The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

He pulled his arm free of her grip. “This is work. You knew I was using you, and you could have left the restaurant anytime if you didn’t like it, and anyway I don’t go around feeling up colleagues. You started it, with the whole girlfriend, birthday, cuddle up shtick.”

“My family is famous for dying in their sleep.”

“What?”

“Two sets of grandparents went to sleep, never woke up. That’s how I think I’m going to die, question seven. You’re doing this with me so I make Shona happy, so she makes Phil happy, so I don’t get volunteered for a layoff.”

She really thought that could happen. “I’m not. You won’t. I’ll square it with Madden.”

“I thought this was a mistake, that you’d sent this invitation to the wrong person and then I bought this dress because—”

“It wasn’t a date.” That’s what he needed her to get. This didn’t mean anything. It was all for his story because that was all it could be. “You said it was old.”

“I lied.”

He let the air filling his chest go. He could’ve brought Potter. Or Berkelow. Hell, he could’ve had dinner with Spinoza or Barney. “This was for my story.”

“I know that now, but I didn’t have anything good enough to wear to a restaurant like this and how was I supposed to tell you that, you great heaving dinkus? I’ve never eaten in a restaurant so fancy and you could’ve brought anyone as your decoy, but you brought me. The only reason you have to talk to me is the love experiment, so I thought—”

“Oh fuck.” He’d walked straight into this, because he’d felt guilty about treating her poorly.

“So you’re doing it. Question seven. Do you have a secret hunch about how you’ll die?”

He did now. It’d be from acute embarrassment the day the Courier ran this story.

Chapter Nine

Jack wasn’t happy. But he was sitting opposite Derelie in a café chair with a coffee and a scowl, and that was a victory she’d paid for in a loss of brain function from the oxygen he’d deprived her of while putting his tongue in her mouth last night.

And making her like it.

Dammit, she’d liked it. She’d liked how convinced she’d been he was going to kiss her, how insistent he’d been he wasn’t going to, and how it felt to be lied to when he took such exquisite care in betraying himself.

She’d never been kissed like that before. Confident but gentle, twisting into a lustful claiming that had her glad she had a wall at her back because the world and its expectations got slippery. Masterful was the word for it. His kiss had driven every thought from her head and made the city fall quiet. She didn’t get that kind of easy peace from yoga and it made her sad attempts at meditation look like frantic multitasking.

That wasn’t to say he used his lips to put her to sleep, oh good

golly no. He used them to convince her body it was beautiful, to convince her brain they’d kiss forever and never need any additional substance to live on but each other’s breath.

He was a professional level liar, kiss-deep.

And just as well she’d caught him out because there was no way he’d be sitting there, sipping coffee and reading his phone screen to avoid her if she hadn’t.

“We should start from the beginning and I’ll take notes.” She had to get this done and not screw up and not let him think that last night had affected her. She could be a professional liar too, if that’s what it took to succeed.

He didn’t look up from his phone. “In the beginning there was journalism and it functioned to keep people informed, and civilization was fairer, better, for being open to examination.”

“Are you lecturing me?” He was most certainly pontificating over his coffee cup.

He looked up. “Could I get away with that instead of this?”

“No.” She flipped her steno pad open and looked at the printed list of questions.

“Wait.”

She’d never wished she wore glasses more, because the idea of looking over them at him in a kind of authoritarian way was exceptionally appealing. She felt left out of the serious gesture game.

“You’re clear about last night?” There it was, grave eyes behind not-to-be-messed-with glasses.