Page 48 of The Fake Date (Brides of Beaufort 4)

It was probably supposed to be a silly little comment that I shouldn’t think too hard about, but something about it made my stomach turn.

“Maybe just do the opposite of thedon’tsand we’ll be good,” I said.

“Fair enough. All right, I think we can move on to the actual contract now.”

“Sounds great.”

“First thing’s first,” he said, clicking around on his screen. “We need to get our stories straight, and I have it outlined in the contract as an area not to be embellished upon. Embellishment leads to getting our stories mixed up, and we both need to be really clear on the details.”

“How very thorough of you.”

“Oh,thoroughis my middle name.” He wagged his brows, and my stomach turned for a very different reason.

Shaking it off, I focused on the task at hand. “Great. So, how did we meet?”

“Well, I already told my dad that you’re a wedding photographer and that’s how we met. I didn’t give him details though, since we hadn’t discussed all of this yet. Any ideas?”

I thought about it, realizing this felt a little like we were crafting the meet-cute for a couple in one of my books. Only not, because the best meet-cutes just happen. You can’t fake them.

“Well,” I started, my eyes wandering toward the window that looked out over Main Street, “we should probably stick close to the truth, right?”

“Closer the better.”

“Okay, so we met at Bobby and Cassidy’s wedding. You were there with Shelby, which is fine to tell people because they already know about your business. And you told me to hire you if I ever needed a fake date.”

He swallowed hard, the movement causing his Adam’s apple to bob. “Uh, yeah. I did. And yet, I noticed you didn’t.”

“Well, I haven’t needed a fake date until now.”

And also, I never planned to, because deep down I knew this would be tortuous.

“Good point. Okay, so that’s how we met.” He typed it out, then looked back up. “Anything else you want to add or should we just keep it simple?”

“Simple is great.”

“Perfect.” He looked down at the screen again, then gave me a smile that could only be described asdevilish.“Next, andridiculouslyimportant, are the ground rules for PDA.”

“PDA?” I asked, realizing quickly what that meant, and then wincing at the way my chest tightened in response. “Oh, right, the infamouskissing clause.”

He laughed. “Yes. But it’s more than just kissing. We’ll get to that in a minute.”

“Can’t wait,” I mumbled.

“So, the usual. Hand holding, arms around each other, hugging, all fine. But as you know, with my usual contracts, kissing has a surcharge.”

“Because it’s gross?”

Beau’s face contorted into one of utter shock, like he was a cartoon version of himself, and his eyes were about to bug out of his head. “Uh, no. What did you just say?”

“Nothing,” I squeaked.

He leaned forward, closing the laptop all the way this time. “Lyndi Robinson, did you just ask if I charged extra for kissing because it’sgross?”

I shook my head. “Definitely not. That would be weird.”Dang it, Lyndi. What iswrongwith you?

“It would be,” he agreed, nodding slowly.

“Exactly. So, can we forget I said that?”