Falling for Your Fake Fiancé (Love Clichés, #3)

by Emma St. Clair

I have work to do and a wife to find, one willing to marry an unmarriable man.

Oh, no you don’t, Apollo. I’ve seen 101 Dalmatians. And I am not about to be set up by a dog. Nuh-uh. Stick to planning which tree to water next, buddy. Because you are not playing matchmaker with me and your donkey’s butt of a human.

I have to slap a hand over my mouth to stop the laugh that bursts out of me. That doesn’t hide the sound though, and I’m rewarded with the widest, most brilliant smile. Fail! Total fail. Control yourself, Miss Hart! “Don’t hold a laugh that beautiful in. Not on my account. Come on. Let me feed you.”

I stare at my menu, partly because my stomach is still shouting angrily at me, and partly because I cannot keep looking at Thayden. He’s too handsome. Too winsome. Too good at saying all the right things.

Fact: I don’t want to get married. Fact: I don’t want my father to get his way. Fact: I don’t want Delilah to be a pawn in these games. Fact: This may have ruined any chance I have of dating her. Fact: This completely sucks.

I sink back down on the couch, putting a receipt in my book to mark my place because I’m not a savage who turns down the corners of pages.

“Anytime. I’m all yours.” A day ago, Thayden would have grinned and made some flirtatious remark about me being all his, I would have rebuked him, and we would have sparred with our words. I ache for that back-and-forth.

“I would marry you in anything you wore,” he says. The words drop from his lips like a vow, and they cause something to shift inside of a deep, locked and heavily guarded vault of my heart.

Thayden has chosen a mix of classics and contemporary books, some looking brand new and others worn. The thoughtfulness of this gesture alone would be enough to undo me.

We’re so close. Tension is thick in the air again between us. His lips are within reach. I ache with the memory of kissing him.