Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
A shiver races down my spine as I imagine waking up in his bed, sitting across from him for supper, and having my lingerie mixed up with his boxers in the washing machine. I feel my cheeks blush—there’s no stopping it. I’ve been concentrating on the logistics and emotional upheaval of this arrangement. I’ve never stopped to think about these things … the little things. The things that I can’t let happen. Things like blurring the intimate parts of real life with the pretend life we’re creating.
I force a swallow. “I guess you’re right. I’m assuming that’s okay?”
“I think it would be hard to explain that I got married, but my wife lives with her sister.”
“That’s true.” My brain kicks into overdrive. “All right. If I’m living with you for the next year, we must have separate bedrooms. I need a little privacy.”
“Yup.”
I study him. “That was easy.”
“You snore. There are four bedrooms. You can have your pick of them.”
“I don’t snore,” I say, looking offended.
He tosses me a challenge with a single brow lift.
“I don’t,” I repeat. “Besides, if I recall—and I do—you have terrible morning breath.”
His eyes sparkle as he chuckles. “That’s solved. Now what?”
“Well, if we’re doing this for a year, we’re definitely going to be in public together. So that probably means we’ll have to … you know … show public affection.”
Hartley’s lips twitch.
“Don’t smirk,” I say.
“I’m not.”
I point at his mouth. “You’re absolutely smirking.”
“Darlin’, you just said public affection like someone asked you to eat glass.”
Did I? “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying that I’m not sure how we’ll handle that.”
“I guess I don’t see the confusion. We’re supposed to act married. And we just danced together in public, so it’s not that far off.”
“And you chased Derrick off,” I say with a grin.
He shrugs. “I was into my role before it was my role.” He returns my smile. “But, yeah, I’ll probably hold your hand sometimes. We might even have to kiss.”
My chest heaves. I’ve kissed him before—plenty of times. And once that seal breaks, it’s nearly impossible not to want more.
“If you have to give me a peck on the cheek or something in public, that’s fine,” I say. “It’s not like we’ll be married at home, right?”
His smirk deepens. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Tell me what you’re really saying.”
I immediately regret going down this road with him. It probably didn’t need to be addressed, anyway. But by the look on his handsome face, there’s no detouring around it.
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest until his gaze drops to my cleavage. “No sex.”
He lifts his gaze to mine, not bothering to hide his smirk. “I’m glad we got that out of the way.” He grabs a water bottle from his truck and takes a swig. Then he offers me a drink, but I pass. “What about your things in Kentucky?”
“Heck if I know. I only brought stuff to get me through a week here, tops. There are things I need from my apartment.”
“We could run up and get them.”
“Maybe that can be our honeymoon,” I offer.
He nods. “What about your lease? I’m assuming you lease a house or an apartment. Would you keep it since you won’t be staying here indefinitely?”
The tenderness that softens his words catches me off guard. He’s right, of course. But the fact that he knows it so confidently, even though I’ve gone out of my way to make it clear that I’m not staying beyond the marriage, is still awkward somehow.
“My lease is through a friend,” I say. “If I leave, he’ll just lease it to someone else. But it’s about up, anyway. He won’t care if I tell him I’m moving.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t respond to that. I don’t bother explaining that my friend, Jeff, has a boyfriend named Clint. Hartley and I might be getting married, but the more we start explaining things like that, the foggier things might get.
And God knows we don’t need that.
“What are we going to tell people?” Hartley asks. “They’re gonna have questions, and we can try to blow them off, but you know how it goes. They’ll either hound us to death or make up their own stories.”
I frown. “I don’t know. Do we just say we reconnected?”
“And decided to get married?” His brows arch to the sky. “That’s quite the leap.”
“It’s no leapier than saying that my grandmother is manipulating us into it.”
He runs a hand over his forehead. “Let’s say we’ve been talking for a while. And once we saw each other again, we just clicked and decided it’s pointless to waste more time.”
My body stills as his attention refocuses on me, because that description? It’s an easy sell. It would be possible because Hartley and I have always had a gravity around us that brought us together—and everyone in town knows it.