It’s a declaration.

It says, I want you, I want your lips, I want your taste, and I want to feel you, touch you, have you.

In a diner, on a Friday morning before work, we kiss like the world is going up in flames.

I’m positive that if I were to see someone going at it like we are, I’d watch.

Oh, hell would I watch.

Because kisses like this don’t come around often.

I’ve never had one like it in my life, and I don’t have a clue what it means, or where we go after.

Someone coughs, and we break the kiss as the waitress passes us.

I blink, breathing out hard like I’ve run a race.

He looks at me the same damn way.

He swallows, trying to collect himself, his voice hoarse. “So, yeah. Looks like we got that one. You want to post it?”

I don’t know how he’s speaking. I don’t know how anyone can speak after being kissed senseless by her best friend.

But he’s doing it, so I follow his lead. “Yes. Sure. Of course. Do you want me to say anything special?”

He waves a hand. “Oh, you’re great with that stuff.” He looks at his watch. “I have a meeting. I should go.”

He’s leaving? Just leaving? Though he did say he had a meeting. Still . . .

I furrow my brow. “Oliver?”

He scoots away, grabbing his phone and tossing bills on the table. “Yes?”

But the look in his eyes is nothing I’ve seen before. It’s distant and masked.

Actually, I have seen that look before. It’s how he looked for months after his sister died.

My chest hurts. It aches terribly.

He regrets kissing me, while I regret stopping the kiss.

I try to draw a big, fueling breath, like it can reroute the pang in my chest. I purse my lips. Then, against the tightness in my throat, I manage to say, “I’ll meet you at the jeweler. Before the hockey game?”

“That’d be perfect.”

He turns and leaves me and my bruised lips and heart at the table.

21OLIVER

Blinders come in handy.

I put mine on all day, zeroing in on the contract work ahead of me for Geneva’s firm, then on the deal memo for my new client, Helen Williams Designs.

I focus on that rather than on how utterly fucking complicated this fake fiancée gambit has become after this morning’s kiss.

I have half a mind to call it off. Because how the hell am I supposed to spend time with her and pretend I don’t want to kiss her again?

It’s all I want to do.

Wait. That’s not true. I want to do much more.

Which is the real problem.

So I bury myself in work, since the law is reliable.

With every line of legalese I write, I remind myself of why I am faking it—I have to protect this firm and its rep.

I meet with some of the junior partners handling various deals for the firm, and we review the terms. When we’re done, one of the newest attorneys here mentions that his one-year-old just took his first steps, and then shows us the video.

“What a cutie-pie,” one of the women says.

That’s another reminder.

These people depend on me. I sign their checks so they can pay their student loans and take care of their one-year-olds.

I can’t call anything off.

Even if I want to.

Even if it’s getting harder to pretend.

At the end of the day, I change into running shorts to hit the park, chatting with Jane on the way out.

“I see you’re the toast of Twitter now,” she says as the elevator doors close.

“Am I now?”

With a sneaky look on her face, she grabs her phone from her handbag, slides it open, and shows me the latest comments.

@LovesListsofMen: The kissing pics!!! Dying. Just dying.

@ManCandyFan: Dying twice. Dying dead again. Dying from the hotness of the kissing.

@GossipLover1andOnly: I am dead. I am literally dead.

@ManCandyFan: *collects your body* *gives it a proper funeral befitting a death from hotness*