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“Good morning, husband-to-be,” I say gaily, going up to him and hugging him.
He stiffens against my embrace. “What the hell…?”
Unwinding my arms from around his muscular body, I pick up the Americano coffee from the sleek marble bench top and hand it to him.
“It’s black. Just like your soul.” I smile sweetly. “Did you sleep well?”
“No,” he growls.
“Awwwww.” I pull a sad face, then smile brightly. “Well, don’t you worry about a thing, I’m here to look after you now.”
I swipe invisible dust from his shoulders.
“Why the hell does that concern me more than your combative attitude?” he asks, escaping my hands and moving to the other side of the kitchen. He holds up his coffee cup. “Poisoned?”
“Plain, I’m afraid. I didn’t have time to run to the store for poison.”
He lifts the cup to his lips, and I watch the masked pleasure shimmer in his expression as he tastes it. Nico always did love his coffee.
And I make a damn good cup of coffee, even if I do say so myself.
“Good?” I ask with another sweet smile.
“Very,” he says.
“Then my job here is done.”
He notices the ring on my finger. “Nice to see you’re wearing your ring.”
I hold out my arm to study the gleaming diamond. “What kind of fiancée would I be if I didn’t wear the ice rink my future husband gave me?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You’re actually complaining about your diamond being too big?”
I gasp dramatically and clutch it to my chest. “Never! It’s perfect. Just like my fiancé… even if he is a Mafia murder man.”
“What’s with the split personality?” he asks gruffly.
I lean a hip against the counter. “Like I told you last night, I’m one hundred percent committed to this arrangement.”
I’ve decided if he wants a wife, then he’s going to get the wife of all wives. The overattentive, over-the-top wife I know will drive him crazy.
Soon he’ll be begging me to move back to my loft.
When I wink, he pulls a face and turns his back on me to spoon protein powder into a shaker.
“I know what you’re doing,” he says, screwing the lid on the shaker and popping it into his sports bag. “And it’s not going to work.”
“What am I doing?” I feign innocence.
He turns around. “Killing me with kindness, trying to drive me insane with overattentiveness, or at the very least hoping I will let my guard down and let you move back to your apartment.”
I give him a sugary smile. “You’re being paranoid.”
“No such thing in my world, honey.” He throws his bag strap over his shoulder. “But you go right ahead and play your little game. It’ll be a waste of time, but if it makes you feel better, who am I to stop you?”
“My kidnapper, that’s who,” I snap before I can stop myself. But I quickly shake it off and plaster a big smile on my face. “But that’s all semantics. We won’t let a few awkward details get in the way of this beautiful union of ours.”
He pulls a face. “Now I know you’re up to something. And it’s not going to work.”
I shrug, unfazed.
Because he has no idea who he’s dealing with.
I’m tenacious as fuck when I want to be.
I gesture toward the racket lying on the countertop.
“You still play,” I say, changing the subject.
“Three times a week.” He drains his coffee cup. “Do you?”
“Hmmmm, considering you’ve been stalking me for the past year, I think you know the answer.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Are you any good?”
“I’m very good at everything I do,” he says with the assurance of the raging narcissist that he is.
“Of course, you are.” I look at him over my cup. “For the record, so am I.”
One perfect, dark eyebrow shoots up. “Are you saying you want to play?”
“No, I’m saying I want to kick your ass.”
He scoffs. “You really think you can beat me?”
I hate how he looks so fit and confident, and the urge to wipe that smirk off his stupidly beautiful lips tunnels through me with the force of a freight train.
“Oh, I know I can.”
Dimples flicker on either side of his mouth. “Then you’re in for a world of disappointment.”
I take my empty cup to the sink and rinse it. “We’ll see about that.”
“Care to bet on it?”
I turn around and narrow my eyes at him. “What were you thinking?”
“Loser has to give the winner whatever they want.” As he says it, his eyes flare with wickedness. “Within reason, of course.”
“Fine, when I win, I want to go home.”
“I said within reason.”
“If you’re as good as you say you are, then you won’t have anything to worry about.”
He smirks. “And when I win, I want a date.”
I feel caught off guard. “What kind of date?”
A strange feeling lights up in my stomach at what those two little words might mean.
