Axel reached across and took my hand.
The contact sent shock waves through my system. Especially when his thumb traced slow circles on my skin and he was looking at me like I was the only person in the room.
There was something mesmerizing about this version of Axel: attentive, loving, genuine. Some hidden part of me wondered what it would be like if this wasn’t an act.
“I love you,” he said with such conviction, my heart nearly squealed.
“I love you too,” I managed, finding myself tracing circles on his skin.
“Come back to me,” he urged, voice dropping intimately. “I know you’re scared of being hurt again. But I swear, Dakota, I would never hurt you.”
This is just an act,I reminded myself. He’ll go back to being a dick in … 3 … 2 … 1 …
Following Rebecca’s directions, Axel moved my chair beside his, thighs touching, skin burning through fabric. He draped his arm around me, pulling me closer until I felt his body heat, while he began playing with the ends of my hair.
My defenses were crumbling, and I hated it. Hated how good his touch felt, how much I wanted this tenderness to be real. But I’d already learned this lesson today: Axel could switch from caring to cold in a heartbeat. And seeing his performance made me wonder if he got off on tugging my emotions around.
Well, he wasn’t the only one who could play games. If he thought I’d just melt into him like some swooning damsel, he had another thing coming.
I leaned in like I was sharing something precious, speaking low so only he could hear me. “Your smile looks like you’re being held at gunpoint.”
We laughed together, perfectly synchronized.
“Your laugh sounds like a car alarm,” he whispered back.
“Your cologne smells like a midlife crisis.”
His thumb traced circles on my hand … intimate for our audience, but I felt the pressure increase slightly. “And your perfume smells like desperation.”
“At least I don’t reek of commitment phobia and hair mousse.”
“The hair mousse is organic,” he murmured tenderly, gazing into my eyes.
“So is compost.”
He pulled me closer, his voice warm for show. “Your acting is almost convincing. Did you practice in the mirror?”
“Not as much as you practiced your devoted-boyfriend face. Though I’d work on the eye twitch. It’s giving moremedical emergencythanmadly in love.”
“That’s just my natural reaction to being near you,” he quipped.
“It’s actually impressive how delusional you are about your appeal.”
“The only delusion here is you thinking that dress makes you look innocent.”
“Better than looking like I just stepped out of a cologne commercial no one asked for.”
“And yet you can’t stop staring.”
I cooed sweetly, bringing his hand to my cheek like it was precious, “Your eyes have been glued to my cleavage since we arrived, but sure, I’m the one staring.”
He drew in a slow breath through his nose, nostrils flaring. Score one for Dakota.
We gazed at each other with practiced adoration that hid mutual fantasies of attempted murder.
The waiter appeared with our salads, and Axel transitioned smoothly into more public conversation, but his eyes promised our banter wasn’t over.
For now, we kept up the dual conversation: sweet words for our audience, cutting remarks for each other. It was almost fun, in a twisted way. Like we’d found the one thing we were actually good at together: mutually assured destruction with a smile.
