Not Pretending Anymore(24)

Julia smiled, but I knew from watching her with difficult clients that it wasn’t her real smile. This one was more plastic and forced. The muscle in her jaw tightened. I watched as her eyes swept up and down Molly’s body for the second time. In all honesty, I couldn’t blame her… Mollz looked fucking amazing.

“Were you on a date tonight?” Julia asked. “You’re so dressed up.”

Molly laughed and waved off Julia’s comment. “No, I just threw this on because it was the only thing clean.”

Julia frowned. “Uh-huh.”

“Alright, well, I’ll let you two get back to work. I’m just going to get a glass of wine myself so I can relax a little before you help me with that massage. Let yourself into my bedroom whenever you’re done, Dec.” Molly blinked, and one of her eyes got stuck closed.

I almost lost it when she turned her head to try to hide it and had to use her fingers to pry it open. I guess she hadn’t figured out the glue situation after all.

Once Molly returned to her room, Julia downed the rest of her wine in one gulp. Her cheeks were a little flushed. “Could she be any more obvious?”

I pretended to have no clue what she meant, but a person would have to be blind and deaf to have missed Molly’s over-the-top flirting. “What do you mean?”

Julia snort laughed. “That dress, the full face of makeup—not to mention that she was winking at you when talking about her massage . She doesn’t even have a sore neck, Declan.”

Winking? Not exactly. But close! She thought Molly’s glued eyeball was a come-on.

I cleared my throat. “What do you mean, she doesn’t have a sore neck?”

Julia rolled her eyes. “She’s into you and wants your hands on her.”

“Oh, well… Is that a bad thing? I mean, we’re both single…”

“It would definitely be a mistake, Declan.”

My brows furrowed. For some inexplicable reason, I felt defensive. “Why is that? Molly’s really cool.”

“Well, for starters, she’s your roommate.”

“That seems like it would go on the plus side of the pros-and-cons analysis.” I shrugged. “Convenience.”

Julia’s face reddened. “Look, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get into something you might not be able to come back from. I know from personal experience that once you go down that road, it’s difficult to go back to simpler times. Take Bryant and me, for example. We went into an exclusive relationship right away. At the time, I didn’t give any thought to the idea that it might not be a good idea since I travel so much for work. Recently, we’ve been having some difficulties, so I suggested we pull things back a little—keep our relationship more on the casual side.”

“I take it that conversation didn’t go too well, since you’re using your own situation to warn me off anything happening between me and my roommate.”

She shook her head. “No, it didn’t. Bryant doesn’t like the idea of a non-exclusive relationship because it’s hard to go backward once you’ve moved forward. That’s why I think you might want to give some serious thought to anything happening with your roommate. Once you go there, it would probably be hard to rewind.”

She’d said a whole lot of words, but the only part I heard was non-exclusive.

“So, where are things with you and Bryant now, if you don’t want the same thing?”

Julia sighed. “He told me to give what I really want some thought—basically an ultimatum. Either I’m with him and him alone, or I’m not with him at all.”

I nodded. “Wow. Okay. Sounds like you have a big decision to make.”

She surprised me by reaching out to touch my hand. I looked up, and our eyes met. “I do. I care about you, Declan. So maybe we should both take some time to think about what we really want, rather than making any rash decisions.”

Well, well, well. My eyes dropped to her lips, then raised to meet her eyes again. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”

A half hour later, Julia hugged me goodbye—something we rarely did. As I shut the door behind her, I probably should have been elated at how shit had gone tonight, but instead, I felt a weird turmoil in the pit of my stomach.

Molly must’ve heard the front door, because she came out of her room a minute later.

“How did it go?”

She still had on that little black dress, and I couldn’t help but notice how much more shapely Molly was than Julia. Julia’s body type was more waif, whereas Molly had feminine curves. And tonight, in that dress, it was impossible not to notice how dangerous those curves were.

I forced my eyes to meet hers, though it wasn’t an easy feat.

“It went well. She said she told her boyfriend she wants to be in an open relationship.”

“Oh wow! Like our fake relationship!”

I chuckled. “Apparently Bryant gave her an ultimatum. It’s either exclusive or nothing. So she’s thinking about how to proceed.”

“Well, if she’s even considering that she wants to see other men, clearly the current guy isn’t the one .”

“Yeah.”

“So our diabolical plan seems to have worked.”

“Thanks to you. I can’t imagine any woman who wouldn’t be jealous of the way you look tonight. You went all out.”