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“Was the first date a good one?” Ruby pushes, her question hurried like she hadn’t even really thought about it before voicing it.
I keep my one hand locked in Archer’s, but the other reaches across and traces his sharp jaw. He jumps at my touch but then leans into it when he realizes we aren’t alone and I’m doing it for a reason. At least, I think I’m doing it for everyone watching.
Or did I just need to feel more of his skin against mine?
“I married him, didn’t I?” I tease, not looking at Ruby with my answer. Archer and I are too busy staring at one another, seemingly trapped in some kind of moment I don’t want to think too deeply about.
“Everything about your courtship seems dreamy. How does it feel to lock down Archer Moore?” Ruby asks. She laughsnervously, as if she knows it’s kind of an outlandish question but she wanted to ask it anyway.
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real,” I answer honestly.
“Sometimes I look at her and lose my breath at the wonderful, life-changing realization that I was the man to steal the attention of Winnie Bishop,” Archer responds, the husky timber of his voice and the intense way he looks at me sending shivers all over my body.
CHAPTER 15
ARCHER
“Doyou feel like it went well?” Winnie wonders, stretching her legs out in front of her on the couch. I sit on the opposite side of the room from her on an entirely different couch because after being near her all day, I had to put some space between our bodies for my own self-preservation.
The interview ended a few hours ago, but the moment all of the extra bodies were out of the house, Winnie and I went our separate ways. I practically ran to my room to strip out of my dress clothes and into something I could work out in. I didn’t have anything scheduled with my trainer, but I needed some sort of release after spending all day with her pressed against me.
I shouldn’t be thinking about all the skin the dress and blazer hid from me. I have no business replaying the way her stomach muscles tightened underneath my touch when I pulled her body flush to mine. To the world, she’s my wife, but in private, I don’t have any right to have dirty, filthy thoughts about her.
So I rid myself of every one until my body was on the brink of exhaustion at the gym. I did the rowing machines, lifted, and even cooled down by going for a three-mile run because my body needed to do something to get rid of all the pent-up tension.
And yet, the moment she walked downstairs, her hair wetfrom a shower as she searched for something to eat, I knew it still wasn’t enough.
The problem is, I’m fairly confident I’m desperate to fuck my fake wife. And while we haven’t set it as a boundary, I know it isn’t a good idea for anything physical to happen between us. It’d only complicate things, and marrying someone to save their reputation—and get a foothold in your rival’s company—is complicated enough.
“Was itthatbad?” Winnie groans, sitting up on the couch and looking at me with curious eyes from across the room.
I sigh, trying not to think about the way she’s propped herself on her elbows and how it makes the fabric of her silk camisole tighten around her peaked nipples. I don’t think she even realizes the matching robe she’d thrown on has fallen down her shoulder, giving me a view that’s far too distracting.
“I think they bought every word we said.” I pin my eyes to the ceiling as I reassure her. She’s across the room from me, and I can still smell the sweet scent of her body wash—or maybe it’s her shampoo. I don’t know what it is she uses that smells so fucking intoxicating, but whatever it is, it permeates my senses and causes way too much inner turmoil.
All I can smell is vanilla and oranges, and the combination is lethal, considering I already can’t get her out of my head.
“Did I do okay?” Her voice is so soft, so hesitant that it breaks my heart a little. How many times has she been scolded for not doing things correctly during interviews or out in public that it makes her so unsure of herself?
I pinch the bridge of my nose, wondering why I thought it was a good idea to come downstairs at all. I should’ve locked myself in my room—or my office—and not retreated until the morning. It would’ve been easy for me to ask Luther to stop by with a food delivery. He’d even bring it to me in my office if I’d asked, and then I wouldn’t have had to see Winnie at all.
But instead, I’m stupid—or a masochist—probably both—and came downstairs when I knew she’d eventually come down because of her own hunger.
What I hadn’t expected was to be so disarmed by the sight of her in a damn pair of pajamas.
“You did great, Winnie,” I tell her, trying to lace my tone with conviction, even though I’m exhausted. “You were perfect. You’re perfect,” I add, the words escaping my mouth before I can think better of them.
If she notices my slipup, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she brings her legs to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Her chin rests on her knees as she stares at me. I don’t know what she’s looking for in my eyes or if she finds it. “I just want to do this right,” she admits, her voice low and vulnerable. “I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“We’re the authors of our own narrative through all of this. There’s nothing to mess up.”
“There’s more to mess up because of it. What if I don’t play the part good enough and they find out it’s fake? Then not only could I have a video of me having sex released, but the world would know I agreed to marry someone to protect myself. What does that make me then?”
I take a deep breath, fighting the urge to tell her I’d burn the whole fucking world down before I ever let any bad press be released about her. The thought pops into my head that I’d allow a thousand negative articles to run about me before I’d ever let one run about her.
I push it from my mind as quickly as it came. I barely know her. She’s still the daughter of our direct competitor’s CEO, and no matter how much we now own of that business, there’s no reason for me to ever put her reputation over mine. I need to remember that.
“I know you said you don’t trust me, Winnie, but I need you to trust my words when I say this, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure that video never gets released. I’d never fucking allow it, even if it cost me my reputation to protect you, I woulddo it at all costs.” I want to tell her to trust not just my words but also trust me. Her words from the other day are still replaying in my head. She doesn’t want to give me her trust, and that upsets me. I sigh, trying to come up with more ways I can assure her that nothing negative will ever be said about her on my watch. “We played the part beautifully. And we’ll continue to play it so well that anyone who knows us—and those that don’t—will believe us to be in the happiest, realest marriage one could imagine.”
