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“Within reason. I’m part of the equation, after all.”
She wrinkles her nose, thinking. “Our truth actually makes a pretty good story.”
There’s too much I like about that sentence—truth, good, our.
Willow continues, oblivious to my internal distress. “Why don’t we stick to the facts but just move the timeline back. That way, neither of us will slip up on any details when pressed.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s say we met two months earlier—at the end of January.”
I frown. “That’s pretty quick.”
“Not really.” Willow gives me a cheeky wink. “You fell for me fast and hard and decided you couldn’t live without me.”
Willow has no idea how right she might be about that.
“End of January. Got it.”
I allow a few seconds to pass before I ask the question that’s been niggling me since I walked in the door.
Chapter 17
Willow
“Where’s your painting?”
“My what?”
Shane’s question catches me off guard. I half expected him to want to spend the next hour creating an infallible strategy for our relationship so we’d be prepared for every possible question thrown at us. I didn’t think we’d pick a start date, and voilà, our fake marriage is solidified.
“You spent five minutes waxing poetic over the light in my living room while we ate at the sandwich shop, but there aren’t any art supplies anywhere.” He pauses, glancing around the kitchen. “And where are the colanders? And the framed rooster print? I thought you said you unpacked?”
I pick at my nail polish; the pale-pink color is hanging on by a thread. “I did unpack.”
“Then where is everything?”
Biting my lip, I sneak a glance at Shane’s gorgeous green eyes. They’re so intense today, like deep pools of mossy determination.
My fake husband seems to understand my answer with just that look, because before I can say another word, he storms out of the kitchen toward the bedrooms.
“Wait!” I shuffle off the counter, trying to keep up, but one of his strides is like three of mine. “I was just being courteous. Not everyone likes my particular brand of eclectic, and I didn’t—”
My words cut off when I run into Shane’s back as he stops dead in my open doorway. After silently checking that I’m okay, he steps aside.
“May I go in?”
I chuckle. “You don’t have to be so formal.”
A tendon in his neck jumps. “This is your home now. I want you to feel safe and to know that you’ll always have your privacy.”
Something about how Shane is always so careful with me feels like a hot poker pressed between my ribs. It’s impossibly sweet and yet, at the same time, heartbreaking—especially since I trespassed in his room while he was gone.
“Oh, well.” I glance at my bare feet, swallowing hard. “Then I should apologize to you.”
“For what?”
I wince. “While you were gone, I stole one of your sweatshirts.”
