The Pretend Girlfriend(53)

"No. I'm saying that I don't understand why you didn't."

Does he think I'm faking this or something? Gwen thought. Her anger changed into frustration with a teaspoon of despair.

"You know why I did it," she said. Reaching out, she put her hand over his. He started to flinch, but stopped. She could see that shield coming up to cover his feelings even more than they already were.

"No, I don't. If this is about you and me, I thought I made myself clear how I feel," Aiden said. Despite his tone, he didn't take his hand out from under hers.

"I don't believe you," Gwen replied, her voice getting a little shaky. This is what happens when I don't get enough sleep! she thought. But it was too late to stop now. "If I did believe you about that, I would have signed Henry's contract and never seen you again."

This time, Aiden did pull his hand away. The portion of the table where it had sat still felt warm. He stood up, taking a deep breath and licking his lips. "He's going to step up his efforts now. I need to go and think about the best way to proceed."

He started to walk away, but Gwen snagged him by the wrist and got up as well. He wasn't getting away that easily. She could see the chink in his armor, could tell that she'd widened it and that the real Aiden was behind it.

"Stop lying to yourself," Gwen said. They stood close to each other, Gwen looking up into his eyes, Aiden looking down into hers. She saw him, then, the real Aiden. Before he could retreat behind his armor again, she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down into a kiss.

It was hot, like all the heat in her body rushed up to her lips. Aiden's arms slipped around her back and pulled her hard against him. Her knees weakened, but he held her up.

And then she felt cold. Cold because he stepped back from her, letting his hands fall away from her body. Heat flushed his cheeks, too, and he struggled to regain control.

"Aiden..." Gwen said, reaching for him.

He looked at her hand, then backed away. He nearly knocked over a stand of bags of medium roast coffee. "I can't," he said.

She watched him push his way out to the street and disappear in the crowd. A middle aged guy in a suit with a copy of the Wall Street Journal tucked under his arm had taken her table, but she didn't care anymore.

Who are you, Aiden Manning? Gwen wondered.





Chapter 17


If there was one thing Gwen thought she could count on to take her mind off Aiden, it was school. She arrived back at her apartment still hungry, but determined not to think about this whole predicament for now.

Another slice of peanut butter toast would have gone a long way to solving her hunger problem at least, but just looking at the loaf of bread brought back that hot sensation of embarrassment from arriving at Starbucks with her last slice still in hand.

So, bowl of Cheerios clutched close, she went back to her room. She sat down at her desk with determination, determinedly opened her laptop, and forcefully double-clicked the Microsoft Word icon on her desktop screen.

All that determination drained from her as she stared at the blank white screen in front of her. The cursor blinked mockingly, daring her to even attempt to start typing.

It was all well and good to decide to get to work, but when Gwen got down to it, like many people, she discovered that the desire to work and willpower to actually start were two different, possibly mutually exclusive, things.

She chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes glassing over as she poised her fingers over the keyboard, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Her normal routine (aside from procrastination, of course) was to plot a paper out at least a week in advance. Following a plan worked out better than striking off into the ether without a map, she always found.

And the paper was actually due in two days. Hard copy handed to the professor, electronic copy submitted to see if she'd bought the essay off the internet.

"Aha!" she said, thinking she'd found that elusive starting line.

Her fingers started tapping away, confidently at first, but flagging like a sprinter running out of breath not long thereafter. The cursor blinked at the end of the incomplete sentence.

It read: "What's wrong, can't you write a simple essay without thinking about Aid"

And that's where she stopped. Leaning back in her chair, she sighed. It was rather ironic, she realized, this inability to write. The big reason (or the thing she told herself was the big reason, in any case) that she'd accepted Aiden's offer was that doing so would allow her to stay here at school so she could finish her degree. And now there she sat, unable to concentrate on school from thinking about a guy who was about as open and readable as a book written in Swahili.

"Coffee. Coffee's the answer," she muttered, unable to bear the mocking she perceived in the cursor's unrelenting blinking.