“What size is your ring finger?” he asked as we reached the turnaround point. “For the ring?”
My pace quickened even more, but he had no trouble keeping up. I could probably break into a jog and he would keep up without breaking his stride. Perks of being the size of someone spawned by Zeus.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
His hand holding the leashes grabbed my elbow and pulled me to a stop. I didn’t realize how out of breath I was until I realized I was almost panting like the dogs were.
Max’s hand moved to my left one, his fingers skimming along my ring finger like he was sizing it up. Despite being soaked, Max’s skin was warm against mine. Not hot, but warm. The kind of heat that was welcoming instead of consuming.
When his finger curled around my finger, tightening around it, I felt a jolt shoot up my arm. I promptly wrote it off as him using too firm a grip.
“Seven,” he said, his finger twisting around mine slowly before letting it go. “Maybe a seven and a quarter. I’d like to get the ring purchased, so it’s done. Is there a certain style or cut you prefer?”
When his hand dropped away from mine, I could still feel the warmth of it pulsing in my hand. My head felt a little foggy, like I was just waking up. What in the hell was going on? Why did I feel like this? What was happening?
I’d never felt any of it before and I wasn’t sure why I was now, with a man who was paying me to marry him. It must have been the rain, the hard walk, the lack of sleep.
Months of strain and stress had caught up to me finally and this was the way it was manifesting. Max hadn’t caused this. His one finger wrapped around one of mine had not made me feel this way.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said when I realized he was still waiting for an answer. I couldn’t even remember the question.
“Is there a certain stone you like? A certain shape?” Max tipped his head at me, something that resembled concern falling into his expression. “A diamond is the obvious choice—round-cut being the classic—but I’d like you to have something you’d enjoy.”
Rings. Engagement rings. Damn. I was reeling from one little touch and now he was throwing the topic of rings at me. I couldn’t keep up, and the dogs were starting to get antsy from just standing here.
“Don’t get me a diamond,” I said, starting down the path again. Max fell in beside me. “Get me one of those fake ones. No need to waste a bunch of money on a real ring for a fake marriage.”
Max’s jaw popped through his skin, his grip tightening around the leashes. “You’ll be my wife.” His tone was clipped. “No matter the reason, no matter the duration, you’ll be my wife. You’ll have my last name. I’m not putting some cheap ring on your finger.”
We were clipping right along again. At this pace, my usual thirty-minute route would be done in fifteen. “Actually, I’m a fan of the hyphen.”
Max’s head turned toward me. “The hyphen?”
“Yeah. That neat little dashy thing that allows me to keep my name and add yours to it.” I shrugged. “The hyphen.”
His brows came together as he processed that, then his head whipped side to side. “No. No hyphen.”
My own eyebrows drew together as my blood heated. “Then no. No wife,” I stated right back.
I wasn’t thinking about Grandma’s house or bills or desperation right then. No, I was only thinking about not wanting to give this man an inch more than he was already asking for. He’d already gotten me to agree to marry him. He wasn’t going to get one more damn thing, me donning his last name included.
“You’re going to let one little hyphen get in the way of a million dollars?” The arrogance in his voice, the tone that said he knew better, had me ducking out from beneath his umbrella.
The bastard dodged right with me. Every time until I’d worked all five dogs up into a barking, bouncing fit.
I gave up dodging the umbrella with a sigh, but not the reason for me dodging it in the first place. “You’re going to let one little hyphen get in the way of your green card?”
Max let that hang between us for a minute, continuing to stride down the path, making wet, slurping sounds with every step. “Fine. A hyphen it is.”
My smile slid into place.
“But I’m getting you a diamond. You can fight me on it and throw as many threats as you like, but that’s that.”
Tank’s tail started moving between his legs from Max’s tone. I wouldn’t be so easily intimidated though.
“It’s your money. Waste it however you wish.”
“I will,” Max snapped. “I’ll waste a whole bunch of it on the biggest, most obscene rock I can find.”
I rolled my eyes. For being such a man, he could behave like a child. “You wouldn’t want anyone to think you were compensating with a giant diamond for something”—my gaze briefly drifted to his belt region—“not so giant?”
A smug smile shadowed his face. “Liebling, if you think the size of a diamond has to do with compensating for a certain piece of the male anatomy . . .” Max’s voice dipped a few notes lower as he slid closer. “You’d be getting a fleck of a diamond only visible under a magnifying glass.”
It was the first time he’d said anything German to me, and even though I had no idea what it meant, it sounded a little too nice to my ears given it was him saying it.
And of course there was the issue of him alluding to his man region, which made me think about his man region . . . which made me want to knee his man region for making me think about it. “My, someone’s confident.”
Max’s arm brushed my back. When I jolted, his smirk stretched into place. “You would be too.”
Letting out a snort of doubt, I continued to march along. His arm stayed behind me, the umbrella above me, the whole time. I didn’t think a single drop of rain had fallen on me during this walk.
