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“I figured the black was classy and I like the cut,” I tell her.

“It’s sexy as hell,” she grins.

“Thanks. But I’m not really going for sexy,” I say as I grab my purse and check a couple of things on my tablet before opening the door.

“You’re not?” she asks as she uses her phone as a mirror to apply another layer of lip gloss.

“No. I’m not,” I say. “Why would I be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she smacks her lips and shoves her phone in her clutch. “Maybe because you are technically Marcus’s date and even if you guys are going through a rough patch, you need to be convincing that everything is daisies.”

“We are not going through a rough patch,” I correct her as I get out of the car. “That would imply we are dating, and we are not.”

“No, you’re just spending time together and sleeping together and doing God knows what behind closed doors after he spends his afternoons playing with Jamie,” she says, and I shoot her a look to kill.

“I put an end to it,” I say. “All of it.”

“Did you, though?” she asks.

“Yes!”

“Because you still look at each other like your mamas don’t feed you and I’m pretty sure I saw you scribbling his name in your notebook during the last meeting…”

I roll my eyes. “Nothing is going on. Not anymore. It can’t, and you know why,” I state.

“But he’s so good with him…” she trails off, and just then another SUV pulls up, and Marcus and Tuck get out. I shoot Dylan a button it look and luckily, she does. As Marcus approaches us, her eyes bounce between us and she smirks. “I’m going inside. I swear if they went with the beige settings instead of the greige, tables are going to flip.”

That leaves me, Marcus, and Tuck…until Tuck answers a call over his headset and heads towards the building as well.

Great. We’re alone.

“You look beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say.

“I mean it,” he says. “That dress is sexy.”

“Marcus,” I start, but he cuts back in.

“It’s just a statement. A statement intended to set the mood. Because tonight we are together. If we don’t want Reese or Garrett or anyone to be suspicious of us, there can’t be any tension.”

“So we have to fake date,” I state, and I swear I see a hint of hurt in his expression.

“Something like that,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “This is hard. All of it is hard. Finding out about Reese. Helping my dad process losing his company not just to you but because of his own daughter. Not to mention the way things ended between us recently…”

Marcus takes a step closer to me, his expression slightly softer than before. “Things didn’t end,” he says. “Whether either of us like it or not, we still work together. We have to. And I still care about you, Natalie.”

That last part is enough to unravel me, though I don’t let it.

I care about you…

We have shown how we feel about one another on several occasions, even though it has been mostly in unspoken words and obvious gestures. But that said, I’m pretty sure this is the first time it’s been truly spoken out loud.

“So we are together,” I say. “As far as the dinner is concerned.”

“As far as the dinner is concerned,” he echoes. “And then after that, you can go back to avoiding me.”