“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. Then he grinned. “But not today.”

Her growl only made him laugh harder as they started up the stairs. “Watch it,” she warned. “This limestone is slick even without rain.”

The roughened steps had been made smooth by decades of people pounding their way up the hill, but they were still uneven in many places.

He spotted a couple descending the left side of the staircase and nodded a greeting as they passed them down the hillside.

Taylor looked back over, and in a loud whisper, she said, “They’re probably in that other car that was parked at the base of the mountain. At least we don’t have to put on a show for the public.”

And she considered that a good thing?

Guess he was the only one who counted down the hours until they could put on their show for the public. The hand-holding, the lazy grins, the longing glances, the whispering in each other’s ears…He’d started to really get into their little performances, especially when they turned out like the one they’d put on a couple of days ago.

After a three-hour workout in Zilker Park Monday morning, they’d returned to the food truck park where they’d first discussed working together. Unlike their previous trip there, the area had been packed with the lunchtime crowd, which meant they had to perform their happy couple routine.

As she held his hand while waiting at her favorite smoothie truck, Taylor had leaned over and told him a stupid knock, knock joke. Jamar had refused to laugh, which only made her try harder. He returned with a silly joke one of his agent’s kids had told him about a snowman and a vampire, but Taylor wouldn’t bite.

It became a competition—because when it came to Taylor, everything was a competition—to see which one of them could make the other laugh first. She’d won, but not because of a silly one. It wasn’t until she’d shocked him with a dirty joke that Jamar had cracked.

Was it all really just a pretense for her?

Why wouldn’t it be? That’s what they’d agreed to, wasn’t it?

He was the one who’d allowed that kiss to consume him these last few days. He couldn’t blame Taylor for the uneasy heaviness that had settled in his stomach. She’d kept up her end of their bargain so far. This was all on him.

As he extended his gait to reach one of the steeper steps, a sharp pinch shot through his knee.

What the fuck?

He brought his other leg up and just stood there, unsure. Anxious.

Taylor peered over her shoulder. “Hey, you tired already? I thought you could break my record in your sleep?”

Jamar looked up at her. “What?”

She stopped. Her eyes narrowed with her frown. “Everything okay?”