‘I knew it!’ Carol said, triumphantly. ‘I told you all they were dating.’
‘You’re dating?’ Annie looked even more upset about this development than she had about Elliot being in town for over a year. ‘How did I not know about this?’
‘We… uh…’ Elliot glanced at Daisy again who was looking only slightly less like she might run straight out of the building.
‘See, Daisy isn’t cursed,’ Jeanie piped in. ‘She’s dating Elliot.’
‘Why are we even talking about this?’ Logan grumbled from beside her.
‘I don’t know,’ Jeanie stage-whispered back. ‘But people seem very invested.’
‘Of course we’re invested,’ Kaori said, speaking on behalf of the book club gathered around her. ‘We need to know if Daisy’s flowers are safe.’
Daisy rolled her eyes. ‘Safe?! Of course they’re safe. They’reflowers.’
‘Potentially cursed flowers.’
‘They’re not cursed,’ Elliot said, struggling to get back on course. ‘Daisy’s flowers are perfect, and so is she.’
The crowd stilled.
Daisy was looking at him again, a new expression on her face. One he couldn’t quite read. Was it pleasure painting her cheeks pink or anger?
She cleared her throat. ‘Right,’ she said, snapping her attention from Elliot and back to the crowd. ‘We’re dating. Not that it should matter, but we are. So, there you go, you can all go back to worrying about your own love and sex problems and leave mine alone.’
Daisy plopped back down in her seat.
‘It’s settled,’ the mayor said, looking like a child who’d been chastised. ‘Daisy will do the flower crowns just like last year and there will be no more talk of a curse.’
Judging by the grumblings around him, Elliot highly doubted that the town was done with their curse-related speculation, but he was too busy thinking about the wordsexleaving Daisy’s lips. Fake relationships didn’t include sex, right? Definitely not. That would be…
Elliot did not let himself finish that thought.
Because that would not be happening.
He’d only done what he’d done to help Daisy out. And to help himself, as well. They both would benefit from this situation. He could get his mother to stop worrying about him for five seconds, and Daisy could turn the tide of public opinion about her business.
Win-win. Assuming Daisy wasn’t pissed at him.
And just because it had been over two years since the last time he’d had sex, and that he’d kind of almost forgotten about it entirely until Daisy’s tight black tops and the sound of the word leaving her lips, did not mean… anything really.
This was fake.
A show.
And sex had always been very real for Elliot, never something he’d been able to do casually. It was all or nothing for him and surely this whole thing with Daisy was nothing.
Just a friend helping a friend.
He would just have to keep reminding his suddenly revived libido of that fact.
ChapterSeven
The mayor was apologizing to her again, but Daisy wasn’t really paying attention. There was only one person she wanted to talk to, and Elliot hadn’t filed out of the town hall building yet. Or if he had, she’d missed him entirely.
She really hoped she hadn’t missed him. Clearly, they needed to talk.
What she was going to say when they did talk, she didn’t know yet. Was it kind of him to stand up for her during the meeting? Yes. Should he have made this crazy decision on his own? Probably not. Did she actually think this was a good idea? Nope. Not at all.
