Pretend I'm Yours (Pretend 1)

I nod, unable to answer as I chew my last bite of food.

Kade reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “You don’t need to decide now. We will both think about it, and I’ll have a meeting scheduled for us with my lawyer at the end of the week. You can decide then. In the meantime, we can pretend to be engaged.”

I smile, enjoying pretending to be engaged already.

“Now as my fiancée, would you like to stay and have champagne and dessert, or would you like to do something else, like a movie?”

My stomach is stuffed, and I’m tired of living in his world. I need something relaxed to make sure I can at least tolerate his choice in movies.

“Movie.”

He grins. “Good choice.”

He grabs my hand and helps me up from the table.

“Don’t you have to pay first?” I ask.

He places his hand on my waist as he leads me out. “No, I have a tab.”

We slip through the restaurant and into his car and drive to the movie theater in silence, as his hand squeezes mine gently.

“I know I said this at the restaurant already, but I’m sorry I didn’t stop by your place first so you could at least put on flat shoes,” he says, as we walk into the theater.

“No way. I’ve never worn a dress this fancy, and I don’t care if we are going to see a movie, I’m not changing out of it until tonight. I’m not a dress person usually, but then again, I’ve never worn a thousand dollar dress.”

“Nine thousand, actually,” he says, smirking.

I stare down at the white dress. I’m afraid I’m going to get butter on it when he orders popcorn.

We head into the dark theater to watch a romantic comedy, to my surprise. Kade is probably just trying to give me what he thinks I want, to convince me to fake marry him.

“Are you wanting to return the dress after this? Because I’m afraid I’m going to get butter all over it.”

He eyes the dress and chuckles. “Even if I wanted to return it, I would have to pry it out of your hands, which would be impossible. But don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of more opportunities to wear more nice dresses.”

I smile and pop a piece of popcorn into my mouth as he drapes his arm around the back of my shoulders. It feels incredibly normal. I lean back against his arm with ease.

I moan softly, as I pop a piece of popcorn into my mouth. It has been years since I’ve eaten popcorn. It’s not on my healthy diet.

“Fuck it,” I hear Kade say, just before his lips crash down on mine in a kiss.

I close my eyes, kissing him back as the bag of popcorn drops from my hands onto the floor. His tongue slips into my mouth, whisking me away to another world. When he pulls away, he’s panting hard staring into my eyes.

“What was that for?” I ask, assuming someone is nearby he wants to make jealous. But it’s so dark in here I doubt that.

He smirks. “Because I wanted to.”

I bite my lip.

“How are you going to survive a year without sex?” I ask. He’s a sexual man, used to getting sex regularly.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as I freeze.

“You didn’t listen to a word I said after I said one million, did you?”

“I caught some of it.” I wince.

He shakes his head. “I’ll make sure the lawyer sends the paperwork tomorrow, so you have plenty of time to read everything and decide.”