Page 62 of Boyfriend of the Hour

Carrick, notably, was silent, though Nathan could hear the sounds of at least three more bites of steak before he finally managed to look at him.

It didn’t make sense. His family was irritating, but Nathan didn’t lie to them or anyone. As frustrating as they were, they were also the only people who knew exactly who he was. He didn’t have to pretend around them, didn’t have to come up with inane conversation just to put them at ease, smile when he didn’t feel like it, or interpret their idioms and emotions. He could just be himself.

Maybe it wouldn’t always just be them.

Yet again, Joni’s face flashed through Nathan’s mind, along with their strange agreement. He doubted that claiming her as a fake girlfriend was what she had in mind when she said she would help him with social interactions. But right now, that appeared to be what he needed.

Especially when Carrick was staring at him that way.

“Bullshit,” he said when he had finally recovered from what Nathan guessed was shock. “You didn’t find a girlfriend in the last week. It took you a year to even take your last one out to dinner.”

When his brother had set him up with an angel (a term he gathered had something to do with modeling underwear), he had found her attractive enough that he wanted to sleep with her every so often, and since she seemed to expect the occasional dinner together, he provided that as well. But when she started talking about moving in together, he had broken things off immediately.

And yet Carrick seemed to think he was heartbroken.

That was almost a year ago now.

“Julietta wasn’t ever my girlfriend. We just had an arrangement. But this oneis.” Nathan found himself insisting stubbornly enough that he could almost believe it.

“Oh, really? What’s her name?”

“Joni.”

“Joni what?”

But Nathan shook his head. “So you can ask your FBI friends to check up on her? I don’t think so.”

Carrick bared his teeth again. “It’s the smart thing to do, Nate. It wouldn’t be the first time this family was taken for a ride because you trusted someone you shouldn’t. Isla is proof of that.”

Nathan almost ruined another spoon.

“I told you not to bring her into this.” His jaw was clenched so hard he was speaking through his teeth. “And Joni is not like Lindsay. Not even a little.”

“So you say.”

Nathan glared. “So Iknow.”

This time, Carrick looked away first, as if he’d forgotten what it was like when his oldest brother was legitimately angry. “Fine, you want to be stubborn? Be stubborn. But I’ll find out sooner or later. So, are you going to bring her to the gala?”

He should have said no. He’d already gone far enough with this ruse, and it was nothing compared to what would happen if his brother actually discovered the farce.

But for the fourth time that afternoon, another image of Joni appeared in the back of Nathan’s mind. This time in an elegant dress, diamonds around her neck, her arm tucked into his elbow as he guided her into a room that looked a lot like the drawing room of Huntwell Farm.

She gazed around the black and white marbled floors, then turned and smiled in a way that was all for him. Her teeth were very white, but it was her eyes, so bright and daring while fringed with black, he couldn’t look away from. Even in his imagination.

“Yes, I’ll bring her,” Nathan decided. He could make his apologies to her later. “So you can tell them to back off. We’ll both be there. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

ELEVEN

NONNA’S SPAGHETTI RECIPE

Note: By hand dosnt mean WITH your hand!!!

“K, so now you’re going to julienne the carrots and roast them while the sauce cooks. They’ll be good on the side.”

“Who’s Julianne, and what the heck does she have to do with carrots?” I demanded right before I dropped the two knobby carrots onto the wood cutting board.

The bespectacled face of my sister, Marie, blinked at me through my iPad screen. It was an expression that, up until last summer, I’d woken up to almost every day of my life. The one that wonderedHow areyoumy sister?right before we shared and then tore all our secrets apart between us.