He opened his mouth to argue. When my eyebrow peaked, his mouth closed. We were both learning. How far we could push the other. What buttons not to push. What to say and what to leave unsaid.
“Since you’ve got this door covered, I think I’ll get on the back one.” I shoved off the wall, snagging an extra screwdriver from the toolbox.
Before I’d made it into the hall, Max called after me. “Nina? How has it been? Me being here? Us?” He was standing again, appraising me in a way I was becoming more and more used to. Like I was both an enigma and familiar. “Easier than you thought it would be? Or harder?”
I only needed a moment to consider my answer. “Both.”
Max nodded, seeming to consider that. “Is there anything I can do to make it easier?”
Understanding the undercurrent of his question, I gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Max. I’m not going anywhere.”
His chest fell from his exhale. “Neither am I.”
Before continuing down the hall, I waved the screwdriver at the door behind him. “Thanks for the romance.”
His reply came a moment later. “Anytime.”
Engagement day. I would have thought I was getting engaged for real with how nervous I’d been all morning.
Another month had passed and Nina and I had fallen into a sort of routine, our schedules merging together, our lives melding into one. Living with her, sharing the few stolen moments we rarely had at the same time, having her presence near me, had made it the best month of my life.
If sharing one month with a woman I was paying to marry me constituted the best, that didn’t say a lot about the life I’d been living up to now. But Nina wasn’t just special to me because of our arrangement—she was special because of who she was.
She was like no woman I’d ever met and no woman I ever would. She was everything I wanted in a partner and everything I couldn’t have. She was, at the end of the day, everything.
That was why I wanted tonight to be so special. I couldn’t admit my feelings went past the bounds of friendship, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do something to show her just how much she meant to me. Let her believe it stemmed from friendship, I didn’t care. I just had to show her, in my own way, how much I cared for her.
I was just finishing tying my black bow tie in the hall mirror when I heard Nina’s bedroom door open.
She thought we were getting dressed up to take pictures to post about our “engagement.” She had no idea I’d planned anything else for the rest of the night.
“I was certain dresses like this didn’t come in my size, but lo and behold, designers do make clothes that fit people who actually eat.”
I never would have guessed that people were serious when they described the feeling of a wrecking ball hitting them. But when she stepped into the hall, that was exactly what I felt. Like something big and powerful had sacked me in the chest. I couldn’t breathe. I could barely keep upright.
“What do mean?” My voice sounded like I’d just been smashed by a two-ton ball of metal too. “Dresses like those were made to be worn by woman like you.”
She glanced down at herself as she kept moving down the hall, smoothing her hands down the dress. “Not so sure about that, but thanks.”
God. She wasn’t real. She couldn’t be.
“What’s the point of curve hugging if you’ve got no curves to hug?” I tore my eyes away from her when she caught me staring. She’d caught me checking her out enough lately.
“Well, I’ve got no shortage of those.”
“No.” My eyes moved back to her. The hell with it. “You don’t.”
“Thank you for the dress. Even though I kept the tags on and plan on returning it tomorrow.”
“I bought it for you. Not for you to return it.” My eyes roamed over her. The dress was perfect. The same color of her eyes, it made her skin almost glow, the color of her hair flame, and it made her body look like the sum total of every fantasy every man had ever dared to conceive.
“I’m only going to wear it for five minutes, Max. It cost—”
“I know how much it cost. I bought it for you. As a gift.”
When she took a deep breath, her chest lifted, sending even more of it spilling out of the top. My teeth gritted together.
“So enough about me. Look at you.” She threw her arms at me. “It’s not fair how good you look in a tux, Max. Pretty sure there are laws against it. You know, the ones meant to protect the hearts of young women everywhere.”
I slid a step closer, sliding my hand in my pocket when I caught it reaching for her. “I only see one young woman around.”
“Yeah, and she had her heart removed years ago, so you don’t have to worry about me dropping dead from that smile and penguin suit you’re sporting.”
A laugh rose up from my chest. I couldn’t help it. Nina kept me on my toes in every damn way a woman could. I loved every second of it, as miserable as it made me at times.
“So? Photo-shoot time?” She nodded at my phone sitting on the coffee table and put on a big smile.
“In a hurry?” I backed up to grab my phone, unable to turn my back on her.
“Actually, yeah.” She checked the clock hanging on the wall. “Devon called in sick tonight at the coffee shop, so I volunteered to cover for her.”
I froze, my fingertips brushing my phone. “What? Tonight we’re supposed to be getting engaged.”
Nina gave me a look. “And look at us . . .” She waved between her and me. “We are! Congratulations. Now let’s hurry up and take the picture so all of our family and friends can celebrate with us.”
When she checked the clock again, she bit her lip and hustled toward me. Her dress swished and swayed around her legs while I worked to recover from what she’d just said.
When she came up beside me, her face fell. “Oh god, you didn’t have anything planned, did you? I thought we were just getting dressed up to document it. I didn’t think to ask if you were planning on something else . . .”
