AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m going to marry you in two months. Don’t you think it’s important that I know these kinds of things about you?”
As I approached the red light, I gave her a look that told her I didn’t appreciate the way she was digging.
Shit, I understood we needed to learn about each other to keep up appearances, but I didn’t want to muddy the water. I didn’t want her to grow feelings.
I definitely didn’t want her to get too close.
But I also hated that she had a point.
That in just a couple of months, this stunning woman was going to be my wife.
That if her family or friends asked her questions about me—inquiries that would inevitably come up as she attempted to convince them we were the real deal—she would have to know the answers so our relationship came across as genuine.
“I don’t mean to pry,” she said. “Despite having a public job, I’m a very private person, so I understand how hard it is to reveal certain sides of yourself. But in doing that, it’s just going to give me more of you, and regardless of how much you don’t want that, it’s necessary.” Her voice was soft.
Far too fucking soft.
“How did you grow up, Grayson?”
I waited until the light turned green before I said, “I come from a single dad.” As I released the words, I was glad I wasn’t looking at her. It was easier to stare at the one car ahead. “He did everything he could to provide, and he did his best, but there weren’t extras. Our vacations involved going three towns over for one of my basketball games.” I took a breath. “I didn’t have Daddy’s credit card, like most of the kids I went to college with, so I worked while getting my undergraduate, and when I graduated with my MBA from Harvard, I had a fucking mound of debt. We were just launching the app and things were tight as hell for a while until we could afford to take money out of the business and pay ourselves. And when we did, it was almost nothing.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Her tone was now just above a whisper.
When I glanced at her, she was smiling.
I didn’t return the expression.
“You’re obviously making a boatload now, so when did that happen?”
I slowed at the stop sign. “It took a boatload to design the app, and we borrowed that money from Holden’s and Easton’s parents along with a few other private investors, so we had to pay them back. As we expanded, we had to rent office space, pay salaries. Advertise. Hire a social media team. By the two-year mark, we were able to pull a decent-size salary, and it just grew from there.”
“What you guys have done, it’s amazing.”
“We worked our asses off. There were nights, more than I’d like to count, that I slept at my desk. But now ...” I shook my head as my voice trailed off, thinking of the conversations I’d had with my best friends about the Celebrity Alert that had gone out about me and the media shitstorm that had followed. “Now things are falling apart a little and, fuck, I need to get the control back.”
“You will.”
I eyed her after I checked both directions and shifted to first. “Because of you?”
She nodded. “You’re underestimating my abilities, Grayson. You think I’m just some gal who delivered drinks to your table and had enough pull to make your vodka doubles and enough memory to remember your Coke. I’m much more than that.”
“To be honest, I don’t know who the fuck you are.”
“Do you want to know?”
“No.” I ground my teeth together and shifted into second gear. Knowing would fill in the blanks, and I was afraid I’d like those answers far too much. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me. Just do me a favor, all right? Skip the boring parts. I don’t need to know that you won a spelling bee in fifth grade and were the president of the knitting society and that you blew the RA of your dorm.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
I glanced at her again.
Fuck, I liked when she looked mad.
The way her lips jutted out and her eyes got all fiery. How heat moved into her cheeks and turned them red.
How her skin was just slightly clammy from the tension, a sign that told me if I reached down and touched her pussy it would be wet.
She could deny it all she wanted, but the banter turned her on.
