Page 21 of Pretend
This definitely wasn’t going to end well, Morgan thought, focusing back on her sketchpad even as she reminded herself that she had more important matters to deal with than the stubborn man currently cursing his little brother’s name. She needed to finish the designs that she was working on, call Nathan and tell him that there’s been a change of plans and hope that it didn’t end with him firing her and-
“We have a problem.”
CHAPTER13
It was time to face the truth.
He had no fucking idea what he was doing, but since he was desperate, Eric decided to go with the asinine plan that he came up with a few minutes ago and hope for the best. With that in mind, he cleared his throat, did his best not to think about what was at stake here and lied his ass off.
“The tickets were canceled,” Eric said, watching Morgan’s frown deepen as she pushed her glasses back up her cute, little nose.
“For the cruise?” she asked slowly, only to sigh heavily when he nodded once, watching as she thought that over before she followed that up with, “Amber?”
Nodding, Eric said, “Sure,” deciding to go with that excuse since that made more sense than the bullshit that he came up with and sat down on the chair across from her as he tried to figure out what they were going to do next.
Granted, he probably should have figured that out before he said anything, but…
He was going to see how this played out before he panicked, Eric decided as he watched Morgan open her mouth only to shut it, sigh heavily as her shoulders dropped and muttered, “We really should have seen this one coming.”
“Probably,” Eric murmured absently as he watched her, looking for any signs that she wasn’t buying into this bullshit.
“What else?” Morgan asked, looking lost in thought as he sat there, deciding that he should probably use this opportunity to buy himself a little more time since he really didn’t think that a week was going to be enough.
“She also managed to get the travel agent to cancel the return tickets,” Eric said, watching as Morgan slowly exhaled as he sat there, debating the pros and cons of spending the next few weeks in this incredible suite with every amenity known to man and absolutely nothing to get in his way and-
Morgan was going to fucking hate this.
While most women would love the idea of spending a few weeks getting pampered while living off room service, Morgan would absolutely fucking hate it. She wasn’t a big fan of hotels and only tolerated them when she had to, which she made sure wasn’t often. They normally only took jobs that had less than an hour commute, but those rare times that they took on a job where commuting every day back and forth wasn’t an option, she put in longer hours, working her ass off so that they could get the job done faster.
Staying here wasn’t ideal, but he was quickly running out of options.
“Of course, she did,” Morgan murmured, shaking her head in disgust as he debated how he wanted to do this.
For the past eleven years, he’d pretended that she didn’t mean the world to him, pretended that he didn’t love her more than anything, and pretended that he could get over her.
He didn’t want to pretend anymore.
The problem was he had absolutely no idea how she felt about him. Now that he knew that she didn’t see him as a brother, he needed to find out if there was a chance, however slim, that she could see him as more than just her best friend. He needed answers, but unfortunately for him, the small woman worrying her bottom lip between her teeth was stubborn, which was why he had no choice but to take drastic measures.
He-
“She called the travel agent and canceled the trip?” Morgan murmured absently, looking lost in thought.
“Yes,” Eric said even as he made a mental note to call the travel agent later and get their plane tickets switched and cancel the cruise that he’d wasted a small fortune on.
“And that all happened within the thirty seconds that it took you to walk back over here?” Morgan asked as her gaze slowly swung back to him.
Eric opened his mouth, only to close it, cleared his throat, and then finally-
“The travel agent sent a text message,” he said, watching Morgan as she began worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as he sat there, holding his breath as he waited for her to say something that wasn’t going to fucking destroy him.
If this didn’t work…
He was going to have to come up with another plan because there was no way in hell that he was about to let her go a second time, not when the first time had damn near destroyed him.
God, he’d never been this fucking nervous before.
He’d also never had a problem talking to women before, but when it came to Morgan…
