The Pretend Girlfriend (A Billionaire Love Story #1)(27)
It wasn't so bad, at first. After all, it left just the two of them joined together, floating in the nothingness.
Then Aiden left her, too. Dissolving with the rest of it.
Gwen sat up in her bed, one hand shooting out to slap the alarm clock into silence.
She looked around. Yep, this was her room all right. Inside unit 705 in her old building. Sunlight crept in around the edges of the old curtain her parents had let her take from home when she moved away for school.
The weight of reality came crashing back down onto her, and she gathered her knees up in a hug against her chest. She felt hot, and a little sweaty. Short of breath and shaky. She swallowed against the lump in her throat.
Gwen sat there for a while, watching the minutes tick by on the alarm without actually seeing them. The dream had been so real. So visceral. So sensual. If she closed her eyes, she could still smell him all clean and perfumed from his shower. And it took no effort to recall the memory of his weight against her. Or the way it felt as their bodies moved.
Gwen blew out her cheeks and shook her head, trying to shake herself back into waking life.
"It was just a dream... Well, not just a dream. A fantasy. A good fantasy, too..." she muttered. Her thoughts interrupted: Okay, Gwen, you're getting off track here. Remember, he told you that you're not his type.
She snorted at that. It certainly felt like I was his type in the dream.
"Get a grip, get a grip," she said. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember that a dream was just that, a dream. This was real life. Real life, with its essays for class and its paying rent and all those other mundane things. In real life, she didn't live with Aiden Manning in an amazing condo with a view of the park, and he didn't step out of the shower in the morning to take her back to bed. No matter how much she wanted it.
That startled her. Do I want it? Is that what I want? she thought. It still hurt to think about him telling her she wasn't his type, and that he wasn't actually interested in her in that way at all. It was all just wasted feeling, thinking there was something actually between them. Best just to leave it as the business relationship they both knew it to be.
And that thought brought her to look at her desk. The contract was there, just waiting for her to actually read it and find out just how much longer Aiden expected her to keep the act up.
Chapter 11
Gwen forced herself up out of bed and into the shower, and from there into some clean clothes. The hamper in one corner of her room was getting pretty full. She needed to get down to the coin laundry soon. Yet another aspect of real life she didn't feel particularly fond about.
A steaming cup of instant coffee in one hand, she sat down at her desk. From one drawer she pulled out the contract. It was thicker than she remembered it being, and a tickle of trepidation started in her stomach as she wondered just what she'd put her signature to.
She wanted to be mad at Beatrice. But that would be too easy, blaming her friend for making her sign so hastily. No one had forced her to sign it. She had done it of her own free will, and lied about the contents to her best friend as well. That ate at her.
From another drawer, she pulled out a glasses case, flipped it open, and put her glasses on. She didn't use them very often, but her eyes still felt a little blurry from sleep and they would help her puzzle out what was doubtlessly page after page of small-print and legalese.
The first thing she did was lick her index finger and start leafing through it to find out the duration of this sham, the pages making a whisking sound against each other. The sooner this ended, the sooner she could get the weight of this lie off her chest and tell her friend.
She scanned the pages quickly, running her fingertip down the middle of each to keep from getting lost.
"Ah!" she said, tapping the page. She read the line.
The Undersigned acknowledges that their obligation shall continue until the instigating party discharges them from the duties outlined herein, or until the Undersigned states in a written notice that they wish to terminate the agreement with no less than two weeks' notice...
It went on like that, tying words into evil little knots that left her brain reeling as it tried to untie them. So basically, she thought, it goes as long as he wants it to go. Or as long as I want it to. Now that was interesting. For some reason, she'd been feeling like she was stuck in this agreement with no way out.
Of course, there was the whole two weeks of notice part. Like it was a job or something. But still, better than no way out at all.
Another flipped page revealed her list of expectations with regards to the phony relationship. She read these while chewing on her bottom lip. She was indeed required to basically drop whatever she was doing to go out with him on "social engagements."
Wow, lawyers could even make dates sound boring.
There was a minimum amount of public displays of affection like hand holding, hugging. No arguments were permitted in the presence of others, "Except in the case whereby a verbal altercation could be construed by any observers in question as a relationship-strengthening exercise."
What did that even mean? Were they supposed to stand at opposing sides of a restaurant and scream, "I love you more!" and "No, I love you more!" at each other?
Speaking of the L-word, there was even a clause about that. Apparently, should the relationship persist for two months or more, she was required to tell him she loved him at the end of phone conversations, when parting in public, things like that. When possible, it was to be preceded by, as the contract stated, "A physical display of affection."