Summer shakes her head. “I’m honestly not a wine person.”

Geneva frowns. “Oh? I thought Oliver said you liked wine?”

Summer jerks her gaze to me. “You did?”

And shit, fuck, bugger. I forgot to debrief Summer properly on the way over, forgot to tell her I told Geneva that she enjoyed wine. Because of that damn dress. It’s like Lex Luthor designed a dress with my personal kryptonite. Or maybe that kiss fried too many brain cells going into tonight.

Jane widens her Mayday eyes, trying to signal that I need to get my act together.

“My apologies, Geneva. Summer’s never been a wine fan,” I say, dropping an arm across my date’s shoulder. “But I wanted to come, and I knew she’d be a good sport about it, because she is a great sport.”

Summer gives an aren’t we cute grin. “That’s me. Sometimes he even calls me sport.”

What?

I would really like to roll my eyes now. I’d never call her “sport.” Maybe “strawberry.” Or “petal.” Or “cupcake.” She does look a bit like one right now . . . as in, good enough to eat.

I push out a laugh as I shift my gaze to the woman by my side. “But most of the time, I call you cupcake.”

“Yes, it is so dear when he calls her ‘cupcake,’” Jane chimes in.

I press a kiss to Summer’s cheek. And the kiss seems to do the trick.

“For a moment there, you had me thinking you don’t really know your fiancée. With the wine and whatnot.” Geneva wags a finger at me. She’s grinning, but her grin says, You damn well better know your fiancée.

I toss my head back and laugh at that ridiculous suggestion. “I know her incredibly well. Have for years.”

“They were practically inseparable in high school, from what I heard,” Jane adds.

“We were. And we never drank wine together then either,” Summer says.

“Such well-behaved teens,” Jane says.

“And I can at least sniff it now,” Summer chimes in, grabbing the glass and lifting it to her nose. “Yes, it does indeed smell like bacon.”

Geneva frowns.

“I meant leather.” Summer quickly corrects herself. “I meant it smells like fine leather. The finest.”

Jane grins.

I squeeze Summer’s arm tighter, then drop a kiss onto her cheek. “Leather. Bacon. Sometimes it’s one and the same.”

“I love bacon,” Summer blurts out. “That was a compliment. Bacon is awesome. They should make bacon wine.”

Geneva tilts her head, considering us for a beat. The woman is more skeptical than I’d like her to be, and it’s much harder to play pretend than I anticipated.

Time to prove it’s real. I draw Summer close and plant a quick kiss on her lips that’s not so quick after all. Because she’s delicious and the taste of her lips goes to my head, making me want more of them. So I linger just a little bit longer. “Your lips taste like cupcakes,” I murmur.

And Summer breathes out hard.

That makes Geneva smile bigger.

“Such an affectionate couple. I swear, some days you can’t pry them apart. Now, let’s go try that Syrah,” Jane says, steering Geneva away while shooting me a get it together look.

I turn to Summer. “‘Sport’? I would never call you ‘sport.’”

She swats my arm and chides in a whisper, “And I never would have said I didn’t like wine if I’d known I’m supposed to love it. Maybe if you had told me that instead of spending all that time on the fictional first time we shagged.”

“Fair point. But also, bacon wine?”

“Someone should make it.”

“No. No one should make it.”

“If someone made bacon wine, I might like wine.”

“Stop. Just stop. Bacon wine sounds horrid.”

“Bacon wine, bacon wine, bacon wine,” she whispers, taunting me, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Woman, you need to get a grip.”

She bonks my shoulder. “And you need to brief me properly.”

“Fine. On the way home, we’ll work on our cover story for next time. But for now, I have a solution.”

“What’s that?”

I waggle my hands. “Did you know I’m incredibly affectionate?”

“Is that so?”

She raises her eyebrows flirtatiously, and I tempt fate. I run my fingers over her leg.

Her breath catches the tiniest bit, and if she wasn’t my fake girlfriend, my fake fiancée, I’d think it was sexy.

But this is all pretend.

It’s a lucky thing I’ve always been so good at make-believe. For instance, I know that if your pretend love affair comes into doubt, you should touch your fake fiancée as much as possible.

At least, that’s my rule and I’m sticking to it.

19OLIVER

This is weird.

It shouldn’t be, and yet it is.