Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
Natalie
Caden Sinclair, have you lost your freaking mind?
Cole
Don’t be mad at me. I’m in the hospital.
Natalie
Don’t you dare try to guilt-trip me. It’s not my fault you didn’t stick the dismount.
Cole
RUDE!
Natalie
YOU DON’T GET TO TALK ABOUT RUDE WHEN YOU TRIED TO PULL THIS ON ME.
My fingers fly furiously over the keys illuminated on my screen as I continue to chew Caden out via caps lock. With each keystroke, my jaw clenches and teeth grind. I will send my dentist bill to Caden later, too. How dare he. Seriously, how could he possibly think this was a good idea sending—
Above me, a throat angrily clears.
“Just give me a sec,” I say, holding a finger up to the figure looming over me in the threshold of my apartment. “I’m busy Googling hitmen for hire in Michigan. It shouldn’t cost too much where he’s stationary.”
I’m too committed to this cyber-assault to look up.
Well that, and honestly, it’s too early to deal with Beelzebub in all his freshly showered glory, and he’s far too close for me not to notice that I might like the smell of his soap better than Caden’s.
My insides lurch and twist. I’d kill to be this close to Caden.
With his forearm resting on my doorframe, his other behind his back. His head angled down, inches from mine.
In fairness, Cole here also makes me want to kill someone, but for much different reasons.
“So, I take it Caden didn’t tell you his plan?” Cole asks. Fresh mint brushes my cheek.
I opened the door at the same moment he seemed ready to knock, to “pick me up for lunch,” and that’s how we ended up so close. Caden and I never meet at my door, so I didn’t expect anyone to be waiting on the other side—let alone Cole.
I could take a step back, but that feels like losing an unspoken game.
So I don’t cede my ground, instead shaking my head and continuing my verbal assault of his brother on my phone. “No, Caden only told me he had a plan, not that it was…this.”
“Fucking Cade,” he groans. “Of course he left me to clean up his mess, too.”
“I’m not a mess,” I say, fighting the urge to shrink and show him his words hit the way he intended. No, instead I channel every bit of girl boss energy I have deep inside and glare right back at him. “And I’m not desperate enough to agree to this arrangement, so you can leave.”
Cole is the only one who can make me feel this small, and not in a good way.
Tall people who make my five-eleven frame feel tiny?
Awesome.
Whatever this small, pathetic feeling is?
Awful. Itchy. Squirmy.
Zero out of ten. I would not recommend.
He holds my stare, harsh lines edging his mouth.
One beat.
Two.
Maybe three.
I don’t cower. I don’t back down. I don’t blink.
“Right,” he sighs. “Well, have a Merry Christmas then, Natalie.”
He turns away, and I catch a flash of a pink peony bouquet in his other hand.
My favorite.
“Were those for me?” I ask. Cole’s footsteps echo down the tiled hallway. He stops and looks at the flowers.
“What these? Nah.”
“Seriously, Cole. Did Caden get those flowers for me?” I shut my door, locking it, and chase him down.
“I thought he’d at least tell you he’s in Michigan,” he hollers, walking away.
“Yeah, but before he left,” I say. “Because if he did, I think he’d still want me to have them, even if his plan was shit. I should thank him anyways and apologize for wanting to kill him.”
Cole’s shoulders tense. He rakes a hand through his hair.
It’s freshly cut, come to think of it, he was freshly shaven too, which is weird where his hockey team is in the playoffs.
In the doorway, I was only focused on Cole’s face, but now I notice the sleek black dress pants and the thick cable-knit sweater he’s wearing.
Slowly, he turns around, the lines on his forehead deepening.
“I bought them for you, Natalie, so save your apologies for someone who deserves it.”
“You bought me flowers?” I ask, struggling to understand why Cole not only agreed to help his brother out considering he loathes my presence entirely, but also went out of his way to buy me flowers. “Why?”
He tilts his head. “Because I told Caden I’d pretend you’ve been dating me instead? I thought you got his plan with your whole cyber-assault.”
Dillon never bought me flowers—not even for prom. My finger traces my wrist. The hollow pang in my gut returns, remembering watching all the girls admire each other’s corsages, telling myself I should be thankful that someone like Dillon was even paying me attention.
“But you don’t buy people flowers.” Internally, nothing feels right. My skin is itchy, tight. I want to crawl out of it. Because…it feels nice getting flowers. Cole is making me feel…nice.
“I’d buy you flowers,” he says, softly.
At the foreign soft timber of his voice, I meet his eyes.
He’s not wearing his usual harsh scowl—his eyes pleading with me, as if he wants to say something, but can’t.
I shift my weight on my foot. This is wrong.
No one is here. He shouldn’t be performing.
“You don’t have to mock me,” I say, deflecting.
He drops the act and shakes his head. “You’re welcome for the flowers, Natalie,” he says, heading toward the stairwell that leads to his apartment.
With each distancing step, a nagging question digs deeper into my psyche. One I don’t want to hang over me all of Christmas break.
“Why would you even agree to this, anyway?” I call again, chasing him and saying goodbye to whatever little dignity I had left.
Cole continues his walk; his annoying long strides keep pace with my slight jog. “I had my reasons.”
I turn to face him. Now walking backwards—which isn’t desperate looking at all. “And those were?”
