The Decoy Date

Chapter Sixteen

"Hey what was that look about last night at Charlie's dinner party?" Imogen confronted Jess as soon as she came through the door to their shop, she'd been up most of the night unable to sleep trying to figure out what Jess' problem had been. Jess stopped halfway through shrugging her coat off and turned to look at Imogen with it clinging to her upper arms. Imogen crossed her arms waiting for an answer, Jess sighed and shrugged the rest of the coat off and unwound her purple scarf, hanging both garments on the coat stand by the door.

"You're falling for Charlie!" Imogen sat frozen, too stunned to reply or deny Jess' statement. "I saw the way you were looking at him last night, like he was everything, the centre of the world.You're falling in love with him, I knew this would happen when you agreed to this stupid fake dating idea."

"Hey! I am not falling for him! It's all part of our cover, we are meant to look like a proper couple for Christ's sake."

"I've known you since we were five and you're not that good of an actress, you can't lie very well either. Every time you get a text from him you smile, your whole face lights up when you see him and you are always talking about him when he's not there. If that's not love I don't know what is. Besides what about Jack? He'll be back soon and you haven't even mentioned him this week." Jess threw her hands up in the air and puffed out her cheeks, when Imogen didn't reply, she shook her head and huffed walking to the back of the shop to sort out some stock.

Imogen just stared at the empty space in front of her, Jess' words sinking slowly into her brain and images of herself with Charlie and talking about Charlie flashed through her brain. She couldn't be falling for him, not Charlie Ramsey; it was all part of their act as a couple, nothing more. She must have talked about Jack, she'd been so excited after meeting him at The British Museum. She sat immobilised trying to convince herself she wasn't in love until a customer banged on the counter in front of her having asked the same question five times with no response.

All the commotion brought Jess back to front of the shop, she carried a book in each hand and was red-cheeked from climbing up and down to reach the top shelves. "Is everything alright?" The customer nodded and moved to the area of the shop where Imogen had indicated what he was looking for would be. "Are you alright?" She looked at Imogen slightly concerned. "I'm cooking dinner tonight, you should come and bring Charlie. Matt really liked him and he still thinks you're a couple."

Imogen managed a nod and tight smile in acceptance and pulled out her phone to text Charlie about the plan. A minute later her phone was ringing and she smiled involuntarily as the photo of Charlie flashed up on the screen, remembering Jess' words she stopped immediately.

"Hi, so Jess is cooking tonight? Is she good at cooking?"

"Yes she's not bad, I can't promise you won't get food poisoning tomorrow but it will taste good tonight. Her last couple of dinner parties haven't ended up with people hospitalised but the one in May wasn't good – "

"Hey, it wasn't that bad!" Jess stopped in front of Imogen looking annoyed and exasperated.

"Ben had to have his stomach pumped and was on a drip for three days."

"Well I didn't know the meat was off when I bought it! The bloke didn't tell me." Jess was getting more and more angry as her face reddened at the memory of that awful night.

"You didn't get a clue from the fact the price was so cheap and he was selling it out of the back of a van."

"Oh God! You make it sound like I bought it off Del Boy or something, he said he was a butcher and I believed him. It's done and I've learnt my lesson since."

Imogen smiled at the sound of Charlie laughing in her ear and watched Jess walk away in another huff, she would definitely pay for that later, if there was one thing her friend couldn't stand it was being humiliated.