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Propose, so I can at least get a fiancée visa.
Right. Speaking of. “I do need to tell you something.”
“What is it, babe?” he cooed, and I was beginning to get quite agitated with how he treated me like Winnie’s blind/old/half-dead dog.
I cleared my throat.Here goes nothing.
“Since I’m running out of time, and my visa expires at the end of the month, I decided to—”
“Holy shit!” BJ interjected.Again. This time he flung the passenger seat open. “Look who it is, Duffy! Kane! Kane from Cambridge. I thought he lived in Bristol? I wonder what he’s doing in New York.”
I clasped my mouth shut. I didn’t even remember Kane. Nor did I care to.
“BJ, wait—”
“You think he works in the city now? I gotta catch up with the guy. I’m gonna call after I pass TSA, ’kay? Thanks for the ride.” He leaned in to kiss me quickly, palming my cheeks and pressing his forehead to mine. “Love you to the moon and back. We’ll get through this.Mwah.”
I sat in the car, watching BJ dragging his luggage from the boot and hurrying toward a man I now vaguely recognized as someone from the rowing team. He turned to BJ, looking pleasantly surprised. I clutched the steering wheel in a death grip and told myself that I was being unreasonable. BJ couldn’t know what I’d wanted to tell him. And I’dhardly stood my ground, had I? Besides, did it truly matter? If I wanted to marry into money, I needed to appear less desperate.
I pressed my forehead against the wheel, sucking air into my lungs.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I realized Ifell asleepon the wheel, thankfully not while the vehicle was in motion. A police officer knocked on my window. I rolled it down with a wince.
“Ma’am.” He parked a hand on his waist, staring at me pointedly.
Christ, I couldn’t catch a break today.Ma’am? I was quite clearly amiss.
“Hello!” I smiled politely. “Did I do anything wrong, Officer?”
“You? No. Your forehead, however, was honking that horn for thirty seconds straight.”
Bugger.
“You under the influence?” He arranged his belt over his stomach.
“Ha. I wish.” The joke did not land as well as I thought it would, as his face remained stoic. “Sorry. It sounded funnier in my head. I just dropped my boyfriend off. He’s going away for six months. I’m quite distressed about the whole thing. Sleep’s not in the cards for me these days, you see, so—”
He held his palm up. “I asked if you had a drink, not for your life story.”
“Right. Yes. No, I’m completely sober.”But I am going to rectify the situation as soon as I return to my flat.
“Drive safe and straight home.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. There was a half-empty bottle of a cheap tequila with my name on it.
When I came back to the flat, I found my future husband’s head stuck in a sink full of water and ice. I should specify that the head wascompletely attached to the rest of his body. Which made the scene a lot less gory than it could have been, but still quite odd.
“Please tell me it’s not a cult ritual of sorts,” I mumbled, trudging inside. He jerked his head back and shook the water off like a dog.“Fuck.”
His face was the shade of an ice cube. And still, he was infuriatingly handsome.
“Christ, Riggs!” Without thinking, I hurried to the bathroom, grabbed my robe, and returned to wrap it around his head. He may have been morally corrupt, but he was still my ticket to a green card. I needed him alive. “What were youthinking?”
“I’m thinking you’re cutting off my oxygen supply, wrapping this thing around me. How’d it go?” He shook the robe off, allowing me to lead him to the settee, where I threw a duvet across his massive body.
“Brilliant. A smashing success.” I sat next to him, tucking the duvet behind his back on both sides, like he was a human burrito. “Why was your head in ice water? You could’ve gotten hypothermia.”
He leaned back, screwing his fingers into his eye sockets. “Headache.”
