by Lauren Layne
But he didn’t know how to answer her. Play it safe and lie to keep them from going someplace that could destroy them? Or tell the truth and risk everything? It took him only a couple of seconds to realize there was only one answer. The truth. He owed his best friend the truth.
Clarke exhaled. “No.”
“No, that kiss wasn’t about Elizabeth?”
He shook his head and held his breath, feeling just about the most laid bare he had ever been in his entire life. “No. It was about you. Us.”
Audrey took the slightest step forward and lifted her hand. It hovered for just a second before she slowly, purposefully set it on the center of his chest.
Clarke’s breath whooshed out. “Dree.”
Audrey didn’t answer. Not with words. Instead she pressed her hand more firmly against him, laying her palm over his heart. Then she lifted her eyes to his, which held nothing but invitation and trust. She was too good for him. She was too good for everyone.
But Clarke was tired of fighting against what he wanted more than anything in his life. Tired of fighting something, he realized, he had wanted for far longer than he’d known.
He reached out and gently cupped Audrey’s face, rubbing his thumbs over her familiar features, giving her plenty of time to step away, to change her mind.
When she didn’t, he bent his head down and kissed his best friend. And this time, there was no doubt in either of their minds as to why he was kissing her. Or why she was kissing him back.
Breathless with wanting her, he tore his lips away from hers just long enough to nibble along her jawline, pressing his mouth to her exposed neck when her head fell back. “Be sure, Audrey. Be all the way sure.”
Her hands found his waist, her fingers flirting across the knot of his towel.
“I’m sure.”
* * *
Audrey didn’t remember falling asleep. She definitely didn’t remember making the decision to fall asleep at Clarke’s place. But after she opened her eyes and registered the unfamiliar ceiling, the unfamiliar sheets, the unfamiliar alarm clock, she remembered everything else.
She remembered sleeping with Clarke.
With a quick glance to her left confirming that she was alone in the king-size bed, she lay on her back, and setting both palms against her stomach over the soft sheet, she drummed her fingers and waited for the crushing panic, the dread of having to look Clarke in the eyes now that she’d seen all of him and he’d seen all of her. Worst of all, she braced for the terror that nothing would ever be the same, that she’d ruined the best thing in her entire life.
She waited. And waited. But the emotions never came. Not the panic, not the dread, not the fear. Instead, she felt… good.
Audrey grinned. She felt great. The best she had felt in a really, really long time.
Ever? Nah. She was probably just extremely overdue for a little physical release.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, deciding one of the benefits of sleeping with her best friend—no, her fiancé—was that she could use his shower without asking. She rummaged around until she found a fresh towel and helped herself to his shampoo and soap.
She drew the line at using his toothbrush, so she made do with her finger and his Colgate, then rummaged around in his dresser, coming up with a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that were way too big but more appealing than her clothes from the night before, which were… She scanned the room, saw her bra flung into the corner. She grinned at the memory.
Audrey skipped downstairs, still smiling, and it wasn’t until she got closer to the kitchen and smelled coffee and breakfast that it hit her that she might be alone in this weird bubble of euphoria.
What if he didn’t feel the same? What if he was thinking about how to give her the talk? To tell her that sex had been a mistake, that they should just pretend it never happened.
Or worse, what if he told her it had changed things irrevocably. What if she lost him?
Determined not to let herself go to the worst-case scenario without cause, she kept her smile firmly in place as she skipped into the kitchen. Or at least, as close to skipping as one could manage wearing a man’s sweatpants, size large. Which was to say, she mostly shuffled.
Clarke glanced over from the stove and lifted his eyebrows. “Your followers are going to love this look. Does it have a name?”
“Walk of shame?” she supplied, going to the cupboard where he kept his mugs and taking down a navy-blue one that she’d picked out for him when he’d moved in.
“Shame, huh?” he asked, extending the coffeepot toward her outstretched arm and filling her mug.
