My Fake Fiancée. Nancy Warren

her supplies. She was delighted at how relatively empty his storage spaces were and knew that wouldn’t last for long.

      “This is so perfect,” she said, looking up to find him regarding her with amusement.

      “You haven’t even looked at your bedroom.”

      “Who needs to sleep when you have a kitchen like this? Oh, the things I’ll be able to create in this space.”

      But she followed him down a short corridor and up a flight of stairs.

      “My bedroom,” he said, opening the first door. Ah, she thought, here’s where he spends most of his time when he’s at home. The bed was huge, and the room, although neat, sported stuff. Including a TV he could watch from his bed.

      He crossed the hall and opened the last door. “And your room.”

      Like everything else in this town house but his bedroom, her room had obviously been staged by a decorator and never touched since. It was done in neutral shades, contained a queen-size bed, a dresser, mirror, some not very interesting art on the walls and its own en suite. A neat stack of moving boxes on the floor told her her stuff had arrived okay.

      “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

      “Don’t thank me. Remember, we’re helping each other out.”

      She looked up and saw him regarding her with a mixture of longing and frustration. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “There’s one more floor where I keep a home office.”

      “Okay.”

      A beat of silence ticked by.

      “You did good tonight. Thank you.”

      “You’re welcome. I enjoyed myself. They seem like nice people.”

      “They are.” He stood there, leaning against the doorjamb. “I wasn’t sure where you’d want your stuff, so I put the boxes in your room, but unpack however you like. My house is your house. I put the box labeled ‘bathroom’ right in your bathroom, but everything else is here.”

      “Oh, right. Good.” She was so busy thinking about how good he tasted that she’d forgotten she didn’t have so much as a toothbrush with her. Sarah, who thought of everything, had told her to pack all her stuff up and have it sent over to David’s.

      His gaze dipped to her mouth and she knew he was reliving their kiss just as she was. “You really serious about those rules of yours?”

      Oh, it would be so easy to shake her head, let herself go. So easy.

      And such a truly, monumentally terrible idea. Maybe, if she didn’t have to live here for the next couple of months, maybe she’d throw her own sense of what was right for her out the window. She’d take one step and be in his arms, then his bed.

      And tomorrow? He’d have a new partner. For all she knew, he played doubles. She really didn’t think she could stay in his guest room while he carried on his carefree bachelor existence. Not once she’d been intimate with him. She wasn’t built that way.

      So, with some regret, she nodded. “I’m serious.”

      He shook his head. “Okay, then. Good night.”

      She heaved a sigh of combined relief and frustration when he exited, leaving her alone in a tasteful, neutral guest room.

      She used up some of her restless energy in unpacking her suitcases, putting her clothes away in the closet and dresser. Then she organized the bathroom and unpacked her toiletries and prepared herself for bed.

      It was late, and she was tired but she wasn’t sleepy. She dug out one of her favorite cookbooks and crawled into bed with Chef Patricia Yeo. She read cookbooks the way some people read Dickens or Shakespeare. She could dip into the same books over and over again and always find something new.

      At last, she flipped out the light and settled herself in the big, empty bed. It had been a lot of years since Chelsea fell asleep thinking about kissing David.

      In truth, she wasn’t thinking about kissing. Her imagination had moved on. And she wasn’t anywhere near sleep.

      She sighed and punched the pillow.

      It was going to be a long couple of months.

       6

      “I THINK MY TONGUE just had an orgasm,” Sarah moaned as she bit into the tiny lime-and-pomegranate tart, fresh from the oven. Her fourth in less than a minute.

      Chelsea couldn’t remember when she’d felt so gratified.

      Four days since she’d moved into David’s place and already she was experimenting, cooking with recipes she knew as she got comfortable with the stove and playing with local ingredients to try new combinations.

      “You are a food genius.” Sarah swallowed, tried to control herself and gave in, reaching for another tart. “This is my last one. Stab me with that chef’s knife if I even try to reach for another tart.” She popped the treat into her mouth and closed her eyes as she devoured it. Opening them again, she said, “I am going to have to spend the next week at the gym to make up for it.”