Chapter 11

Lilith followed Dane into the kitchen and wiped her suddenly clammy palms on her jeans. Was she overdressed for this spontaneous date or underdressed? Dane refused to tell her what they were doing, the big dolt. Didn’t he realize that a woman needed to be fortified with confidence in the form of an absolutely killer outfit when she went on a first date?

Though technically this was their…third date. If you counted the wedding as one and the cookies as the second. She bit back a giggle because explaining to her fake husband that he had to top their fake wedding as best date so far would be ridiculous.

“I didn’t really expect to go on a date tonight,” she informed him as he held up one finger and then kept tapping on his phone in a mesmerizing display of skill and speed, reminding her that he made his living staying one step ahead of cyber criminals. Likely that involved a lot of lightning-quick typing, but she appreciated his dexterity for an entirely different reason.

“Okay, done. No time like the present,” he said and glanced up at her with an eyebrow waggle that pulled another smile out of her. Actually, just being around Dane did great things to her insides, and it gushed out in various expressions of happiness.

“What did you do, order an Uber?” she asked with a curious nod at the phone still clutched in his hand.

“Among other things.” With that cryptic non-answer, he jerked his head toward the back hallway. “You might want to put on shoes that you can walk around in.”

Now he had her thoroughly intrigued. “It’s almost nine o’clock. Where are we going that we have to walk?”

“Guess you’ll have to play along to find out. Chop, chop.” Dane gave her a little push in the direction of her room, which she allowed only because he had her salivating with curiosity.

After donning tennis shoes, she grabbed a jacket just in case—men never considered the temperature when making plans.

Dane hustled her out the door and down the elevator to an idling SUV that he’d apparently conjured up during his quick-fingered phone session. He helped her up into the second row of bucket seats and kept a tight grip on her hand once they were both seated.

“We both have cars,” she reminded him. “I was actually kidding about ordering an Uber.”

“If I’m driving, I can’t focus on you,” he replied and rubbed a thumb across the sensitive pulse point of her wrist. “You get one hundred percent of my attention for the rest of the night.”

The dark thread in his voice unleashed a delicious shiver that settled deep into her bones. The things he made her feel should have warning labels slapped all over them, but she liked this unexpected rush too much to heed the danger.

Since she knew better than to ask about their destination, she held on and enjoyed the heck out of the anticipation.

It didn’t take long. After a few minutes, the SUV let them out at the entrance to a park. Beyond the stone pillar that declared it as such, the interior unrolled along a path that disappeared into hushed darkness. Dane took her hand again, lacing their fingers together so naturally it felt like they’d been a couple for years, and led her into the area enclosed by a wrought iron fence.

“I’ve never been here before,” Lilith murmured, drinking in the atmosphere. “How did you find it?”

“It’s one of my favorite places,” he said, and she blessed him for not saying Google, which would have been most people’s response. Reason number 487 she’d willingly gone along when he’d started planning an impromptu date—he wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met. Dane seemed to operate on a whole different plane, one she’d scarcely begun to understand but definitely liked.

Lights blinked on as they strolled, clearly sensing their presence, but at one of the crossroads, Dane tugged her toward an offshoot path that wasn’t lit. Darkness engulfed them after only a couple of steps. She clutched at his elbow with her free hand. For fortification. Not that she was scared, exactly. She just wanted to get a little closer to the gorgeous man at her side. That was her excuse and she was sticking to it.

But the man wasn’t just pretty to look at, he was also brilliant at paying attention to her unspoken needs. He immediately released her hand in favor of sliding an arm around her waist, drawing her into the protective circle of his embrace. Since that had been precisely what she’d been going for, and he was warm and delicious besides, she didn’t argue.

Gradually her eyes adjusted. Giant, dark shapes melted into trees, bushes, the occasional bench, until they reached the end of the path, which opened up into a wide loop. A whimsical gazebo sat quietly in the center, waiting. The moon chose that moment to peek out from behind a cloud, bathing the whole scene in silver, and her breath caught.

“It’s like a fairy cottage,” she whispered, and he nodded in encouragement instead of laughing at her. “I mean, obviously fairies aren’t real. But if they were.”

“Who says they aren’t real?” he asked mildly with a tsk. “You keep your eyes peeled just in case.”

Dang it, now she was intrigued. She’d never been one to indulge in fantasy, but Dane was quickly making her convert. “What am I looking for?”

He pointed upward without speaking. A tiny flash of light snagged her attention. There. It flashed again, right above the roof of the gazebo. Then another lit up a few feet away. Another, then another, blinking on and off like a string of Christmas tree lights until the entire gazebo was surrounded and her eyes grew strained from trying to take it all in.

“Fireflies,” she guessed out loud, only to have Dane touch her mouth closed with one fingertip.

“Shh. Tonight, they’re fairies.”

She got caught up enough in the possibilities to take the suggestion. This wasn’t a night for reality. For crying out loud, she’d been the one to lay down that premise back in his bedroom in the first place. This was one hundred percent fantasy, and she couldn’t find an iota of a problem with that.