His voice was casual and indifferent, but when he met her gaze, she knew he had the same reservations as she did. The same fear of rejection, the same worry that they’d made a mistake.
“Actually, scratch that,” she said, cupping the coffee mug and smiling at him through the steam. She liked her coffee with a liberal dose of the chocolate syrup she ordered from a fancy French company. Clarke obviously didn’t have any, but she could stomach it black when she had to. “No walk of shame here. Walk of satisfaction?”
His grin flashed in relief. “I was going to share the eggs regardless. No need to stroke the ego. Though if you wanted to stroke the—”
“No,” she said, holding up a finger. “No sexual puns until I’ve had at least one cup of coffee.”
“Fair enough,” he said, picking up the spatula and stirring the mushrooms sautéing in a pan.
“Huh,” she said, standing beside him and looking down. “It’s weird to see you cook.”
“I only do breakfast food. It’s not a meal we’ve shared very often.”
She leaned back against the counter and looked at him. His outfit matched hers, his sweatpants navy instead of gray, his shirt white instead of black. But of course they fit him a hell of a lot better.
A glimpse of her future, she realized. A lot of mornings just like this one lay ahead of her, and the thought made her almost unbearably happy, until something dark and worrisome began to lurk beneath the surface.
She looked down at her cup. “These are the cooking skills you picked up while with Elizabeth?”
He gave her a sideways glance. Curious, but not wary.
She shrugged in response. “You told me you learned to cook for her. To show off your husband potential.”
“I didn’t phrase it quite like that,” he said, moving to the fridge and pulling out a carton of eggs. “But yeah. I used to cook breakfast for Elizabeth before she left for work.”
Audrey felt an uncomfortable, unfamiliar stab of jealousy that she promptly shoved aside.
“Elizabeth came to see me.”
Clarke’s hand stilled for a moment, then he put the carton of eggs on the counter without opening it. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Before you came over here?”
She shook her head. “No, Clarke. I had sex with you, waited until you fell asleep, got dressed, raced home, chatted with your ex-girlfriend, then raced back here.”
He pointed a spatula at her. “Sarcasm in the mornings. This is my future?”
She smiled. “Having second thoughts?”
Clarke surprised her by reaching out and grabbing a handful of her T-shirt—well, his T-shirt—and hauling her toward him for a kiss. “Absolutely not. You?”
She smiled against his mouth. “Absolutely not. But about Elizabeth…”
He groaned and released her. “Fine. What about her?”
“I do think maybe I misjudged her—or we did. I thought she was just competitive, wanting what she couldn’t have, wanting to prove that she could get you back… I dunno. I guess I turned her into a villain, and I don’t think she was one.”
She looked at her coffee mug once more, losing a little of her courage. “She’s in love with you.”
Clarke said nothing as he shoved the mushrooms around the pan, and Audrey looked up, watching him.
“You knew,” she said q
uietly. “You knew that it wasn’t just a game to her.”
“I suspected,” he said quietly. “Though I kept hoping it wasn’t the case.”
“Because you weren’t in love with her.”
Clarke set the spatula on the spoon rest without releasing it and stared down at the sizzling mushrooms. “No, I don’t really do that kind of love.”
The warmth of the kitchen seemed to escape the room. There it was. That was what had been lurking beneath their happiness all morning. She’d known when they’d started their game that he wasn’t in love with her. And she’d known even when he suggested they marry for real that he hadn’t been in love with her. She’d told herself it was fine, that she wasn’t in love with him. That was the brilliance of this whole plan—they could love each other without being in love.
It had seemed so perfect, and now it just felt… hollow.
“Never?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
He turned to face her, his gaze curious. “The way I see it, if you’re never in love with someone, you can never fall out of love with them. And if you don’t fall out of love with someone, you can’t hurt them. They can’t hurt you.”
She set a hand on his arm. “Clarke, you know I would never hurt you, right?”
“I know.” He grinned. “Why do you think I want to marry you, woman? You know all my flaws and love me anyway, but you also know I’m no Prince Charming.”
