And then she starts laughing.
A full, helpless, bent-double laugh that starts in her chest and takes over her whole body, and I feel something unknot inmy chest at the sound of it, something that has been wound tight since Dad’s name appeared on my phone screen this morning.
I pull her into my arms and let her laugh it out, her face pressed into my chest, her shoulders shaking, her fists balled in my shirt.
“Thank you,” she finally manages, muffled against my chest. “Can you chase them off that way every time?”
I press my lips to the top of her head. Feel her warmth against the cold morning air. The frost is melting off the grass, the clouds dissolving like spun sugar in front of the sun.
“There is nothing on earth I wouldn’t do for you,” I tell her.
Soon, she’s going to find out just how deeply I mean it.
Chapter 52
A Thousand Words
LILA
My husband looks really hot in a suit.
It’s the one silver lining to this extremely stressful day. I try to focus on that instead of spinning my wedding ring around and around endlessly, my mouth feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton.
I feel like I’m about to be caught in the biggest lie of my life.
Like the judge is going to take one look at me, clock me as a fraud and fake, and call for the bailiff to lead me away in cuffs.
Of course I know I’m not about to be literally thrown into lockup for lying to my family about the nature of my marriage. But it sure feels like it.
Slade tucks an errand strand of pink hair away from my forehead. “We’ve got this,” he tells me quietly. “There’s nothing they can do to us.”
“They can win their appeal.”
“They’re not having this marriage annulled.”
He sounds so firm, so confident. I have no idea where he’sgetting it, considering it’s a very real possibility. This marriage did start off as fake, and even if it became something way more complicated, who’s to say the judge won’t see it their way?
“Even if they don’t win that part,” I say, “they might still be able to get the trust fund money back.”
He shrugs. “Who cares if they do?”
“You know I already gave it away. Every cent of it.”
He reaches over and takes my folded hands off my lap and holds them in one of his. “Sweetheart. Is that what you’re so worried about? We have the money.”
I pull back. “You do. I don’t.”
He leans in and kisses me. Soft and deliberate, right here in the courthouse hallway, and I feel the ice in my heart melt slightly against my will.
“Haven’t you figured out how this works yet, baby?” His lips brush mine as he says it. “Yourmoney isyourmoney.Mymoney is alsoyourmoney.”
I laugh despite my nerves. “You’re crazy.”
He offers no comment on that, but his eyes gleam as he looks me up and down. “I like this sexy businesswoman look you’ve got going on. That tight little skirt. Makes me want to shove it up your hips and bend you over.”
“Slade,” I hiss, as a very buttoned-up lawyer type with a briefcase passes by.
My husband might be wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch worth more than a car, but he’s still a rough and tumble cowboy underneath it all.