He grips my shoulders and shifts me away from tripping over a large package sitting at our neighbor’s doorstep. “Maybe I wanted to see the ocean.” He nods behind me. “You’re not planning on continuing this down the stairs, are you? I’d rather you not die when I’m the only witness.”
I turn, taking the steps down to the first floor where his apartment is. “Would have been a good opportunity for you to push me down them,” I say.
“Believe it or not, Natalie, I’d rather you didn’t die at all.”
“Weird, here I was daydreaming about pushing you into the ocean so you’d get hypothermia. Honestly, maybe you should come to Maine with me.”
We stop in front of his door. The entryway to the complex is wedged open and a freezing breeze hits my cheeks, blowing my hair in front of my face and shielding my mud-hued eyes and dense patches of freckles.
His eyes fall on a few wisps of my hair. His usual arrogant facade softens, and he reaches out like a man possessed, tucking my flyaways away from my face. “Well, then I’d have to pull you in. If I jump, you jump, right? My murderous little baby.” His fingers graze the soft skin behind my ear.
A shiver grips my spine while a low heat crackles in the pit of my stomach.
I can’t explain it. It’s like the anticipatory, eerily calm, charged energy right before snow falls, and it pulls between us.
He continues to draw slow circles behind my ear.
My chest rises and falls.
Rises and falls.
Faster.
Shorter.
What the hell is he doing to me?
I slap his hand down and his soft, placid smile morphs into the wry, smug-ass grin I’m used to.
“I’ll pass. It’d be a waste for both of us to die of hypothermia,” I say.
“I didn’t know someone as frigid as you could get hypothermia. But I guess that’s why you have these, right?” His fingers graze over my goosebumps on my skin and his touch elicits the small bumps to double. He knows, he has to know, that he’s getting a bodily reaction out of me, and I hate it.
Hastily, I pull down the sleeves of my sweater, hiding the evidence from him. “Caden must have been high if he thought this could work.”
“He probably was. Thankfully, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” Cole nods, pulling out his keys and saluting me. “You probably would have fallen in love with me anyway.”
I scoff. “In your dreams.”
He looks heavenly, that same dopey look he flashed at me earlier, confirming my mocking suspicions. “Yes, if only.”
“Oh, good. There you two are.” A cheerful Maine accent bellows down the hall. “Natalie, tell that boy of yours to hurry up, we’re running late for our reservations and dying to meet him.”
“So…good luck with that.” Cole grimaces.
“Fucks sake.” I groan. In all the chaos, I’d forgotten who was waiting for me in the parking lot.
Maybe if she hadn’t seen Cole, I could have played something off, bought myself time, but now she’s walking down the long hallway of our converted mill building and I don’t have time to improvise anything.
“Just say the words and I’m yours,” Cole whispers, a dare in his delivery.
He’s probably hoping this is how it would end. I’d say no, and he could walk away as the benevolent brother who tried to help a poor girl out without having to actually do anything.
No way am I letting him out of this that easily. If Cole wants to play this game of chicken with me—no, don’t mention those empty-eyed creatures—then he’s going to be the one who cracks first, not me.
“You sure?” I ask, raising a brow. “I’d expect you to be the head-over-heels, adoring boyfriend Caden agreed to be. Can you even pull that off without a heart?”
With his thumb and forefinger, Cole gently tilts my chin up to meet his eyes. “Darling, I’d be so in love with you, even you wouldn’t be able to tell what’s real or not.”
Caden looking at me like I hung the moon has always been exhilarating, sure, and I’m obviously disappointed I won’t be showing him around my hometown, but Cole subjugating himself to the same challenge when all he’s done is look down on me is a solid consolation prize.
Footsteps echo closer in the hallway. A familiar tap tap tapppity tap I’d know belongs to my mother from anywhere.
“Fine, you can come,” I say with a casual shrug, trying to mask my desperation.
He shakes his head. “I’m going to need more than that. A few days ago you said I’d be the last person on earth you’d willingly date, so come on. Make a guy feel wanted.” He winks.
“Hello, you two!”
I’m about to tell him how I really feel, but before the words can come out, he clicks his tongue, his eyes glinting with a playful challenge. “Sounds like she’s getting closer.”
“Maybe I’m breaking up with you.” I hiss.
“Right before I meet your family? At Christmas? Seems a little too cold even for you.”
Damn it, he’s right. I’d never hear the end of it.
“Maybe I caught you cheating.”
The light in his eyes dims, replaced by something annoyed. Serious. Determined. “I’d never fucking cheat on you. I won’t go along with it.”
“Natalie D’Amore, let’s go. Don’t make me walk down this whole hallway. What is wrong with you?”
Cole leans in. “Just say the magic words and make your mama proud, Natalie.”
With a gigantic roll of my eyes, a venomous, overly sweet smile stretches wide across my face. “Dearest Cole. Please, I’m begging you. Will you do me the great honor of being my very fake boyfriend for a week?” And potentially my first real murder victim?
“There’s a good girl.” He winks, leaning in and pressing his lips to my hair. “Ungrit the teeth,” he whispers.
“I’ll unclench them in a few weeks when this nightmare is over, or when I’ve killed you and your brother,” I hiss back.
“You’re welcome for bailing you out.” I can feel a rare smile form on his lips against my skull. “Come on, sugarplum,” he laces his fingers with mine, pulling me down the hall towards my mother. “It’s time you showed me off to your parents.”