He led her into the center of the gazebo, where a blanket covered the wooden floor, spread by invisible hands. A picnic basket sat in the center, likely left by the same hands, and surely full of more magic.

“Dane, this is amazing.” How had he put all of this together so quickly? She didn’t ask, didn’t want to know. There was such a thing as spoiling the illusion and honestly, that was the last thing she wanted to do. “I would have been fine with going to a restaurant.”

“Restaurants are for amateurs,” he informed her blithely. “Besides, we can’t be alone in a restaurant, nor can we pretend we’re shutting out the rest of the world. Nothing outside of this place exists. As ordered.”

Enchanted and stunned speechless, she let him lead her up the steps to settle on the blanket. He followed and began unpacking the basket, which contained crackers and cheese plus a bottle of sparkling wine—nonalcoholic because he wasn’t sure if she’d like real wine, as he informed her when he pulled it out.

“Either way would have been fine,” she said and tucked her feet up underneath her to give him more room.

Dane paused, one hand on the bottle as he set it down next to him. “You settle a lot. Stop doing that. You’re not ‘fine’ either way, just like you’re not fine with a restaurant. Or you shouldn’t be anyway. Any guy who wants to spend time with you needs to level up.”

Warmth exploded in her midsection as she absorbed the sincerity in his voice and it threw her off balance. “Is that a video game thing? Level up?”

“Yeah. But it’s also a metaphor. Nobody gets handed stuff in video games or life. You only win if you’re smart, faster than everybody else and gain experience points by gaming as hard as you can. You’re worth all of that and more.”

Geez. Her stomach did this flippy thing she felt in her whole body. “I’m suddenly thinking of video games in a whole different way.”

Handing her a plastic cup full of sparkling grape juice, Dane touched his cup to hers in a pseudo toast, then passed her a plate of crackers and cheese, which she set aside in favor of scooching closer to him.

The sounds of the city were muted here, almost as if they had truly been cut off from the real world. She couldn’t find a thing wrong with that, especially when the fireflies—fairies—wove inside the gazebo, flashing intermittently not more than a few feet from them. It was magical.

And terrifyingly perfect. “Is this something you do for all the women you date?”

She hated to break the comfortable silence that had fallen, but she had a perverse need to know if she’d been enchanted by a recycled idea. Call it a parting gift from Nick that she didn’t exactly like, but the inability to trust a man didn’t simply vanish by willing it away, magical theme to the night notwithstanding.

“I don’t date much,” Dane confessed with a slight shrug. “So, no. This is a first for me.”

Fantastic answer. Delighted beyond measure, she sipped her drink, letting the sparkling taste burst across her tongue. “This is good. I’ve never had it before.”

“Really? My mom used to buy it at Christmas every year, and we’d only get a glass during dinner. She let us use the real flutes and everything. Ever since then, I’ve always thought of it as special.”

Oh goodness. And he’d thought to share it with her? Her heart twisted, as if it didn’t really belong in her chest any longer, and maybe never had. The way it beat didn’t even feel familiar.

A man like Dane McClarren shouldn’t be single. Why weren’t women standing in line for this guy, ripping each other’s hair out to claw their way to the front of the queue?

Lilith had stumbled into it accidentally, and she couldn’t quite believe her good fortune. “Where did you come from Dane?”

He quirked a quizzical brow. “Is this a trick question designed to get me to admit the name of the planet? Are you with the intergalactic police force?”

Despite the gravity of her question, she laughed. “You’re onto me. This is all an elaborate setup I devised to uncover a secret alien race living among us.”

“A tip for you. You have to cut open my brain to see the alien part.” He tapped his temple with a grin. “Questions aren’t going to cut it.”

All at once, she had the distinct impression that he wasn’t exactly joking. Not about the alien part, but that he viewed his brain as something out of the norm and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “You’re smarter than the average bear, aren’t you?”

“I can give that a rousing thumbs up since bears have yet to develop speech and logic. I’m pleased you noticed my superiority over the simple beasts.” When she shot him a withering glance, he shrugged, the smile slipping off his face. “Sorry, I fall back on jokes when I’m not sure what to say.”

That was an interesting revelation, since he never seemed at a loss for words when he was around her. “I like your sense of humor. But I’m not sure why you don’t know what to say. We’re just talking. Say whatever comes to mind. The whole point of this is to get to know each other, to spend time together off-camera where we can be real with each other.”

The silence stretched to the point of snapping, and he leaned back on his palms, distancing himself from her. But then he finally said, “I thought we were being as unreal as possible.”

Yeah, she’d been the one to introduce the idea of playing fast and loose with normal relationship parameters like the possibility of a future together. Spoiler alert—there wasn’t one. But it was nice to pretend. “Slip of the lip. My fault. Back to being unreal.”

“A philosophy I’m a fan of by the way. Reality isn’t my favorite place most of the time.”

