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“Have heat,” Aurelia voices for me.
“Yes,” I admit, shifting in my chair and planting my elbows on the table. “We have heat. A lot of heat. I have enough trouble keeping my hands to myself when we’re around each other. I have no idea how I could do that if she were living in my home. I’m her superior, boss or not. I have to keep my hands to myself because it’s fucking unethical if I don’t.”
“Then you do it for Katy,” Lenox says, and I hate it when he speaks as much as I love it because the man doesn’t speak unless it’s words meant to be heard and right now, he just flayed my argument.
Because what they’re saying makes so much sense. It does. It would make Katy happy—I know it would—and honestly, it would be good for her to have Layla around, both as another female in the house, but also as someone who gets her. The courts would approve as well because it would show them how focused I am on taking care of Katy.
“She’ll never agree,” I say again, but it’s weak. I mean, that’s likely true because why on earth would she agree? But still, my argument has run out. My mind is working and it’s wanting to do this despite the lunacy of it.
I keep racing back to one universal truth: Katy.
“Make her agree,” Asher asserts, going all QB on me again. “The court doesn’t like that you’re single. So don’t be single. And don’t be single with the woman who your kid is in love with.”
The way he says it… it’s so simple. So easy. When it’s anything but.
“It’s a lie and that’s not a small thing. If the courts found out, I’d lose Katy for good and possibly risk criminal charges if they felt like it.”
“If you’re engaged to Layla, then it’s not a lie,” Zax counters. “It’s real. Well, fake real, but that’s just semantics, right? A word. If you ask her to be your fiancée and she agrees, you’re engaged. Engaged isn’t married and engaged doesn’t have to necessitate love or sex. It’s a title. A designation. Think of this as business, not pleasure, and your business right now is securing Katy and her future by any means necessary.”
I puff out a breath and stand, walking over and looking at the the Boston skyline just beyond Zax’s floor-to-ceiling windows. “You’re all serious about this? You think I should ask Layla Fritz—Layla Fucking Fritz—to be my fake fiancée?”
They’re silent and I turn around, catching all of them exchanging glances.
Aurelia looks over to me with a smile that somehow soothes my ravaged nerves. “Talk to her about it and see what she has to say. No harm in that. If she says no…”
“We’ll figure out a plan B,” Ash promises, finishing where Aurelia left off. My heart swells in my chest at the way he uses the word we. As in my best friends are in this with me all the way.
“You think I can do this?”
“I think this is something worth fighting and bending all the rules for,” Zax says. “Whatever you need from us, you know you have it.”
“Yes,” Ash agrees. “Plus, Layla Fritz is hot and kind of feisty, so there are worse women to get fake engaged to.”
And that right there is part of the problem with this plan.
An hour later I’m driving Katy home, giving her a bath, and then tucking her into bed. By the time I’m in bed, I’m restless, sleep eluding me as I stare up at the ceiling. I haven’t stopped thinking about Layla. About her moving in here, wearing my ring on her finger—even if it’s fake—and what that would look like.
What that wouldfeellike.
I don’t think she’ll say yes.
After all, there isn’t much incentive in it for her. But the part that continues to stick with me is her playing the role of my fiancée. The court documents only stated that I am unmarried. They have no clue if I have a steady girlfriend or a string of one-nighters rolling through here.
So, I could potentially get away with saying that I am stepping things up with my girlfriend by moving her into my home and asking her to marry me, and oh, she just so happens to be the person Katy considers to be her person.
It’s risky.
If the courts were to find out we were lying about that, there would be trouble.
But how would they find out?How could they not, my snarky side asks.
I groan, rolling over and stuffing my face into my pillow.
Do it for Katy.
Isn’t that what they said? I could do this for Katy. I could play this game and keep my hands to myself. Right? I am an adult. One with amazing self-control. That always seems to fly out the window where Layla is concerned, but I’ll try harder. If I have Layla with me, by my side, living here, the courts will give me Katy.
I know they will.
