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“I started thinking about it at work… how it would look and how’d I’d feel if that happened and I started to panic a bit. So if you can’t commit to that, then I’ll be straight with my parents about what this is and to hell with them being mad at me. I’ll tell Ryder about my mistake in marrying you. But one sighting from someone in the neighborhood of you with another woman and suddenly I’m a bigger embarrassment to my parents and once again I’m the naïve and unsuspecting wife.”
I sip my drink before I answer to give myself a moment to cool down. “I won’t.”
“Even at the office.” She gives me a pointed glare.
“The office?”
“There was a very attractive trader, Nell, hanging around Ash when I dropped by. She was asking when you’d be back, and I didn’t get the sense that it was for stock tips.”
“She’s a co-worker.” I stab a piece of pasta with my fork and shove it into my mouth.
She tilts her head and stares at me until I break.
“I don’t have to apologize.”
“No, you don’t. But please refrain from screwing her for at least five weeks.”
I push away my bowl of lobster mac and cheese.
Val surprises me by picking up the fork and stabbing a few noodles and a clump of lobster. “I assume you’re done?”
“What’s yours is mine, right?”
“Cute.” She stuffs the forkful of pasta into her mouth.
One thing I’ve always loved about Val and me is how comfortable it is between us. Maybe too comfortable at times, and that made us too honest.
“I won’t sleep with anyone else during our honeymoon phase.” I pretend to cross my heart with my finger.
“Thanks. I’ll do the same.”
“That’s nice of you. Don’t bust into my room if you hear me groaning though. My guess is I’ll be beating off nightly.”
Hell, sharing a condo with Val and not screwing her is going to give me a permanent case of blue balls. Not being able to fuck anyone else will make this excruciating. But I won’t hurt her like Max did.
“Same here. I might just buy myself a new toy.” She smiles over another mouthful of pasta.
“Thanks for that visual.”
She reaches for my glass, and I allow her to take it. After she swallows, the smile and friendly banter between us dies. “We can do this, right? I mean, with no lines being blurred or crossed?”
I want to say let’s just sleep together and enjoy the five weeks while we have it, but I know where I’ll be after that. Not in a good place. And I swore after the end of us in the Hamptons last year that I’d never do that to myself again. “Of course. We went nine months without sleeping together before Vegas.”
She stares at the table then looks back at me. “And then we got married.”
I laugh. “We went thirteen years before we started hooking up.”
She nods. “Okay then. Do you have any rules you want me to follow? Especially since it’s your place.”
“Is asking you to walk around naked taking it too far?”
She laughs then stands. “God help us. If you keep thinking that way, we won’t make it past day one. Bye, hubby.”
She blows me a kiss and saunters out of the restaurant. Half the men are gawking at her ass and I can’t even say it belongs to me.
Yeah, my hand and my dick are going to be best friends for the next five weeks.