His arm had to be tired. He had to be freezing from being soaked and having the breeze cutting down the river rolling over him. He had to have preferred a million things to this date I’d “planned” for us. But if he was uncomfortable, he didn’t say anything. If he’d rather be somewhere else, doing something else, he didn’t complain. He just stayed right beside me, moving with me, as we cut through the gray storm.
It made me wonder what kind of man Maximilian Sturm really was. The arrogant, proud man who lived life like everything had a price tag? Or the gentle, easygoing one I’d caught a glimpse of today? I knew the weeks and months to follow would answer that riddle, but I wanted to know now.
I felt like I needed to know now, so I knew exactly the kind of man I was dealing with, so I could plan exactly how to act around him. So I knew exactly how to counter his advances when they came because I could feel them stirring. He was going to challenge me. Push me. Drive me to a breaking point.
Part of me was looking forward to the ride. Part of me was wondering if I should step out of line now. My situation might have been dire on a good day, but I wondered what would happen if I opened myself up to this man. Would I leave this in worse shape than when I started?
I thought I already knew the answer to that. Our relationship was fake. Conjured into being on false pretenses. It had an expiration date.
It was an absolutely hopeless situation.
So why did I feel something that felt a lot like hope flickering inside me right now?
When my internal musings materialized in the form of a sigh, Max’s attention turned on me. “Everything okay?”
No, nothing’s okay. Instead, I nodded and kept walking.
We were about to make our way out of the park when Cruz, the labradoodle I was walking with Tank and Penny the mutt, decided this was the ideal time to take care of business. Right there on the sidewalk.
I pulled a plastic sack out of my jacket, already prepared for a situation like this. With five dogs on a rigorous walk, it happened a lot.
“All its fame and glory,” I muttered as Cruz panted back at me, smiling like he was proud of himself.<
br />
Max took the plastic bag and held out the ends of his leashes. I took them, shooting him a confused look.
“What?” he said, shoving his hand deep in the bag. “I grew up with dogs. I’m used to cleaning up shit on the sidewalk.”
I watched him crouch down and clean up Cruz’s mess, my forehead’s creases of confusion only burying deeper. He was in a suit so expensive I didn’t want to know how much it had cost. He was sopping wet. He seemed like the kind of guy who’d pay people to do anything resembling a chore, from brushing his teeth to cleaning up dog shit.
But there he was, throwing my theory in my face.
“That’s kind of romantic actually,” I said as he turned the bag in on itself and tied it shut. “Wow. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Max lifted a brow at me, tossing the bag into the garbage can beside the path. “How is me cleaning up a pile of steaming shit with a plastic baggy romantic?”
Exactly. How is that romantic? Hell if I knew, but it was.
I shrugged. “Because you did it so I didn’t have to.”
Max took the two leashes back from me “And?”
“And that’s romantic. To me.”
He was giving me a look that made me shift. Rain dripping down his face, his white dress shirt clinging to his chest, the way his eyes were pinning me to some invisible wall—it all messed with my breathing, making it uneven and rushed.
When his brow lifted higher, I continued. “Save the flowers, save the poetry. Clean up a pile of dog crap for me or fix the whiney hinges on my front door, and I’m a goner.”
One corner of his mouth pulled up. “Good to know.”
Then, before I knew he was moving closer, his face slid beside mine and I felt his warm lips press into my face, just above my jaw, right below the hollow of my cheek.
Fuck. I felt that ribbon of warmth weave inside me again. It spread down my neck, into my core, settling into a part of my body I wasn’t used to feeling ignited.
His face moved back, but it stayed close to mine. I hoped he couldn’t tell how I was breathing faster now. I hoped he couldn’t hear my heartbeat. I hoped he didn’t know I could feel his touch . . . down there.
But something in his eyes—something that lit up in them—told me he might have.
“What was that for?” I said, though it came out as more of a whisper.
“Today was the day.”
“For what?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, his face pulling together like he was fighting some internal battle. Then he pulled back. “Our first kiss.”
Today was move-in day.
Two months had passed since Nina’s and my first meeting. In those two months, I’d failed to do what I was presently attempting to do as I loitered in my car outside her house. Get my shit together.
I’d pulled into her driveway five minutes ago, but I couldn’t get out. Not yet. Not until I’d managed to pull my head out of my ass and reattach it to my neck. Not until I’d figured out a way to keep her at that careful arm’s length distance I seemed incapable of facilitating.
Nina Burton. I hadn’t seen her coming. I hadn’t expected her. I hadn’t known I’d . . . feel for her. The girl I was paying to marry me was not the one to go and get my head in a mess over. We’d be spending the next two years and some change together. That wasn’t so long where friendship was concerned. That was a fucking eternity for a relationship based on attraction and romance and all that came with that.
I’d find some way to screw things up. Or she would. Or we both would. It was inevitable. So the person I was depending on to get my green card was the one person I could not get involved with.
Friendship was allowed. We could still be civil. Share a laugh. Eat dinner together and talk about our day. Go on walks together. Touch . . . the occasional careful hug here and there, the innocent arm graze.