There was a thread of pain woven through his voice that twanged deep inside her. None of this was supposed to hurt. Quite the opposite. But she couldn’t help digging into that in case there was something she could do. “Is that why you look for fairies and play fantasy video games?”

She took his miniscule head jerk as a yes and left it at that. Odds were good she’d also stumbled into the root of why he’d subjected himself to surgery—to fix whatever physical attributes had contributed to his dislike of reality.

Without speaking, she crawled to him and settled into the space by his torso, then wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight the way he’d done for her when she’d been upset earlier. He didn’t hesitate to respond, his own arms encircling her in a cocoon of warmth.

This was as real as it got between two people, and she should be backpedaling as fast as she could. But she couldn’t figure out where the harm was. They were both on the same page, both aware they’d been thrown together thanks to the most unlikely circumstances. Was it so bad to admit that he’d slid into a crack in her heart? Not much. Just a little. And she wasn’t sorry.

The perfect date never seemed to end. She and Dane talked until well past midnight. When you didn’t have to go into work the next day, there was no such thing as bedtime. Eventually he pointed out the camera crews would arrive earlier than they might like, and she reluctantly agreed to leave her fairy cottage.

But the next day, the intrusive eye of the camera stopped her more than once from saying what was really on her mind. It was frustrating, and she resented the number of people in her house when she’d really rather be sitting on the couch, one leg bent up underneath her as Dane told her about his day. The co-worker who’d stolen his lunch. Mundane, normal things that regular people talked about.

Instead, they were filming an episode where she was mad at her husband because he’d told her he didn’t want children. And she did, apparently. The dialogue was rightfully stilted and unnatural because the director kept stopping and starting over again with the complaint that she wasn’t selling it. Of course she wasn’t. She had zero interest in kids. Filming took three times longer than it should have and about ten times longer than she had the patience for.

The sooner everyone left, the sooner she could get to the only thing that she wanted to do—spend another endless evening with her fake husband. Finally everyone cleared out. Before Dane could disappear, she snagged his arm.

He glanced down at her fingers where they rested on the cuff of his sky-blue button-down shirt. He’d rolled up the sleeves at one point, and they hit him right at the most delicious forearm section imaginable. His skin was warm where her fingers had missed the fabric, and something thick and heavy spread through her as he lifted his gaze from her hand to make eye contact.

“Let me take you on a date,” she suggested throatily, not at all bothered by the fact that he could easily guess how much he affected her just by the timber of her voice. “To thank you for last night.”

They hadn’t really set any parameters around their “unreal” relationship, which had a kind of sensibility to it. You didn’t put a box around something that was pure fantasy. But that left her unbalanced, not quite sure whether he’d welcome the idea.

But he let a slow smile spill onto his face and nodded. “That’s allowed. Where are you taking me?”

“That’s rich coming from you, the king of no questions about the details,” she shot back. “Be ready in ten minutes.”

When he emerged in nine minutes from his bedroom, he was still wearing the same blue shirt. It turned his eyes a beautiful luminescent color and her stomach clutched as his sheer presence overwhelmed her.

“Maybe we should stay in,” she murmured and then nearly bit her tongue off. What kind of date would that be? One that would get her into a lot of trouble, that was for sure.

His eyebrows lifted. “After I spent all this time getting ready?”

She laughed which broke some of the tension, but not all of it because that would be impossible. “I was just thinking how much I don’t want to share you with anyone, and the date I had in mind would put us in the middle of way too many people.”

“Sounds horrible,” he agreed, wrinkling up his nose. “My introverted soul just shriveled away and died.”

“You’re an introvert?” The question came out of her mouth before she could stop it. “I mean, I know you just said that. But I don’t see that about you at all. An introvert doesn’t invite a TV show to film him.”

Dane wouldn’t look at her all at once, his discomfort obvious. “No, and that’s one of the reasons I always retreat to my bedroom afterward. To recharge. It’s draining sometimes to be around people all day.”

“I’m sensing this is going to be our first fight,” she said lightly, even as her stupid heart twisted again. Poor baby. She’d had no idea he struggled with the filming so much and here she was forcing him to spend yet another evening with her. “I can’t imagine a job where I don’t get to interact with my customers. They give me life. They’re the reason I get up in the morning.”

“Why would we fight about that? You’re a lovely person who has a lot to give. Nothing wrong with that.”

Oh, well. When he put it that way. A pleased smile lifted her lips. “I just meant if we were a real couple, we’d have a lot of fights about where we go because I love being around people. I’m liable to drag you to parties and all kind of things you’ll hate. It’s a good thing this isn’t real, or we’d definitely be staying home.”

“Remind me why that’s a bad thing?” he rumbled in his low voice, the one that always sank deep hooks into her midsection.

“Because.”

If they stayed home, she’d be doing it for him as an act of kindness. To unselfishly think about his needs instead of hers. The way a real wife might.

“I want you to meet my friends,” she said in a rush, before she changed her mind and gave in to the swirl of wants inside that shouldn’t be there at all.