Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(29)

“Zaf, don’t, I’ll be sick. You don’t want me to be sick.”

“Fuck you, then,” he said, but there was laughter in his voice. “As for the fake relationship—we don’t have to kiss in any more car parks.”

She was going to say, What if we want to?, but that sort of thing should probably be saved for face-to-face communication. Wouldn’t want him to misunderstand her intentions.

“I was thinking we should just have lunch together,” he went on, “and try to . . . you know. Flirt.”

“Try to flirt? Because we’re so out of practice.”

She could almost hear his blush through the phone. “We don’t flirt.”

“If that’s what you think, I really need to brush up on my skills.”

Judging by the strangled sound he made, Zaf appeared to be having some sort of mental crisis. “You mean . . . we . . . do flirt?”

“Well, I try my best. You can be difficult, sometimes.” Dani stood up as he spluttered through a response, wandering around her flat’s living room to stretch her legs.

“I thought—I thought you were joking,” he said finally.

She wouldn’t want his head to explode, so she said, “Yes, of course I was joking.”

He exhaled.

I was jokingly expressing the fact that you’re mind-blowingly hot. “So, lunch. Flirting. Anything else? Adorable selfies, et cetera?”

“Fuck, no. You sound like my niece. Fatima told me social media crazes are a flash in the pan, and if we want to make the most of it we should consider starting a YouTube channel.” His disgust practically dripped from the words.

“And you said?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Dani’s lips had been twitching as she asked the question; now she laughed outright. “Of course you did.” If the words sounded a little too fond and familiar, oh, well. It was the middle of the night and he was being unforgivably cute. “Your niece is clearly a smart girl.” And the eucalyptus by Dani’s window, for freedom and prosperity, was looking a little parched. She headed to the kitchenette to get it some water, her feet padding against the floorboards.

“Yeah, Fatima’s smart. You teach her, you know.”

“I do?” Dani frowned as she filled her little watering can, then remembered a new student with huge, dark eyes. “Oh. Fatima Ansari. Of course you’re related. She looks just like you.”

A slight silence as Dani went to water the plant. Then, a moment before it got awkward, Zaf said quietly, “Nah. She looks like her dad.”

“Your brother, is he?”

“Mm-hmm.” Zaf’s tone went from distant and distracted to light and teasing so fast Dani felt slightly whiplashed. “She thinks you’re sophisticated. That’s what she said to me. Everything Dani does is so sophisticated.”

“Poor, deluded girl.”

“Ain’t she just.” Sweet exasperation crept into his tone, a gleaming thread that said, I know what a chaos demon you are, and I think it’s great.

Dani tried not to beam in response. That would be ridiculous. She watered her eucalyptus, put down her can, heard the beep of her five-minute timer, and realized with a jolt that her break had vanished like smoke.

“Oh,” she said, “I have to—it’s—”

“Five minutes. I know.” But there was no irritation in Zaf’s voice, no resentment. He was probably relieved to know she’d get off the phone now and let him sleep.

She, surprisingly, wasn’t relieved at all. In fact, the thought of putting down the phone made her feel slightly sad and deflated. For a moment, something in her leaned toward him like a cooped-up plant growing desperately toward the sun, and—

And good Lord, she must be exhausted. Dani shook her head, frowned, and considered going to bed earlier than planned.

“My lunch break starts at twelve thirty tomorrow,” Zaf said, oblivious to her spiraling thoughts. “That work for you?”

“I think so. I’ll text you if anything changes. Otherwise . . . meet you at the food court?”

“All right,” he said. “Goodnight, Danika.”

“Go to sleep!”

He grunted and hung up.

Only when he was gone did Dani realize she’d barely tried to seduce him at all.





CHAPTER SEVEN




Somehow, in the whirlwind of setting up this fake relationship, Zaf had managed to forget that he was a shitty actor and a truly abysmal liar. That fact came back to him like a concrete boomerang on Thursday afternoon, when he saw Danika walking toward him in the food court and realized he had absolutely no idea how to greet her.

After a second of mental flailing, Zaf cleared his throat, waved awkwardly, and said, “Hi, er, babe.”

Babe? Babe? He was 99 percent sure his lips had never formed that fucking word in his entire fucking life. And was it just him, or was every pair of eyes in this food court suddenly pinned to his blushing face?

Before he could weigh the odds of extreme social media stalkerism versus paranoia, Dani reached him with a laughing smile and dancing eyes. “Hello, handsome.”

He short-circuited, just a little bit.

Then she rose up on her toes, pressed her hands against his chest, and kissed his cheek. Holy fuck, she smelled like honey. He wanted to bite her.