The Pretend Girlfriend (A Billionaire Love Story #1)(60)

"What do you mean?" he said, flipping the book open and leafing through the pages, looking at it instead of her.

All this honesty, all these reveals, not to mention that kiss, and he still couldn't talk about his feelings! "You still can't say it? You still can't say how you really feel about me?"

Aiden set the book down on top of the others, too preoccupied to bother shoving it back into place. "Even if I do have feelings for you, Gwen, it's better for you if they stay hidden. It's..."

"Complicated, I know," Gwen finished.

Aiden sighed, then nodded. "Let's go get some dinner. I know this great little Italian place we could walk to."

Gwen didn't know how to feel, and her vaunted intuition wasn't much help, either. He'd opened up to her, true, but he still kept something back. That violated the No BS policy she'd outlined at the beginning of their conversation, but it seemed wrong to invoke it now. Sharing that information about his family hadn't been easy for him; didn't he deserve a little slack?

Despite the pangs in her stomach, Gwen said, "I'm not hungry, actually. I just want to go home and work on my paper."

"Of course. I'll call the car and we can head down..."

Gwen stood up. Her legs felt much better, much more under her control and not under the sway of Aiden's kisses. "No. I just want to go by myself, if that's okay." There was just so much to process, and Aiden got in the way of that.

"Yes, fine. I'll tell him to meet you out front. I should probably jump in the shower, anyway."

Shower? Why did he have to say that? Gwen thought as totally inappropriate images painted far too vivid pictures in her mind's eye. Still, she managed to force that stuff back down before she broke and demanded that he come back with her. Think about the paper, and the midterm! Gwen told herself.

He walked her to the door, and held it for her. "Well, this didn't go quite as I expected. But it was still nice. It feels good to share this with someone finally. Thanks for listening."

"Thanks for sharing," Gwen said. Dream fantasy aside, she still didn't know how to feel towards him right then. What else was he still holding back?





Chapter 19


Gwen couldn't rekindle her earlier inspiration, no matter how hard she tried. She sat at her desk, watching the cursor (which once again mocked her) blink at the end of the sentence she'd started.

Dinner had come and gone without a single bite of food. Gwen didn't think about it. Thinking about dinner made her think about Aiden asking her to dinner, which in turn brought on thinking about what they'd talked about. And she still wasn't ready to go through all that.

The clock in the bottom right corner of her screen informed her it was coming up to nine in the PM. A quick and dirty bit of mental math told her that meant she'd been sitting at this desk for the better part of four hours. An ache in the small of her back attested to that, and the prickling in her numb thighs seconded it.

Jerking the mouse, she highlighted the work that she did complete in that time. Looking at the pitifully low number, she blew out her cheeks.

At her current rate of writing, she might be able to hand a complete essay in a week after the deadline. And that was if she didn't bother studying for the midterm.

"Oh, that's the stuff..." Gwen said as she stood up and stretched, feeling the blood flow back down into her legs. She ignored the cracking noise her back made.

Just like how the secret to falling asleep was trying to stay awake, apparently the key to keep thinking about something was to try and put it from your mind.

Gwen's train of thought went something along the lines of: "You need to work on this paper... but what about Aiden? Wow, this midterm came up so fast... does he like me? I'm not sure but I think he does... You're going to have to force myself to get through this essay... I wonder if Aiden will call me later?"

It was maddening. It was pathetic. It was infuriating. Gwen had never been so hung up on a guy before. She didn't understand how another person could so totally occupy her thoughts, pushing aside all reason, all the things she should be thinking about.

And the thought that really brought home to her just how much trouble she was in was wondering whether Aiden experienced the same inability to concentrate on anything but her. She hoped he did.

When her phone started ringing in her purse, she went crazy. She tore everything out of the bag—old packs of gum, Kleenex, her keys—searching for her cell. Several times, she felt the case brush against her finger, but the thing slipped out of her grip as though it were a living thing trying desperately to get away.


Finally, she just upended the whole thing onto her desk. Pieces of gum and bits of wrappers spread over her laptop's keyboard. Her phone struck the desk hard and spun, threatening to fall onto the floor and shatter into a billion unfixable pieces.

Gwen grabbed it just as it started to tumble off.

Trying to ignore the new mess in her already messy room, she looked at the screen. An involuntary disappointment panged in her chest when she saw that it was only Beatrice and not Aiden.

"Hey, B," she said.

"Hi babe!" B replied. Gwen couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard the sounds of traffic in the background from B's end of the line. How could the girl sound so chipper and upbeat all the time like this?