Лорен Блэйкли - Big Rock

She shakes her head. “Not yet. I’m just pointing out another potential roadblock for you. It’s going to be a loooong seven days for you,” she says, elbowing me in the ribs. “Besides, how are you going to manage the fact that you were basically publicly dating a few weeks ago? What are you going to tell your dad and his buyer about that? Or how about the woman you saw in Miami a month ago at the restaurant opening?”

I wave a hand like the escape artist I am. “Leave it to the master. If anything comes up about that celebrity trainer, I’ll just deny it. No one believes the gossip rags anyway. And the Miami thing was just a friendly, posed photo. Besides, I already devised a perfect story of how we fell in love. I told my dad it happened quickly. In just a few weeks, in fact, and that I proposed to you last night because I realized after all these years that I’d been in love with you the whole time.”

“The whole time?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow.

I shrug playfully. “The whole damn time. I’ve been head over heels. It finally dawned on me what I was feeling, and I got down on one knee to make you mine.”

She doesn’t say anything at first, just parts her lips, and I stare at them for longer than usual. They are really pretty lips. I mean, from an empirical point of view. As her fake fiancé, it’s good for me to be knowledgeable about all her features, including her lips.

Assuming she says yes. She has to say yes.

“That’s actually a sweet story,” she says, her voice completely sincere as we stand on the corner of her block, holding each other’s gaze. “A true friends-to-lovers romance?”

“Yes,” I say quickly, breaking the eye contact because it’s a bit too much for me to handle right now. I have no clue why it feels weird, whether it’s the words or the way she looks at me.

Or really, why I feel weird at all.

We keep walking, and she takes a hearty gulp of her coffee. She straightens her spine and draws in a breath, and I cross my fingers that she’s about to agree.

“I want to help you, but…” she says, her voice trailing off.

My chest craters. Like, worse than those deflated balloons. I am out of air. I’m going to have to tell my dad the engagement ended before it even started, hang my head, cry in my soup, and claim Charlotte dumped me and broke my heart.

“Crap,” she mutters. “ Incoming douche .”

It’s the total asshole himself. Bradley “Bend Her Over The Counter” Buckingham walks toward us. He hates me. Not that I give a shit, but he detests me because I had the audacity to advise Charlotte against buying an apartment with him. It didn’t make financial sense to go in together in this building when other residences in the hood were increasing in value faster.

He’s about six feet, which makes him two inches shorter than me. He has blondish-red hair, broad shoulders, and the cheesy grin of a vacuum cleaner salesman. He works in PR. He’s senior VP of Communications for a huge pharmaceutical company that’s always under fire. King of Spin. Ace of Liars. Captain of Scum.

“Charlotte!” he calls out, waving to her. “Did you get the balloons?”

He pulls up next to us, barely making eye contact with me.

“They didn’t fit in the elevator, but it really doesn’t matter. You need to stop sending me gifts. It’s over with us. In fact,” she says, and reaches out to grab my free hand, threading her fingers through mine and surprising the fuck out of me, since she’s not a hand-holder, “I’m engaged to Spencer now.”

Whoa.

That surprise over her holding my hand? It’s nothing compared to the surprise from what comes next.

She thrusts her coffee cup at Bradley, and in the blink of an eye she wraps her hands around my neck, and presses her lips to mine.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Charlotte is kissing me.

On the streets of New York.

Her lips are on mine.

She tastes fantastic.

Like cream and sugar and coffee and sweetness. Like all the good things in the world. Like I imagined she’d taste.

Not that I’ve been thinking about kissing my best friend.

But, look, you can’t help where your mind wanders sometimes as a guy. Any man who is friends with a woman has taken the old imagination out for a stroll to Kissing Avenue, then Lovers Lane, then Fucking Street.

Which is exactly what I’m going to be visiting in Ye Olde Brain if she keeps brushing those lips softly against mine in this fluttery¸ lingering kind of kiss. Because it is getting harder to think about anything other than turning up the volume on this lip-lock.

A lot harder.

She lets out the tiniest little noise—like a sigh, or a gasp, or an almost-but-not-quite moan. And if she does that again, I will be pushing her against the slate-gray brick wall of her building, caging her in, sliding my hands along her sides and turning this into a full-body kiss.

Because she is too fucking sexy for her own good.

For my good.

She lets go of my lips.

My hard-on doesn’t get the message to chill out. It’s still pointing in her direction, wanting more. I cycle to my certified best buzzkill, picturing sweaty basketball players, and it goes down as Charlotte flashes a devilishly satisfied grin at Bradley.

While Charlotte was busy devouring me on Lexington Avenue, Bradley’s jaw had become dislodged from his face and fell to the ground.

Excellent.

“We got engaged last night. And I couldn’t be happier,” she says, snuggling up next to me and snaking an arm around my waist.

He tries to speak, but fish air bubbles come out instead.

Oh, this is priceless. I stare down at my shoes. I’m not smirking right now. I swear I haven’t got a big-ass grin on my face. I’m just the innocent bystander who got lip-smacked by the goddess.

“And like I said, it would be awesome if you could stop assaulting me with balloons and teddy bears and chocolate-covered cherries,” she says, and I make a quiet snort. Charlotte can’t stand chocolate-covered cherries. How does he not know this?

“I don’t even like them,” she says to Bradley, as she inches her fingers tighter around my waist. So tight that for a sliver of a second it seems like…like she’s copping a feel of my abs.

Okay.

That’s not even remotely a problem at all. Those rock-solid abs are there for your pleasure, m’lady.

“I had no idea you two were involved,” Bradley says. I look up to see the wheels turning in his head. “Were you always?”

Charlotte’s expression morphs into one of complete, slack-jawed shock. “What did you just say?”

He’s graduated. I didn’t think it was possible. But he just earned the title of Master Asshole.

Time to step in.

“No, Bradley. It’s all new. It’s all quite recent,” I say, meeting his eyes. “And to be honest, I really owe you a huge debt of thanks. If it wasn’t for you, and those quality control tests you performed on the kitchen counter, we might never have had the chance to be together. So thank you for fucking up a good thing with the most amazing woman in the world. ’Cause now she’s mine.” Then to bust his chops one more time, I drag her against me caveman-style, bend her backward, and kiss her hard again.

In seconds, I pull her up, wave good-bye to her ex, and guide her into her building.

I’m not sure if she’s more shocked by what he just said, what I just did, or by her own spur-of-the-moment decision, but as soon as we’re in the elevator, she turns to me, and shrugs happily. “I guess I’m playing your fiancée for the next week, Snuffaluffagus. We’ve got to buy a ring at two, and I’m going to require a full debrief.”

There are other things I’d like to debrief right now. But this works too.