“Ah,” she said, finally understanding him a little more clearly. “You can’t fall off the horse if you’re never the white knight in the first place.”
“And you’re smart, too,” he said, leaning down and kissing her cheek. “Reason number 9,939 why I love you.”
Love me. But not in love with me. Not now, not ever.
Which was what she’d signed up for. She knew the score. It’s what she’d thought she’d wanted as well. To avoid being hurt like Brayden had hurt her. To remove herself from the dating pool before she could hurt someone else like she’d hurt Claire.
So why then did she so badly want to take Clarke’s face in her hands and tell him that he deserved more? That he deserved to wait for a woman who did see him as the white knight, the Prince Charming, the hero of the fairy tale?
Because he was worth it, she realized. He was worth all the risk, all the pain. He was worth everything. He was everything.
She closed her eyes and let the realization that she’d been pushing back for weeks now roll over her. Oh, Audrey. You are so in love, and so in trouble.
Clarke grinned, oblivious to her thoughts. “So, bride, I’ve seen you naked, and it’s an A+. The whole night was an A+, but don’t think for one moment I didn’t hear your slip of the tongue yesterday,” he said, cracking eggs into a bowl and beginning to whisk them.
“What?” she asked, not following.
“When you showed up at my front door, you were babbling on about what married life would be like, and I definitely heard mention of a kitten, but now I’m thinking I heard that wrong. We’re so clearly destined to be a dog family, right?”
She smiled at his use of the word family. Clarke would be her family. Her partner. They would have a cat, and sure, a dog, too, and every morning could be like this one.
It would be enough. It would have to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
FRIDAY, MARCH 6
I’m not going to lie, I’ve been having regular nightmares that you were going to pick pink bridesmaid dresses,” Naomi called from the other side of the dressing room. “I’m so relieved to be wrong.”
“You look great in pink,” Audrey protested.
“I look great in some pinks,” Naomi said. “But there’s a particular shade, not unlike the color of Claire’s powder room, that makes me look like a sunset.”
“Who wouldn’t want to look like a sunset?” Claire asked indignantly, stepping out of her own dressing room. “They’re everyone’s favorite photo op.”
“Not mine,” Audrey said, already reaching for her phone. “This is my favorite, this moment. Oh, Claire, you look gorgeous.”
“You get to take at least some credit,” Claire said with a smile as she stepped in front of the mirror. “You picked the dress, and, well done you. It’s beautiful.”
“I know,” Audrey said smugly. Despite her “wedding in a hurry,” Audrey had refused to rush any of the important decisions, taking her time to get her bridesmaid dresses exactly right. Whenever she’d planned her hypothetical wedding, she’d imagined her bridesmaids wearing something muted and soft to complement the whimsical fairy-tale version of her dream wedding. She’d toyed with the ideas of moss green, gentle lilac, glacier blue, a muted millennial pink that, for the record, would have looked lovely on Naomi, sunset and all.
Instead, she’d shocked herself by choosing… black. She wanted to be a princess, yes, but she was a Manhattan princess, and nothing said Manhattan like black. And nothing said Upper East Side like the ever-iconic little black dress.
She’d chosen a slightly different style for each woman. A daring V-neck for Naomi and a high-neck halter top for Claire that left her back sexily bare. Oliver and Scott could—and would—thank Audrey later.
She’d chosen a flattering one-shoulder cut for her maid-of-honor sister, who was still fretting about her post-baby body, and an assortment of sweetheart necks and edgy asymmetrical cuts for the childhood and college friends she’d asked to be in the wedding.
Naomi opened her dressing room, confirming what Audrey had already known. That, just as Claire’s classic but surprisingly seductive dress suited her, the plunging neckline was the perfect fit for both Naomi’s body and daring personality.
