Her hand drops as her eyes widen. “I didn’t think you noticed the way I looked.”
My head falls back in laughter. “How could I not notice you? You’re beautiful, Trina.”
Her mouth curves toward a smile. “You think I’m beautiful?”
The question draws another hearty chuckle from deep within me. “Have you looked in a mirror? You’re breathtaking.”
My wife excused herself after I told her she was breathtaking. She claimed that she needed to use the ladies’ room, but I watched her from the corner of my eye.
She stopped in the corridor right outside the washroom.
I could tell that she was lost in thought.
I’ve seen it before when a work matter has stolen her focus from everything.
In those moments, the office tower could be burning to the ground, but Trina would have her gaze glued to her laptop screen.
She’s still standing in the same spot now, but her eyes are pinned on what looks like a painting on the wall across from where she’s standing.
I glance up at the server as she approaches our table.
“Can I get you another glass of water, sir?” she asks softly. “Or perhaps another martini for your wife?”
Hearing her call Trina that brings a grin to my lips. “I think we’re both good.”
Her gaze trails toward the corridor where Trina is. “You make a beautiful couple. I’m sure people tell you that all the time.”
I nod in agreement because we do make a hell of a gorgeous couple, but we’re not that. We’re boss and employee, and for the time being, fake married.
She wanders toward another table as my gaze trails back to my wife.
Anger hits me like a freight train when I see some random in a gray suit approaching my wife.
It’s not the same guy who hit on her the first time we were in here.
This guy has taste and an expensive Abdons watch on his wrist that I catch a glimpse of when he reaches out to touch Trina’s shoulder.
The fact that my wife is gazing up at him with a broad smile on her face is making me wish, for a split second, that I was him.
Her right hand reaches out to pat his bicep.
He leans down to plant a kiss in the middle of her forehead, and that’s it. That’s the line for me because I’m up and out of my chair in a flash.
I sprint across the bar toward where the guy is staring at my wife like he’s ready to eat her for a late-night snack.
“Do you promise you’ll call me?” Trina asks just as I get within earshot of them.
“Scout’s honor,” the asshole says as he raises a finger in the air.
I’m no boy scout, but I’m reasonably sure that pledge involves three fingers, not one.
It doesn’t matter to my wife. She finds it all funny as fuck. That’s evident in the way she’s laughing at this chump.
I stand and stare at the two of them as Trina’s laughter subsides. “How is she?”
“How is who?” Those words escape me before I realize I’m speaking aloud.
“Scout,” Trina answers with another small laugh. “I was asking how Scout is.”
“Who is Scout?” I toss out another question even though the answer to the last one made absolutely no sense to me.
“My sister,” the guy charming the hell out of my wife says. “I’m William Knight, and you are?”
I look at Trina before I answer his question. “Married to the woman you can’t take your eyes off of.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Trina
Oh no.
Oh, big NO with a capital N and a huge O.
I glance at the stunned expression on William’s face before I turn to my husband.
“Graham!” I bite out his name from between clenched teeth.
His gaze drops to where I’m hiding my left hand behind my back.
“Trina,” he says my name like everything is fine.
It’s not.
He just told the brother of one of my oldest and dearest friends that we’re married.
If Scout gets wind of this, my entire family will know that I wed my boss.
That can’t happen.
“You’re married?” William questions with a quirk of his brow. “Did he just say you’re married to him, Trina?”
“Who exactly are you?” Graham chooses this second to go all she’s-my-wife-back-off on William.
“A friend,” William answers honestly. “I’ve known Trina since she was in the first grade.”
Graham’s gaze volleys between William and me. “You’re just friends?”
William adjusts one of his diamond-studded cufflinks. “We’re more like family, which is why I’m surprised you’re claiming to be married to Trina. I didn’t catch your last name, Graham.”
He draws Graham’s name out slowly.
I jump into the fray because I need to do some major damage control before William starts spreading the news that I tied the knot.
“Graham is my boss,” I begin before I draw a deep breath. “It’s a complicated situation, William. We’re trying to make a man’s dying wish come true, so we’re married temporarily, but it’s in name only.”