Page 62 of Faking It
“Ladies? Can you excuse us for a moment?” he asks.
“Of course,” the cosmetologists say, suddenly on the move from their stations as I start to get that fluttery feeling in my throat, worried about what exactly Zane is going to do when we’re alone.
When the door shuts, he moves before me, blocking the mirror I’m staring at, and waits until I lift my eyes to meet the amusement in his.
“You can stop the show, now. They’re gone,” I say.
“I wasn’t putting one on.” I hate that those five simple words have my pulse picking up its pace despite my rationale telling me he’s just a sweet talker. “Doesn’t every woman deserve to be treated like they matter after they’ve slept with someone?” he asks.
Oh. My. Who is this guy?
I try to wrap my head around this man and the fact that he sounded like a player when I heard him talking with his friend Jack, and yet this—that comment—is nothing like what a player would say . . . well, that is unless he’s still trying to play me.
Is he? Am I just one more gullible female to him? Or is this the real him when no one’s around?
Hating that I don’t know and confused over why I even care when I told him point blank last night that this was just sex, I build a wall around me just in case.
“What’s going on, Zane?”
“I was just wondering how we were going to do this?”
“This?” I ask. God, the intensity in his eyes is unnerving.
“Yes, the reality that we’re both mature adults who consented to having sex, but who are now suddenly shy and don’t know how to address the fact that we did in fact have sex—incredible sex, if I might add—and come to an understanding about what we’re going to do about it. That’s the this I’m referring to.”
“Oh, that this,” I say softly.
“Yes, that this.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Do you regret it?” Point blank. Matter of fact.
“I guess not.”
“Well, that enthusiastic response is a real boost for my ego,” he chuckles.
“No—I don’t regret it—but it was just supposed to be sex. Now it’s obviously more than that because we have to work together and live together and—”
Zane holds up his hand to stop me. “And you’re complicating things when they don’t need to be complicated. Do you like me, Harlow?”
I laugh at his ridiculous question. “I hope I do. I slept with you, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I roll my eyes and huff. “Yes, I like you.”
“Do you still like me after last night?”
“Yes.” My voice is softer this time around.
“Then that’s all we need to know at this point.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say when he starts to walk away.
“Isn’t it though?”
Leave it to a man to think sex and the aftermath is easy.
“No, but—”
“Was it a mistake, Harlow?”
