is pretending to be in a fake relationship, they have to share a room and there’s only one bed. And there are shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans?”

“Yes. Shenanigans. Canoodling, at the very least. But no. Not with you. Because you’re a big, tough Navy SEAL and you can sleep anywhere. So of course you didn’t need to sleep in the bed. There was no accidental snuggling in the night. No morning canoodling. Zero shenanigans!”

His lips are twitching now. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re pissed off because I didn’t take advantage of you?”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds stupid.”

“Okay, so you want to say it some other way? Some way that will make me understand what I need to do to fix this?”

His expression is patient and… kind, for God’s sake. Like he’s just genuinely trying to do the right thing. Which he probably is.

After all, Nick is a good guy. I know this.

He has the heart of a boy scout, wrapped in the body of a Marvel superhero.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault, and you don’t have to fix this.” I put air quotes aroundfix this. “This is all on me. It’s just that yesterday, when we were around my colleagues all day, you did such a good job pretending that you couldn’t keep your hands off me, I—”

I cut myself off, because, for the love of Captain America’s ass, this is embarrassing to admit out loud and I’m kind of wishing I’d given the surviving-on-hibiscus-blossoms plan more thought.

“You what?”

Okay, Cassie. Just blurt it out. Rip the Band-Aid off.

“I liked being your fake girlfriend a little too much, and I guess I expected you to make a move. And then, we got to the room—this amazingromanticroom you finagled for us—and I thought, whoa! King-sized bed. He’s definitely going to play that angle. But then there was no angle.”

When I finally work up the courage to look him in the eyes, he’s grinning. This big shit-eating grin. Like a kid on Christmas morning with an entire roomful of presents.

“You know,” I jab a finger in his direction, “This actually is your fault. This wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t been such a good fake boyfriend and hadn’t made me feel all the—” I make a vague gesture toward my tummy, where all those butterflies are still flapping away.

“Made you feel all what?” He takes a step closer, his gaze no longer amused, but dark and serious.

“Are you really going to make me say this out loud?”

“Yeah, I am.” He takes another step closer. “You’re my best friend’s kid sister. You’re my friend, as well. And I respect you both too much to make a move unless I know it’s exactly what you want. So, yeah. I need to hear you say it out loud. I want to hear exactly what I made you feel.”

---