His gaze sobers. “It’d be a marriage just on paper. We wouldn’t have to…” He stops. Clears his throat. “That is to say, this is so you can do some good with that money. When you need to, you can walk away clean.”
We wouldn’t have to what, exactly?
I search his face for any sign that he’s messing with me. Those mysterious deep green eyes give me nothing. That unsmiling, serious mouth gives me nothing.
I wear my heart on my sleeve and he keeps his locked in a safe.
“You’re joking,” I say.
“Nope. Let’s talk through it. You got five million reasons to say yes. Give me some reasons you’re thinking no.”
I take the flask from him and have another sip of bourbon because I need it.
“For one thing, we hardly know each other.”
He shrugs. “Never stopped anyone from getting married before.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like marrying a woman you met three weeks ago on the side of a road is a perfectly normal thing that people do all the time.
I don’t know if the fact that this marriage would just be on paper makes it more or less crazy.
“It justsoundsinsane,” I tell him.
“Most good ideas do at first. Best things in life happen when you step outside your comfort zone.”
“Marriage fraud is definitely out of my comfort zone.”
A glimmer in his gaze. “Ain’t fraud. We’d get the license, have the ceremony, sign the papers. Nothing fraudulent about it.”
“My family will never believe it. They’ll think I manufactured a husband out of thin air thirty days before the deadline.”
“Let them think it. It’ll all be legal and legit. That’s what the trust requires, right?”
“They’ll contest it.”
“On what grounds? Anyone who tries to object, we tell them it was love at first sight. Let them try to contest that.”
Love at first sight.I turn that phrase over in my head. It would sound romantic, if it weren’t all for pretend. If it weren’t a business arrangement with a man who is, technically, currently paying me by the hour.
The fact that my heart is racing at the idea of being this man’s wife is completely beside the point.
Just like the fact that the sun is setting on this windsweptbluff and it happens to makes an incredibly romantic backdrop for a proposal is also beside the point.
“So this is like… a marriage of convenience?” I say.
“Sure.”
“I think you’re supposed to get something out the deal too, in that case.”
There’s a hint of color high on his cheekbones. “I get to help a friend. Besides, we’re already sharing a dog. The dog would vote yes. You’ve seen how happy she is at the boutique with you. Being around you full time?” The corner of his mouth moves. “That’s her dream come true.”
I don’t have an answer for that. So I take the flask instead.
“Slade, honey, you’re a little crazier than I first thought.”
“Anyone who’s good at hockey has to be at least a little crazy.”
I can’t help but laugh, feeling giddy and disbelieving. “No way. What about your family? You told me you all are close. Pulling the wool over my family’s eyes is one thing, but you can’t fake a marriage to yours.”