My growl filled the interior of my car. Innocent and careful were not ways I wanted to be with Nina. At least not all of the time.
There were times she made me feel like she’d found my pin and was pulling, bringing me to self-detonation. There were times when she’d challenge me and dig her heels in so deep I knew better than to keep arguing with her, but it didn’t stop me from going another ten rounds.
Nina was my sanctuary as much as she was my war zone. Peace and solace one moment, explosions and massacre the next.
When I caught her sticking her head out one of the windows and giving me a curious look, because I was just sitting in my car, I waved then pointed at my phone propped to my ear. She flashed a thumbs-up then disappeared from the window. She was used to my phone being smashed to my ear, but in this instance, I wasn’t talking to anyone.
I just didn’t want to look like “that” guy sitting in front of some girl’s house, trying to get my shit together before climbing the stairs to her front door.
Because I was “that” guy. The one who’d lost his shit was trying to get it back and was not going to let it get away from him so easily again.
She didn’t know that thankfully, and she never would. If Nina ever found out I was wrestling with these kinds of feelings . . . these emotions . . . this inexplicable pull toward her, I knew what would happen.
She would knee my balls into my throat, like she’d already threatened to do no less than a dozen times, and sever our deal. She’d told me she’d never go back on her agreement, but she would if she found out. If she found out I saw something else, something more than a solution to a problem, when I looked at her, she’d be out.
So fast my head would spin. If it wasn’t already buried in my ass, which it still was. No thanks to my attempts to pull it out before I went inside her house and spent the next two years sharing the same space as her. Falling asleep every night with her close by. Waking up to the same.
“Fuck it,” I growled, shoving the door open and sliding my phone back into my pocket. I could spend the next month sitting in front of her house and not figure it out. Feelings were fine. Attraction was allowed. Acting on any of it was positively not.
I’d already let one woman run a knife across me and gut me—I wouldn’t let another. Especially the one I was paying to marry me. Especially the one responsible for me earning something I valued so much.
I didn’t want a green card so I didn’t have to go. I wanted one so I could stay. In my home. The city where I’d carved out my own life, created my own fate, all on my own.
I’d do anything to hold onto this life—including getting a damn lobotomy if it meant digging out my feelings for this woman. The dangerous ones that might result in jeopardizing everything. The dangerous ones that might manifest in the form of her body tangled around mine . . .
I’d do anything to be rid of these feelings, including making sure she hated me so much that she’d never let herself get close. So it didn’t matter how many looks I gave her or words I fed her, all she’d see was a despicable, morally bankrupt person. So she’d never look at me the way I looked at her. Never.
She must have been looking out some window again, because as I started to make my way to the porch, the front door opened.
“Really, Maximilian? A suit on moving day?” She was in a worn-in pair of overalls and a bright blue tank top. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she had smears of paint on her hands and arms. Nina didn’t mind getting messy. In fact, it seemed like that was her element.
My smile stayed aimed at the grass as I moved closer. She’d taken to calling me by my full first name in the way a parent might scold a child with their full name—first, middle, and last. She meant it in a scolding way, but damn my soul to hell if I didn’t get a rise out of it. The way it rolled off her tongue made me picture her whispering it in my ear while I did things to her body . . .
That were not allowed.
“Were you expecting something else?” I replied, pausing when I got to the edge of the stairs leading up the porch.
“Well . . .” She swept her arms around and did a q
uick spin. “Welcome. In this instance, mi casa really is tu casa. At least for the next two years and eight-ish months.”
She was counting down the days until she was rid of me. That was a good sign.
“And four days,” I added, so she thought I was also counting down the days. Which I was, but for a different reason.
“Aren’t you supposed to drive one of those German cars?” She tipped her chin at my car in the driveway. “You know, the ones with that blue and white emblem thingy, the one with an acronym for a name. B . . . W . . . M . . . something.”
I kept my smile aimed down. “Yeah, I’m supposed to drive a BMW because I’m German. I’m also supposed to wear lederhosen and eat bratwurst for dinner every night.”
“What is that thing though?” From her voice, I could tell her nose was crinkled up like it did whenever she was working something out.
“A car.”
She sighed. I’d gotten lots of those over the past two months. “Not a very nice-looking one.”
I couldn’t keep staring at the ground. When I glanced at her, looking down at me from the top stair, I felt that familiar tightness in my chest. The one that felt like my muscles were trying to break through my ribcage to get to my heart. What I had yet to determine was if this came from my body’s urge to strangle the life out of my heart or to encase it so as to keep it protected.
“It’s a Tesla. It’s battery-operated,” I said when she went back to examining my car like it didn’t belong in her driveway.
“Yeah, well, hopefully you didn’t spend much on it.”
I shrugged like I hadn’t and tried not to let another reason to like her pile up. It didn’t work. Another grain of sand dropped into the pile that would grow until I had an entire beach of reasons why I liked Nina Burton. I shouldn’t have more reasons than I could keep in the palm of my hand. Not so many that I couldn’t control them.
“You’ve never heard of a Tesla?” I asked.