‘Thanks for having me,’ he said, smiling and shaking hands and silently cursing that they’d been interrupted. And then wanted to kick himself for the selfish thought. He wasn’t supposed to care whether or not he was kissing Lara. This was meant to be play-acting.
He reminded himself of that as he made small talk with Lara and her family, his hand resting on the small of her back, as if he wasn’t thoroughly distracted by the thought of all that golden skin under the criss-crosses of her jumpsuit.
* * *
He was good. Oh, he was really good. She had to remind herself of that. Remind herself not to let herself get dizzy from the warm, lazy circles Jannes was rubbing at the small of her back. He was being supportive. And kind. And he was kissing her and touching her because that was exactly what she’d asked him to do—to pretend to be her boyfriend and to make it convincing... There was nothing personal in the feel of his skin on hers. Even in the way that his lips brushed hers.
Thank God they had talked about this. She didn’t have to think about her feelings. About what feelings Jannes might or might not be having. Here, of all places, among these people, she needed that certainty. Having talked with Jannes beforehand about what they were doing, the fake boyfriend was the only solution.
She’d spent her childhood adoring someone who had lied to her every time he had opened his mouth and spoken to her. Every ‘I love you’ that had come from his lips was worthless. She wasn’t going to spend her adulthood repeating those mistakes. And if that meant agreeing in advance that a relationship was a lie, rather than waiting and hoping and then just finding out later, then that was what she would do. What would Jannes think if she told him that? she wondered. If she confessed that she wanted him, but only if they were pretending. Would he settle for that? If that was all that she could give him?
She leaned into Jannes’s side, breathing freely again as she watched her stepmother move away, making her way through the assembled guests, kissing cheeks and directing wait staff with trays of champagne and spreading her good mood throughout the crowds.
‘You going to finish the bottle now?’ Jannes asked, watching her watching Pip’s mother and sensing her mood.
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘Then we should go and find you some carbs.’
He pulled on her hand and she thought he really might be the best man she knew. Which was precisely why she wanted him in her life permanently—which meant as a friend. Where he couldn’t break her heart. Couldn’t make her love him and then take it away again when she gave in and loved him back. She didn’t want to lose him, which meant she was never going to hope for—want—more than she had now.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘COME ON THEN, sötnos,’ Jannes said, one arm around Lara’s waist as he helped her from the taxi. ‘Let’s get you upstairs before you do something disgusting in this nice man’s car.’
She laughed, as he knew she would.
‘I told you: don’t be all Swedish and charming. I’m too drunk not to find it adorable.’
He hoisted Lara against his side as he went through her bag looking for her keys, a job made somewhat more difficult by the fact that Lara kept sinking down, threatening to slip from his grasp every time he thought he had a hand on her keys.
‘And I told you hours ago to stop calling me adorable. Here we go,’ he said, wrapping her arms around his neck for extra safety as he finally got hold of the keys and opened the door to her apartment.
All in all, the day hadn’t been too much of a disaster. Lara had managed to keep a smile on her face throughout the speeches, including the one that Gloria made in place of Pip and Lara’s conspicuously absent father, and as the wine had made her looser and more morose, he had simply wedged her against him in the corner of the dance floor so it would look to anyone who took an interest that they were simply too besotted with one another to be dragged apart rather than the fact that by nine o’clock Lara could no longer stand unassisted. But she’d achieved the status of falling-over-drunk with more panache and style than he’d seen anyone manage before. And he was nothing if not impressed by her stamina.
He staggered through the door with one arm clamped around her waist, and it was more awkward to stoop than it was to simply straighten up and carry her, her toes just brushing the doorjamb as he manoeuvred them into her apartment. He shouldered open the bedroom door and dropped her on the bed, both of them letting out an undignified ‘Oof!’ as he dropped her. Good job no one was trying to impress anyone. If this had been a normal date...
He batted away her hands as she tried to unbuckle her sandals and pulled them off for her and then averted his eyes and escaped to the kitchen while Lara wrestled out of her jumpsuit. By the time he returned with a pint of water and a couple of paracetamols, Lara was in bed with her hair pulled into a messy bun and the lace-trimmed strap of a tank top slipping from her shoulder. He pulled the strap back into place and the duvet up higher, before handing her the pills and the water.
‘You are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had,’ she said as she took the pills from him, and he laughed. But she shoved his arm. ‘Don’t laugh. It’s true. I owe you. You really took care of me tonight. You are an excellent friend and I love you.’
He bit down on his lip to stop himself laughing again—Lara was clearly not in the mood to find her drunken rambling amusing. He kissed her on the forehead with a murmured, ‘Goodnight,’ and grabbed a blanket from the bottom of the bed. With the amount of wine she’d put away tonight, she was going to be in no state to make the cup of coffee he knew she’d be gasping for the minute she woke up tomorrow, and he had no intention of losing that boyfriend of the year award he’d only just won.
He walked back through to the living room to the sound of Lara snoring and glanced at the notifications on his phone that he’d been ignoring all day. There was one from his manager, asking how many tickets he wanted for the awards show next week. He replied that he’d need a plus one, and could his manager sort out accommodation for them? If tonight had been a test of concept, he was pretty sure they’d passed, and one more fake date couldn’t do any harm.
Today had been fun. It wasn’t exactly hard to pretend to enjoy hanging out with his best friend. All they had to do was keep this up a little longer and he would be the reformed bad boy. Tamed by the sweetheart of the social media influencer world.
He lay back on the sofa cushions, pulling the throw blanket from Lara’s bed over himself and falling, satisfied, into sleep.
* * *
She was dying. It was the only possible explanation for this experience in her mouth. It went beyond taste. It was...stale and...furry and...if she didn’t think about something else right now she was going to throw up.
She looked round at the sound of a tap on the door and scrunched up her eyes at the sight of Jannes in the doorway. How did he look so fresh this early in the day? Bastard.
‘Good morning, sunshine,’ he said with a smirk that totally deserved the pillow that she launched at his head. ‘Careful, that’s your coffee you’re spilling.’
‘Oh, my God.’ She scrambled upright, arms hooked around bent knees. ‘Gimme. Please?’ she added when all he did was raise an eyebrow at her.