I swallowed, shaking my head. “No, no. Nothing like that.” Unthawing myself, I grabbed my phone and got it ready to snap a photo. “All we need to do is document it. We just need to look like we did something amazing.”
“Oh, well, in that case.” Nina slid up beside me, winding her arm around me and burying herself into my chest as she swung her other arm around me. Her hands tied together at my side. “Document the best night of my life.”
Working my jaw loose, I wound my arm around her too. My hand curled into her waist and a hole opened up in my chest when I realized that when I touched her like this, I felt everything, while when she touched me like this, she felt nothing.
As I lifted my phone so it was looking down at us, she flinched. “Wait. Should I like have the ring on already? You know, stick my hand out like girls do when they’re showing off their engagement ring?”
The little box in the inside pocket of my jacket burned against me. “No, I haven’t picked it up yet. So just keep your hand tucked behind me. No one will notice.” My voice was wrong. Too cool. Too removed.
Nina didn’t miss it. “Max?”
“Let’s just take the picture, Nina.” I focused on the camera while she kept focusing on me. “Three . . . two . . .”
At the last moment, I forced a smile into submission and Nina glanced away from me long enough to beam at the camera.
When I checked the photo, I was surprised by how convincing we looked. How genuine my smile seemed. How honest her excitement looked. It just proved that the lie was as real as the truth.
The camera wasn’t facing us any longer, but Nina’s arms tightened around me. She slid in front of me. “What’s the matter?”
My arm slid away from her, but my hand still burned with her heat. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Going exactly according to plan.”
Nina’s brows lifted. “Something’s wrong.”
Yeah, I know. All I asked from you was your hand in marriage, and now I want the
rest.
“I’m just tired. Long nights. Early mornings.” I pulled at the bow tie, undoing it. “It’s catching up to me.”
“That happens when a person goes on three hours of sleep for weeks on end.” One of her hands formed around my cheek. It was gentle and comforting and everything I needed right then. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Max. You’re going to kill yourself.”
I know.
“I’ll get some rest tonight. I promise,” I added when she raised a brow like she knew better. “Now why don’t you go get changed and I’ll drive you to work.”
Her fingers curled into my cheek, and when her lips parted as she looked into my eyes, I had to brace my hands on the counter behind me. I couldn’t touch her. If I did, she’d know. She’d feel it. She’d feel everything if I touched her.
So I just kept clinging to the edge of the counter like it was all that was keeping me from drowning.
When she dropped her eyes, her hand followed, then she stepped back. She exhaled, shaking her head like she was clearing something from it. “No, that’s okay.” Her voice sounded different now. “Kate’s heading to work a night shift at the hospital, so she’s swinging by.”
I rolled my head to stretch my neck. “Pick you up after then?”
She backed away, heading down the hall. She took the ground out from under me by walking away just as she had by walking toward me. “Kate’s getting off at the same time. I’m good. But thanks.” She paused when she made it to her room, smiling at me as she kicked off her heels. “And thank you for the fake proposal. It was everything I always dreamt of.”
“You’re welcome,” I whispered after she’d closed the door.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty hall, clinging to the image of her walking toward me. Then I set a match to it. It was nothing more than a mirage. A sleight of hand. It wasn’t real. None of it.
As I headed to the guest room I’d moved into across from Nina’s room, I fired off a few texts. One canceling the gallery I’d managed to convince to stay open extra late tonight. The same one I’d managed to get some of Nina’s photographs displayed in.
The next text canceled the boat I’d reserved to take us down the river while we had dinner.
Once that was done, I marched into the kitchen, threw the fridge door open, and pulled out that damn pie I’d spent half the night making without her finding out. I’d found her grandma’s peanut butter pie recipe tucked in the little recipe box above the fridge. There was a note that said it was Nina’s favorite.
I kicked open the cupboard door below the sink and tossed the pie in the garbage. Nina didn’t want homemade peanut butter pie. She didn’t want a sunset dinner on the Willamette. She didn’t want the real date that came before the fake engagement. She didn’t want me.
I was an idiot on a fool’s errand who’d signed a contract with my own damn blood.
As soon as I was in my room, I slammed the door shut, locked it, and charged into the adjoining bathroom. I needed to get her out of my head. I needed to stop clinging to this hope that she’d ever want me, because she never would.
I needed to be free of her. Get her out of my system so I could survive the next few years.
After closing the bathroom door, I lowered my zipper and freed myself. My hand moved against me instantly in hard, punishing strokes. If I could just fuck her out of my system, this would be easier. I could be around her without feeling like she was draining me of every last drop of my lifeblood. I could be close to her without feeling like it was breaking off a piece of my heart every time she pulled away.
Bracing my other hand on the sink, I clamped my eyes closed and pictured Nina right in front of me, her ass balanced on the edge of the sink, her dress bunched up around her waist while I drove into her again and again . . . and again.
I pictured the sounds she’d make, the way her face would look, the way she’d feel inside. It didn’t take long before I felt on the cusp of my orgasm, but I needed to hold out. A little longer. A little harder. I needed to be free of Nina Burton, and no quick fuck was going to do that.
