Chapter 69

Kayla

I stiffened in my seat, glancing toward Nicholas, unsure of what to do. His arm was resting on the back of my chair, his fingers drumming lazily against the wood. If he was irritated by the photographer’s intrusion, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked completely unbothered.

Calm and collected as ever. How did he do that?

“Kiss!” the photographer cried out with a gleeful, almost predatory grin through the window. “This’ll make the cover of Werewolf Weekly!”

Great, I thought with a wry little curl of my lip. The last thing I wanted was for our tentative, very fake relationship to be photographed and put on the cover of tabloid magazines.

But if we refused or clammed up, then it would just make matters worse. These reporters were like vultures, circling the next big story. If they got the sense that anything, even the slightest shred, was off about the situation, then they would take it and spin it into the tale of the century.

Which left me with exactly two options.

I could sit here, looking awkward and stiff, while our fake engagement unraveled under the scrutiny of some nosy reporter’s camera lens… or I could lean in.

My heart pounded as I quickly made the decision. Without thinking too hard about it—because if I thought too hard, I wouldn’t do it—I grabbed the lapels of Nicholas’s jacket and tugged him toward me.

His eyes flickered with surprise, but he didn’t resist. His body shifted smoothly, leaning into me like it was the most natural thing in the world, and he turned so that the back of his head faced the camera.

Our faces hovered dangerously close, the warmth of his breath brushing against my lips. To anyone looking from the outside, it probably looked exactly like a kiss.

But we didn’t cross that line. Not this time, anyway.

As the photographer snapped his pictures and the other people in the cafe watched in awe, neither of us moved any closer. We just stayed like that, just close enough to make it believable, without actually having to do what we probably both wanted to do deep down but knew we shouldn’t.

But the entire time, his gaze remained locked onto mine, and for a long, stretched-out second, the air between us tightened. It made it hard not to want to close the remaining space between us.

Dammit.

It was far too easy to get lost in the amber heat of his eyes.

Especially when he was looking at me in that way again. Like he was waiting for something. Like he could sense the faint tremble in my hands, the rush of blood beneath my skin. And I think he even enjoyed it a little—that hold he had on me, that physical reaction that he always knew he could get if he just played his cards right.

I hated how much I felt victim to it. Hated the way my stomach twisted and coiled at the intensity in his stare. And I hated how I knew, no matter what, my body would always—always—react to his closeness.

“They’re gone,” Nicholas murmured after a moment, his voice so low I barely caught it.

I blinked, breaking whatever spell had fallen over me. Sure enough, when I glanced out the window, the photographer was gone and the bright flashes of his camera had long since faded.

Nicholas pulled away slowly, his gaze still holding mine with a silent intensity that left my head spinning. Then, as if nothing had ever happened, he slid back into his seat, picked up his coffee, and began scrolling through his phone like the past minute hadn’t just turned my heart into a hurricane.

Clearing my throat, I composed myself and sipped my coffee, keeping my eyes firmly on the table all the while.

He didn’t seem fazed. Not even slightly. How was that even possible? How could he sit there, as nonchalant as ever, when just yesterday he was ready to throw Noah through a wall over something as simple as a hug?

Curious, I risked a glance at him from behind the rim of my cup as if I might be able to catch him showing some kind of emotion on his face. But his jaw was set, and his expression was the perfect mask of indifference as he picked up a nearby newspaper and flipped straight to the comics.

Seeing him like this just left me even more confused. Was it just the mate bond that had triggered his jealousy? Was he just concerned about our arrangement being jeopardized if I became involved with another man?

Or maybe… maybe he was pretending now, just like he had been last night. Drinking with everyone at the house, throwing around laughter and easy smiles when I could very well see the hollowness behind them. Because it was a hollowness that mirrored my own in more ways than I wanted to admit.

But now, I wasn’t so sure.

Nicholas Reynolds, I thought wryly, you are a very difficult man to read.

Once we finished our drinks, we left the cafe, and the rest of the day passed without any more photographers jumping out at us—thank the Goddess. I almost convinced myself to forget about the whole thing, chalking it up to just another awkward moment in the long list of awkward moments that Nicholas and I shared in this uncomfortable arrangement.

At least, until dinner rolled around later that night.

We had just sat down to eat when Nicholas’s phone suddenly buzzed against the table. He answered it without looking at me, and I hardly thought about it as I twirled my spaghetti around my fork.

That was, until his lips curved upward in that devilish way I recognized far too well.

“Yes, this is Alpha Nicholas,” he said smoothly, his eyes glinting with something dangerous as they flicked to me. “You want us to come on television for an interview about our relationship? Tomorrow?”

I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth.

Being interviewed by the guild once a week was bad enough. Being photographed by the paparazzi was borderline unbearable.

But appearing on TV?

The thought made me want to throw up. I’d been on the news before, back when my father first went into a coma, and I hated it. It was a shit show; I could still feel the interviewer’s underhanded compliments sizzling against my skin, the painful experience of all of the online gossip and hatred that followed the disaster of an interview.

I couldn’t go through that again.

“Yes,” Nicholas said, grinning impishly at my rapidly paling face, “Luna Kayla is right here. Yes, she’s absolutely ecstatic.”

“Liar!” I mouthed, silently jumping up from my chair and slicing my hand across my throat, indicating for him to decline the offer.

But Nicholas just lowered his eyebrows at me, looking positively evil. “Mhm,” he said into the phone, taking obvious pleasure in my frantic movements. “Yes, I think nine o’clock would be perfect. We’re looking forward to it.”

I felt like I might be sick. Nicholas just calmly hung up the phone and set it aside, then picked up his fork and casually began twirling his pasta. I just stared at him incredulously, my knuckles white around the edge of the table.

“What?” he said, barely glancing at me as he shoveled a large forkful of pasta into his mouth.

“You’re the worst,” I groaned. I plopped back into my chair, although my appetite was long gone by now.

He just smiled wider. “I never said I wasn’t. But they want us to come in tomorrow to talk about our engagement. The public loves us, Kayla. Our little picture earlier today caught quite a lot of attention.”

“I hate you,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “I’m not doing this.”

“You have to.”

“But I hate being on camera.” My voice was muffled by my hands.

Nicholas just chuckled, clearly enjoying every second of this, and continued to eat his dinner with gusto. Meanwhile, it was all I could do not to beg the Moon Goddess for the sweet release of death.

A televised interview with my fake husband, first thing in the morning, right after a series of big arguments…

He was trying to get a little bit of revenge on me, wasn’t he?