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Luke shifts so he can face me. “The point is, itisbrave of you to trust people with what you really think and feel. I don’t want you to start hiding what you feel. Not for me. Understand?”
His expression is so fierce, all I can do is nod.
His face clears. “Good. Now let’s go do something you actually want to do. What doyoudo for fun?”
23
LUKE
It turns out Hazel’s version of a fun adventure is wandering around a bookstore we passed on our way to the airfield. I’ve never thought of book shopping as particularly social, but with Hazel it is. She wanders through shelves pointing out every book by one of Sarah’s clients. Every book she loves. Every book she hates. Books she’s currently got on hold at the library, because she doesn’t have the budget to buyeverybook she wants.
She shows me the table where my autobiography will go when it comes out.
I feel a weird clenching in my stomach, thinking of someone picking up a book and reading aboutme.
“Where would your next novel go?” I ask.
She leads me to the fiction shelf and points to the spot for authors whose last names start with “D.”
Then she’s distracted by another book on the shelf. “Oooo, I love this author. I didn’t realize she had another book out. She writes the hottest sex scenes. Which, let’s face it, is my entire sex life these days.”
I cough, and clear my throat, trying very hard not to think about that night in the hotel.
I don’t know what type of books she’s reading but going down on Hazel Dawson was one of the sexier experiences ofmylife. And I’m not exactly living like a monk.
“I mean, unless I stroll into a bar, order a drink, and meet Mr. Perfect,” Hazel says, unaware of the direction my thoughts have taken.
“The ring you’re wearing should make that a less effective strategy,” I say dryly.
“Oh. Right.” She puts the book back on the shelf as she slides me a glance. “Then again, it’s a fake marriage...”
I get the sense Hazel’s testing me. Maybe trying to see where we stand after the other night. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the fuck she wants me to say.
I’m too busy seeing red at the prospect of her flirting with some hypothetical guy in a bar.
Fuck. I’m a mess over this woman.
“I think either of us getting caught hooking up with someone would cause a scandal,” I make myself point out reasonably, “and defeat the point of using this marriage to improve my reputation. I’m going to need you to avoid men in bars for another six months.”
It’s the right thing to say. The practical thing to say. But it leaves me with this restless, caged energy.
On impulse, I grab the book she wanted back off the shelf. Then I backtrack through the store, grabbing every book she said she had on hold at the library and adding it to my stack.
Hazel half jogs after me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m buying my wife the books she wants,” I say, gruff. “I told you, as long as we’re together, I’m taking care of everything you need.”
“Luke...” Her eyes are unreadable. “You don’t have to.”
I don’t have to. But I want to. The urge to give Hazel everything she needs, make her happy, is so powerful I don’t know what to do with it.
I hold up the first book I grabbed. “Is this the only smutty book you want? Or would you like to add more to the pile?”
I can see her instinct to put me in my place warring with her desire for more books.
The desire for more books wins.
“Well.” She raises her chin, dignified as a queen. “If you’re buying...”
