plan went, but now that it was out there, it was totally and
utterly ridiculous.
It reminded her that the things in her head were sometimes
best left unsaid and undone.
Given that it was her last hope of not having to go to law
school and pursuing what she really loved, Emily forced
herself to inhale and exhale and stay calm. She’d already done
the hard part. Made a fool of herself. How much harder could
it be to explain herself to a complete stranger?
Emily finally looked up. Eye contact was a thing for her.
She always tried to do it, even if it made her insides hurt. This
was a brand-new kind of pain she didn’t fully understand.
She’d never had someone look at her that way before. It was
an expression Emily couldn’t decipher or define, yet she found
herself memorizing every detail of the other woman’s face,
saving it for later. This woman had the kind of face that made
great art. Traditional beauty was empty and hollow, but this…
this was the strangely and eerily exquisite kind of beauty, a
lived-in kind of face that could haunt and captivate an entire
generation.
Wow. This is getting weird. Not only did I just blurt out the
most embarrassing thing ever, I’m now staring at her like she’s
a statue in a freaking museum.
“You need a fake wife because…” the other woman
prompted. Her smile widened. “Danica, by the way. No one
ever calls me that, though. Dani is much better.”
“Oh, okay. I’m Emily.”
“Emily.” Dani frowned. Her eyes roamed over Emily’s face
in a perusal that was so open and intimate that Emily’s throat
closed up. “It fits.” Dani leaned back, waiting.