“Well, it’s not a real marriage, so you shouldn’t worry about her judging you. Just because you’re all proud and don’t want anyone to know that there’s anything wrong…What if something happens? The way it happened with me? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me for all those years. Goodness sakes and cakes, Leon, sometimes….” Kitty isn’t mean. She’s exasperated. She loves me, and that always comes out, even when she’s annoyed with me and my stubbornness.
“I’m not telling her.”
“Is this really worth it? You’re kind of ruining her life.”
“I’m not,” I say defensively.
“Oh, right, sorry. I forgot that you define it as giving her a jump-start on her career that she wouldn’t have otherwise had. You’re being very generous. Not at all a pompous, walled-up, misguided ass. Really? She’s not just doing it for the money, I bet.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes, even though it makes white-hot heat and bright lights followed by stabbing pains shoot through my head. “Why else would she be doing it?”
Kitty wrinkles her nose and snorts. “Because someone who knows you and has known you for a good while couldn’t possibly agree to want to help you out of the goodness of their heart.”
Oh. I see what Kitty’s doing there. “No, she doesn’t harbor any feelings for me. We have a strictly professional work relationship. I’m not the cliched dickhead who has an affair with my assistant. It’s for the money. Her family needs it.”
That seems to soften Kitty out a little, but she moves her hand off my arm like I’ve displeased her greatly. “You’re an asshole,” she mutters. “But then, I think you like to be told that.”
“Undoubtedly.”
I’m about to check my watch again or thunder out something about where the hell Darby is, then go for my phone and blow hers up, but then the doorbell rings. The sound reverberates through my skull like a jackhammer, and I wince.
Kitty grasps my good hand so I can actually feel her touch. She squeezes. “I’ll get it. Try to calm down. You look like your head is about to explode off your body and spatter brains all over the wall. Not a good look for your wedding, broh.”
Yes, she really said broh. Because she knows I can’t stand it.I feel like my head is going to explode. If Darby had just been on time…No, it would still have felt that way. The cumulative stress of the past few days has been heinous, and if I don’t calm down, as Kitty said, things are going to get ugly.
The poor Justice of the Peace (JP) has been sitting in my living room since quarter to eleven, and now it’s eleven-thirty. I hope he didn’t have a busy schedule this morning. If this falls through because Darby was late, I am not going to be pleased.
I’m already huffing under my breath when my sister ushers Darby into my room. I hear them coming down the hall, and I meet them there because there’s no way I’m going to waste another second, not even to chew her ass out. Also, I really don’t want to think about ass-chewing, my bedroom, and my fake wife in the same sentence.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see her.
Holy bamboozled baroombas, that girl with my sister is my assistant?With her chestnut hair swept up and her huge blue eyes outlined with dark liner, a blush high on her fine skin just above her cheekbones, and her full lips done in soft pink, she’s—she’s—
“You’re staring,” Kitty states flatly. She winks at me, though. “See? I told you that she’d be worth the wait. You were all like, where the heck is my bride, and I was like she’s totally coming, she’s just running late because women are entitled to do that, it will definitely be worth it, and you were all like grumpy, grump, and more grump.”
“Brat,” I mutter under my breath.
Aside from her exquisite makeup and carefully done-up hair, Darby’s gentle curves are draped in a waterfall of white lace. Draped, as in, the stuff practically clings to her like a second skin. I didn’t realize she had curves like that. I have never looked at her the way I’m looking at her now, and it’s not the way a man looks at a woman that he’s going to fake marry.
“I’m Kitty.” She extends a hand to Darby. “I guess I should have said that when I let you in and dragged you over here. I’ll be your witness.”
“Kitty?”
“Leon’s sister,” she responds flatly.
“Oh!” Darby’s hand flies to her mouth. She’s mortified, and the flush in her cheeks only deepens.
“Don’t worry. He never tells anyone that he has a sister. He never tells anyone much of anything.”
I stiffen, my posture going rigid with alarm, thinking that Kitty is going to go too far and will divulge information that I don’t want to reveal, but Kitty is Kitty, and she won’t go that far, no matter what she thinks about me not saying anything about my health issues to Darby. She just gives me a warning look that says I should smarten up and then leaves it at that.
“Well, who’s ready to get fake married?” My growly bear voice is back. “If we don’t do it now, the JP will probably walk right out the front door.”
Darby nods. She’s blushing even deeper, and the sight of her sweet cheeks gone bright pink hits me in the gut and makes it hard to breathe. I suddenly feel wobbly, but I blame that on the throbbing in my head and the stress my brain is under. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to be with a woman. That way, I mean—in the bedroom kind of way. But my dick is half hard and twinging in my suit pants right now, and that is absolutely not going to be a thing today. For once, I stop trying to go to that place inside that I use as a happy little hole to crawl into when the pain gets too bad. I let myself step out of that hole and feel every single pulsating ounce of it. What do you know? It works like a charm for boner deflation.
“I think you mean real married,” my bratty sister points out far too smugly. She thinks this is great. She has this idea that this is all going to work out fine. She goes and proves that by sighing and fluttering her lashes at Darby. “This feels like a fairy tale.”
“I wanted to wear old stained sweats covered in paint and grime and a tank top with no bra,” Darby states flatly. “But I had too much self-respect to let myself show up to my own wedding like that.” Her eyes rake over my attire, and I swear there’s a light that goes on in their depths when she takes in my black suit. Then, she lowers them beneath lashes I never realized were so thick. “I’m glad I went thrift shopping yesterday evening and found this instead. I would have been quite underdressed otherwise.”