Free The Borrowed Boyfriend by Ginny Baird Page B

shoulder-length cut!”
    “It’s a little on the orange side, isn’t it?” Carla asked worriedly as Bruce held open the kitchen door in front of her. Light streamed from the kitchen, casting a halo-like glow around Carla’s hair. Allison had to admit it appeared tangerine.
    “Orange?” Allison nearly choked on the word. “Not at all! What would make you think that?”
    “Queenie,” Carla whispered in annoyance. “When it’s obviously strawberry blonde!”

    Grady ducked into the bedroom as the threesome disappeared into the kitchen. Good thing he had the excuse about getting the beers. Grady needed a chance to gather his wits. He also needed to send Kate a text. Posthaste. It wasn’t just guilt prodding him along. He’d planned on doing it earlier. Grady slid his cell from his pocket and sent Kate a quick note, saying he hoped her flight had gone well and that he missed her. The telling truth was that Grady didn’t miss her. Not in any sort of overwhelming way. He’d barely considered Kate at all until he’d gotten his and Allison’s luggage out of the car, and then it had been to make an unfavorable comparison.  
    Grady sighed to himself, wondering if his deal with Kate was all that it was cracked up to be. It occurred to him that playing the fake boyfriend wasn’t exactly a new role. It was in fact becoming routine for him. He and Kate weren’t in love; they were together for the sake of convenience. Yet when others saw them together, they naturally assumed them to be an amorous pair. That was clearly the picture Kate was trying to paint for her sister, Marie. Hence all the extravagant vacations with lavish accommodations. Grady didn’t mind funding these excursions, because he could afford them and he and Kate generally had a good time. They got along and were compatible enough. And having Kate organize his downtime left Grady free to focus his energies on his job. He was doing well at it too, and making loads of money. But sometimes, when Grady was being very honest with himself, like after fending off another round of questions from his grandmother, he felt that something about his ultrasuccessful life rang hollow.
    Grandma O’Brien’s voice came back to him.  
    When are you going to find a nice girl for yourself?  
    I have a nice girl, Grandma, he’d answered. I’m dating Kate.
    I’ve met this Katie Fagan, his grandma had said in her deep Irish brogue. She’s not the one for my Grady.
    When he’d asked what made her think that, his grandma claimed to have seen it in Kate’s eyes. You can always read a woman by looking in her eyes, his grandma had said. Particularly when she’s observing her man.  
    Grady had caught Kate staring at him once, when she hadn’t expected him to. He’d been working at his desk in the office while his assistant had been away on her lunch hour. Kate had apparently walked right in and then had stopped to study him a moment without interrupting. When Grady looked up and met her eyes there was a weird gleam there, almost like Kate had been scheming. Or maybe she’d been summing him up. In either case, her gaze hadn’t felt warm and complimentary. In a really weird way it had given him shivers.
    Grady shook off the memory and picked up the beers, thinking it wasn’t the time or place to question his arrangement with Kate. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been called away to a conference, and Kate certainly had her strengths. Didn’t the fact that she’d wanted to help out a friend, by urging Grady to spend this week with Allison, attest to the better side of Kate’s character? Nobody was perfect. Least of all Grady. If there was any fault in his arrangement with Kate, he was equally to blame. But there’d be time for relationship evaluation later. At the moment, Grady needed to set thoughts of any problems with Kate aside and focus on the task at hand: getting to know Allison better and impressing the daylights out of her friends.

Chapter Twelve

    When