Page 40 of Pretend

“I suppose we could do that,” Eric said, mostly because that could work in his favor. “What else?”

“What happens when this is all over?” Morgan asked after a slight pause.

“Meaning, if you don’t end up falling head over heels in love with me?” Eric asked as his gaze dropped back down to her little toes, watching as they started wiggling again, letting him know just how nervous she was.

For a moment, he considered telling her that wasn’t an option, but…

“Then, we pretend that this never happened and we go back to the way things used to be,” Eric said, lying to her one last time, knowing that he was never going to be able to let her go.

CHAPTER22

There was no way that she was going to be able to make it look like an accident, Morgan realized as she watched the man that thought it was a good idea to screw with her head as he finished off the last glazed donut.

She definitely should have hobbled him when she had the chance, Morgan thought as she reached for the coffee that he’d picked up for her, more than a little tempted to throw it at his head and took a sip, all while narrowing her eyes on the large bastard toying with her.

Leaving would have been the smart thing to do.

At least, for her, it would have been, but instead of doing the smart thing and leaving before she did something incredibly stupid, she’d somehow convinced herself that this was a good idea. While Eric told her that he wanted her, she’d told herself that she could handle this, that she could spend the next thirty days pretending that the man that she’d loved all her life was hers and-

She couldn’t resist.

She knew better, knew that this wasn’t going to end well, but that didn’t stop her from agreeing to this asinine plan. Instead, she’d made sure to sound put out as she’d agreed to give him a chance to adore her, which led to Eric giving her one of those incredibly sexy smiles that she’d always loved and-

That was it.

There was no kiss, tears of joy, or any type of rejoicing. He’d simply murmured, “Goodnight,” before he walked out of the bathroom and made his way to the sleeping bag where he lost himself in the file that Uncle Jared gave them on the house. Not sure what she was supposed to do, Morgan decided to get ready for bed, grabbed one of the incredibly beautiful nightgowns that Eric picked out for her, took a shower, allowed herself a small panic attack, and when she was done, Morgan told herself that she could do this as she forced herself to walk back into the bedroom where she found Eric passed out on the sleeping bag.

Telling herself that was fine because they should take this slowly, Morgan climbed into bed and…

Nothing.

That was followed by quietly grumbling, telling herself that she didn’t want a kiss goodnight and delicately clearing her throat every few minutes while she sent hopeful glances in Eric’s direction, only to give up sometime around midnight. When she woke up this morning, she’d pushed away her disappointment from the night before aside and focused on the job ahead, grabbed her favorite Bradford Remodeling tee-shirt, one of the pairs of shorts that Eric bought for her, and quickly made her way downstairs to get started with the help of one of those incredibly sweet kisses that she’d thought about all night.

Instead, she got lukewarm coffee, stale donuts, and…

Nothing.

For the past hour, they’d both sat at this incredibly beautiful antique kitchen table going over their notes, double-checking their inventory lists that they’d created yesterday while they were setting up the equipment that Uncle Jared left for them, the checklist they came up with to get started, and that was it. But that was fine with her because she didn’t want to kiss him again.

Not. At. All.

In fact, she was more than willing to pretend that yesterday never happened and focus on this house and the incredibly beautiful barn that she couldn’t help but notice would be perfect for Bradford Remodeling. They could use the basement for storage, the first floor would be perfect for their shop, giving them plenty of room for all of Eric’s tools, the extra workbenches that he’d been talking about getting, and they could turn the loft into their office.

As for the house…

“Where do you want to start?” Eric asked as he reached over and took the clipboard from her.

“We should probably go over everything that the previous owner claims he did,” Morgan said, shifting her attention to the list they’d made from the file Uncle Jared gave them as she did her best to bite back her disappointment.

He’d changed her mind and…

It was for the best, Morgan told herself as she read through the list. “The roof needs to be checked, and so does the electric, and heat,” she said, deciding that they should start with all of the big items that could set them back first. “The air conditioner seems to be working, but we should probably still check the air ducts and wiring to make sure. The plumbing is going to be a little trickier.”

“He had a new septic dug and put in a new water heater and changed out a few faucets,” Eric murmured absently as she felt the first groan of the project starting to form.

“Did you see any patch jobs?” Morgan asked, hoping that she’d somehow missed it and that the previous owner took the time to switch out the old plumbing so that they wouldn’t have to.

Shaking his head, Eric said, “We still have the original plumbing,” letting her know that this was going to be a complete gutting job, which was fine, Morgan told herself as she took her list back from him and added going around the house and marking everything that she wanted to save so that it didn’t end up in a dumpster to the list.

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