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Two weeks ago, she didn’t want out of this marriage at all.
Two nights ago, she suggested we stay married forever.
Yeah, she was joking… but in that sort-of-joking, sort-of-not, a little wistful way.
She’s not seeing the upside here.
“Stormy, this is going to be the easiest marriage to fake ever. I travel half the year and for the other half? With the new job in Seattle, you won’t even be in the state so no one here is going to notice if you go home to a house I’m not living in.” She doesn’t look impressed. “And it’s not like I’m just going to abandon you, either. When you come back for the holidays, we’ll stay together.”
She unlocks the apartment, and I keep my hand on the door above her head in case she plans to slam it in my face before I get in.
“You’ve got it all worked out, huh?” she demands, flipping through her keys.
“Honestly, yeah.” This isn’t a bad deal at all. The whole severing-ties idea was jacked. We get along. And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of us staying in each other’s lives. Being friends. Having fun together— whatever that looks like —when our schedules allow it. “With you moving to Seattle, it’s actually pretty perfect.”
She drops her bag on the sofa and turns. The smile she’s wearing is no smile at all. And that’s when I see it.
“You kept it on your keys?” I cough out.
She slips her wedding band free of the loop and holds it up for me to see.
“Perfect. Except… I’m not moving to Seattle.” She jams her wedding ring onto her finger and,damn, flips me off with it. “I turned down the job.”
14
Stormy
We’re back in Liam’s car, and my phone is blowing up.
Like I’m thinking it might actually explode… or just expire mid-notification. The back is hot to the touch and the battery lifeblood is draining at an alarming rate. Already down to seventy-three percent.
I gulp.
“You could turn it off,” Liam suggests, eyes on the road and hands loose at the wheel. He seems more relaxed than a guy who just outed his secret marriage and then packed up half his fake wife’s closet to move her into his pristine bachelor pad.
I hug my stomach, past my initial shock and outrage and well into my fresh new nervous breakdown.
Everyone knows.
Ray.
My family.
My friends.
The trill of my sister’s ringtone breaks through.
“Misty.” I’m more afraid to talk to her than I am to my parents.
“Yeah. Nichols has called sixteen times already.”
I stare out the window, my mind spinning with all the conversations I’m going to have to have. The order of the calls. What I’m going to have to say.
“God, what am I going to say? How did I think I could actually get away with this?”
Liam shifts in his seat, takes a breath, and then shakes his head and blows it out. “We’re going to keep it brief and vague.”
“You mean they don’t need to know about my refusal to use you for sex because you were too nice a guy?”
