I smirk and nod, then drop my voice to a fake whisper. “Ellie’s just as bad about it.” The waiter interrupts to take our order, and once he’s gone, I get serious. “I know you probably have big reservations about me and Jordan.” I have to speak in generalities since we’re in public and I never know who’s listening.
She draws in a long breath and presses her lips together. “I do,” she admits. Her quick honesty surprises me a little, but I don’t react right away, especially since she goes on. “But I trust Jordan.”
“Oh,” I breathe. And then, “Thank you.”
“Just…” She twists her lips around and looks down at her plate. “Just, please don’t take advantage of him.”
My heart stops. I want to stand up and gather Baylee in myarms, the way I have a hundred times in my office for women who have been broken like she has. But my heart stops for another reason too—the love Baylee has for her brother. Even before what happened with Grayson, my sisters would have given the same warning to someone interested. It makes me feel connected to her, which should be scary, but it’s not.
“I would never take advantage of him. I promise,” I say fervently. Jordan has already done so much for me. I’ve vowed to myself to make sure he’s treated fairly in this arrangement we have.
She nods but doesn’t look convinced. “Okay.”
I reach across the table to put my hand on top of hers. “You don’t have to believe me the same day you met me. I’d never expect that of you, but I’ll do my best to show you that I mean it.” I want her to see that I understand what it feels like to feel so adrift, to not know if anyone is telling you the truth. “I want us to be friends too. I really want that.”
She smiles. I can track the hesitancy in her expression. I’ve gotten good at that, but the smile is still warm. “I’m sure you understand better than most how hard trust can be.”
“I do,” I say simply. She squeezes my hand in return. Then our food arrives, breaking the moment.
We settle into discussing my and Jordan’s trip to Maui, and I wish I could talk to her about my arrangement with Jordan, all the rules and boundaries we have in place to make sure no one gets hurt—or taken advantage of. But there are too many people around for me to risk someone finding out that Jordan and I got married so I could buy a hockey team.
Baylee doesn’t bring it up either, further reassuring me that Jordan was right: she could be trusted.
“What’s next, after Redhaven?” I ask her. They’ve recouped all the money they need to help their town, and I’m curious what Baylee will do once it’s all disbursed and everything is settled.
She sits back to sip on her coffee. “I’d like Redhaven Foundation to keep on going. Jordan and I originally set it up to helpBryce’s victims, but I love getting to be a little superhero. Helping people put their lives back together.”
I wonder what Baylee’s doing to put her life back together, but though we may be sisters-in-law legally now, we just met. “You’ll let me know if I can help with any of that?”
She chuckles. “I’m not going to keep asking you for money after you gave us ten million dollars.”
I shrug. “What else should we do with it?” I tease. “Shopping? Vacations?”
Her expression turns contemplative. “This could be a cool partnership, Libby.”
I grin back. “It really could.”
CHAPTER 13
JORDAN
Libby paces around her living room, strategizing.
Excuse me,ourliving room. This is our home together until we move to Denver permanently.
“First, we’re going to kiss on the doorstep,” she says, repeating our plan for physical affection for dinner at her parents’ house. We’ve already been over it a few times. “More than a peck, less than the wedding kiss.” I catch a little bit of pink to her cheeks when she says that, and I hope she’s remembering that kiss with the same fondness I remember it. Trying to read Libby is complicated. Sometimes she’s obviously into me, and other times, like when we kissed at our wedding, she’s wary and holds herself back.
“On the doorstep?” I clarify, leaning back in the chair where I watch her. She’s wearing black slacks and a sleeveless top. It’s the same type of outfit she wears to work, which tells me everything I need to know about what she expects this dinner with her family to be—work. Because she and I will be putting on a show to prove we are crazy in love and Libby didn’t make a rash decision by running off to marry me.
She spins and faces me for a second. “They have a motion-detecting doorbell camera. They’ll see it.”
I give her a thumbs-up.
“Do we need to go over how we met and the dating story? To double-check that we’ve got our stories straight?” she asks, biting her lip.
“If you want to.” I make sure she sees I’m taking her worries seriously. “But it went pretty well the other night with my parents.” I try to instill confidence in her so she’ll stop pacing with that concerned expression. It’s killing me, especially since I can’t go to her and take her in my arms to reassure her. If she understood how much I like her, how much I’d like to take her on an actual date, she wouldn’t worry about how real our relationship looks to her family.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. But her expression doesn’t relax. “Your parents didn’t question any of it.” She starts pacing again. “They don’t liveinHouston, though, so maybe it was easier to believe you were sneaking around and they didn’t notice…” She taps a finger against her chin. “Are they going to buy thatno onecaught us together somewhere? We should’ve had Caleb plant some backdated social media posts from bot accounts or something…”