My body quivered from holding back, right before it flinched when I pictured Nina’s nails digging into my back as her body came undone around mine. The image was so vivid, so real, I could feel her pulsing around me as she screamed the same filthy things she’d shouted that night out the open bedroom windows.
“Fuck,” I grunted, unable to hold off any longer.
My hand tightened around me, pumping faster as I shot my release into the bathroom sink. It didn’t end quickly, it wasn’t disappointing—it was the single best orgasm of my life, and I’d had it while jerking off picturing a woman I could never have.
My hand was still braced against the sink while my chest rose and fell. I kept my eyes closed. I had to dig her out. No more of this.
I pictured pulling out of Nina, zipping my pants, whispering a quick thank you in her ear, and turning my back on her and walking away. I pictured the look on her face, the look on mine as I left her behind once I’d gotten what I wanted.
I imagined crawling into my car, speeding back to my apartment, sufficiently fucked for one night, and crawling into my own bed.
My breathing was starting to get back to normal, but that was when I rolled over in my imaginary bed to find I wasn’t alone at all. Nina was in my bed, lying on her side and smiling at me like she had that one night. Her hand molded around my cheek like it had earlier. I melted into it, ringing my arm around her waist and pulling her to me.
“No,” I growled, shaking my head. I tried erasing the image, but it refused to leave.
Dammit, this was a scene of my own conjuring. I should be able to control it, but I couldn’t. Nina had wound her way deep into my subconscious.
“By the way, congrats on your engagement. I’m so thrilled for you guys,” Kate said in a flat tone when she pulled into my driveway.
“Your sincerity is staggering.” I shot her a look before grabbing my bag from the backseat of her Honda.
“Did he at least get you flowers or something?” She held her phone in front of her, shaking her head at my post about the big engagement, complete with the photo Max and I’d snapped together.
“No flowers.” I set my bag in my lap when I twisted back around.
“Man, that guy really is all business, isn’t he?” Kate shook her head as she glanced at the house. Max’s car was still in the driveway, but it wouldn’t be for long. It was just past four in the morning, and lately, he’d been heading into the office earlier than usual.
“I don’t know.” I wondered if I should tell Kate. She wasn’t Max’s biggest fan, but she liked him more than she had at the start. “I think he had something nice planned for last night. I could tell he was disappointed when I had to go to work.”
Kate turned in her seat, hanging her arm over the steering wheel. “Something like . . .?”
“I don’t know. He played it off like he didn’t, but he probably had dinner reservations or something.” I pictured his face when I’d told him I had to work last night. “I feel bad.”
“Why? He’s paying you to marry him. That’s the beauty of this kind of relationship. You don’t have to feel bad for ditching him, and he doesn’t have to feel bad for being a total and utter disappointment in the romance category.”
My forehead crinkled. Kate was recently single after she’d found her latest boyfriend in bed with someone else. A man someone else. She’d taken to parading the flag of Men Are Pigs, but I knew it wouldn’t stay up for long. Only as long as it took a good body and a pair of dimples to smile her way.
“Please, you know what I’m talking about.” Kate tsked. “The male species’ height of romance includes grunting his approval after crawling off of a woman in bed.”
“I don’t know . . . Max can be pretty romantic. When he wants to be.” I knew better to argue with Kate when she was on one of her man-hating quests. I should have kept my mouth shut.
K
ate’s mouth fell open. “Please don’t say it’s true.”
“Don’t say what’s true?”
“That you’ve become all twitterpatted with your husband-to-be.”
Looking away, I reached for the door handle.
Kate hit the lock button. “Please don’t say the first man my best friend’s gone and fallen for is the same one who’s paying her an obscene amount of money to commit a felony because, damn, that’s just plain tragic if that’s the truth.”
“Kate—”
“It’s okay. You’ve caught a case of German Fever. I get it. He’s sex in a suit.” She locked the doors again when I hit my door’s unlock button. “Get him out of your system. Have him make you moan, then move on. Don’t, and I repeat, do not, fall in love with him. If you take one relationship piece of advice from me, take that gem.”
“There’s so many,” I said sarcastically. “Why this one?”
Kate’s hand formed around my arm as she leaned closer. “Because that man will ruin you if you let him in.”
Our eyes locked like she was waiting for me to agree with her. Part of me knew she was right. The other part knew Max would never do anything to hurt me.
Clearing my throat, I winked at her. “Well, thank you for the relationship advice, as always, but I’m afraid it’s unnecessary. I have no intention of falling in love with Max. We’re friends. I respect him. I find his company enjoyable. That’s all.”
This time when I unlocked my door, she let me go. “I bet you’d find his company a lot more enjoyable if you let him bang your brains out. That kind of man . . .” She shivered, her gaze tracing back to the house. “You know he’s good in bed.”
“How do you know that?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “The way he walks. The way he holds himself. He knows what to do with his body. That translates into the bedroom too, you know?” Now she was wiggling her eyebrows. “Let me know if and when you find that out on your own.”
“Thanks for the ride, Kate.” I sighed, climbing out of her car.