And for the first time all night, he looked a little nervous. “Since we’re friends, I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
This really was turning into the week of handsome men asking me for favors. But since Miles didn’t have a three-year-old daughter, and this probably wasn’t for babysitting, I asked, “What kind of favor?”
“Well,” he said, hesitating. “First, I should ask if you have any plans for Ian’s wedding. You’re going, right?”
“Actually, no,” I said, glancing toward Ian and Maddie. They stood near the food table with Lucy and Owen, Maddie laughing at something Ian murmured in her ear. “I wasn’t invited.”
“What?” Miles blinked.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, waving the thought away. “Ian is Ky’s friend. I doubt he and his family even know who I am. I’m only at this party tonight because Lucy and Owen invited me at the last minute.”
“Oh… sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I smiled, meaning it. “It’s really okay.”
Would it be cool to go to a billionaire’s wedding? Uh, yeah. Obviously. But degrees of separation mattered, and I was on the outer edge of this particular friend group constellation.
“Well, I have a plus-one.” Miles shifted toward me a little. “And I’ve been trying to figure out who to bring… so I was wondering if you’d like to come.”
My breath snagged.
Miles Hawthorne—my brother’s ridiculously hot, ridiculously successful friend—was askingmeto go to Ian Hastings’s wedding with him?
As hisdate?!
My mind did a full gymnastics tumbling pass.
Was this because of New Year’s Eve?
“You’re inviting me to be your plus-one?” I asked instead, my voice a strange blend of surprise and breathlessness.
Had all that flirting—had that kiss—somehow meant more to him than I’d assumed?
Had all my daydreams from watching his games and drooling over his tall, strong, sexy quarterback physique actually turned into something real?
“You see… I’m not really in a place to date for real.” Miles sighed, his words bringing my spiraling thoughts to a complete stop. “But there’s someone who’s going to be at the wedding who I’d rather not let know I’m single. So, I was thinking… would you maybe want to go with me and pretend we’re kind of… into each other? Like maybe that kiss on New Year’s sparked something and we’ve been in contact since then. It would really do me a solid.”
Oh.
Well. That answeredthat.
The tiny, hopeful bubble I hadn’t even admitted to myself deflated with a quiet pop.
So, he wasn’t actually asking me on a date. He needed me to be a shield. A decoy. A seat filler.
My heart pinched, and it surprised me how much the idea stung, considering that before this moment, I hadn’t actually expected him to be interested in me anyway.
But when I looked at him, instead of seeing the confident expression I was used to seeing on his face, I found something softer.
Vulnerable.
And for a split second, I wasn’t sitting beside a powerful quarterback. Instead, I was looking at the face of a man who looked like someone had taken a swing at his heart recently and hit it dead on.
Which was why, instead of living in the disappointment I’d briefly felt, I found myself saying, “I would be honored to be your fake girlfriend for the wedding.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “I might as well take a turn looking like I finally nabbed a hottie. Plus, I could do much worse than going on a fake date withtheMiles Hawthorne.”