Audrey’s wedding dress, though, was still under rush development with the designer, but if she’d gone a little unexpected with the bridesmaid dress, her own gown was almost an exact replica of her childhood dreams. Its bright white layers upon layers created an enormous ballroom skirt, and the fitted bodice was hand beaded with tiny pearls.
Audrey figured if she didn’t get the fairy-tale marriage with a husband who was head-over-heels in love with her, she was at least having the fairy-tale dress.
Naomi and Claire obliged Audrey with photos for her Instagram Stories. Audrey was delighted that even with the artificial light of the dress shop, the photos turned out surprisingly well thanks to Clarke’s thoughtful Valentine’s Day gift.
“You look happy,” Claire told Audrey.
“Hmm?” Audrey looked up. “Oh, I am. The photos turned out great.”
Claire’s smile was gentle. “I’m sure they are, but that’s not what I meant. You look happy happy.”
“She’s right,” Naomi said. “You’ve been glowing lately. This whole bride-to-be thing really suits you, even if your situation is a little atypical. And speaking of glow, is anyone as relieved as me that Scandal Boy’s been keeping his mouth shut? I’ve been half expecting him to start whispering about this being a shotgun wedding, and I was ready to go Annie Oakley on his ass.”
“Shotgun wedding?” Audrey said distractedly, sliding her phone back into her purse.
“You know.” Naomi mimed a pregnant belly. “Old-fashioned cliché where the bride’s dad gets the groom to the altar with a shotgun because the guy knocked up his daughter.”
“Oh!” Audrey rested a hand to her stomach. “I didn’t even think of that. Guess we’re lucky Scandal Boy didn’t, either.”
She caught Claire watching her with a slightly narrowed gaze.
“What’s that look?” she asked, giving Claire her own look.
Claire pointed at Audrey. “Your hand.”
Audrey glanced down, lifting her hand and looking at it. “What about it?”
“When Naomi mentioned the rumor of you being pregnant, you put your hand on your stomach.”
“So?” Audrey said with a laugh. “It’s a rumor that doesn’t even exist.”
“Right, but…” Claire broke off. “Never mind.”
“No, what?” Audrey asked curiou
sly. “I was just surprised.”
“Of course you were surprised,” Naomi groused. “Since you’re not having any damn sex.”
“Except,” Claire said slowly, “if she weren’t having sex, she’d have merely laughed and rolled her eyes because the suggestion of being pregnant would have been ludicrous. Instead, she put her hand to her stomach, as though suddenly realizing it were possible.”
Naomi’s head whipped around to stare at Audrey, and she braced herself, knowing the gig was up.
Naomi gasped. “You are having sex!”
Audrey laughed and held up her hands. “Don’t sound so accusatory, you’ve been the one ordering me to get laid for a year now.”
“I know,” Naomi said, looking alarmed. “But while I know your and Clarke’s arrangement is very modern and all that, and I’m in full support, you can’t possibly be okay marrying one man in a couple weeks while sleeping with another?”
“Um—”
Claire gave Naomi a good-natured swat on the back of the head. “Would you quit being so slow today?”
This time, Naomi caught on quicker and threw her arms around Audrey. “Oh my God. You boned Clarke. Finally!”
“She’s so romantic,” Claire said, even as she smiled at Audrey over Naomi’s shoulder.
“We didn’t bone. We just… okay fine, we boned.” Audrey couldn’t help the grin.
“How many times?” Naomi asked, pulling back and picking up her water bottle.
“Um.” Audrey rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and tried to count. “Like nine times? Ten?”
“Damn, go you,” Claire said. “Since when?”
“Tuesday.”
Naomi spit out her water. “It’s Friday.”
“Yes, dear,” Audrey said, unapologetically pulling Naomi’s own scarf out of her purse and using it to mop water off the bridesmaid dress.
“You’ve had sex ten times since Tuesday?”
“Well, they are making up for lost time,” Claire said. “But, Audrey, is this… are you guys…”
Audrey sucked in a breath, then let it out. “I don’t know. I have no idea. It just sort of happened and it was good—”
