She smiles a sheepish grin. “Your back deck is awfully bare.”
“It’s not,” I mutter, but I’m sliding the crisp onto my desk to fish my wallet from my pocket. I pluck out my credit card and hand it to her.
She scowls. “What’s that for?”
“Whatever you want to buy.”
Nash makes a choking noise. Horror I don’t expect fills her eyes, but she doesn’t tear them from me. “You want me to take your credit card?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Lilah, you’re about to be my wife. I take care of my wife.”
Her eyes nearly bug from her head. She leans in and whisper-hisses between her teeth, “You can’t just fling that around, Briggs. And I’m not…I can’t…” She makes a noise of distress that tugs at my smirk.
Her eyes narrow.
I bite back my laugh. “You can. You will.” I drop the card into her bag. “Don’t lose it.”
“Briggs!”
“I need to get back to work, Lilah, if that’s all.”
Her jaw drops before it snaps back into place. I think her left eye twitches. She sniffs, spins abruptly around and stomps to the door. Then she stops, “I’m going to buy the biggest, most gaudy stone statue with that card.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely.” She gives me a perfunctory nod.
Hell, she’s cute.
I shoot her a wink. “Do your worst, little lunatic.”
The sound of frustration she makes as she mutters, “Oh, I will,” before she slams the door closed behind her is worth every last penny she spends.
Fuck, I love riling her up. I could make a living out of it. Call it riling Lilah.
Nash claps the lid on his empty crisp container. “Damn, man. Your balls are bigger than I thought.”
“I hope she uses it.”
Nash shakes his head, whistling low. “And you call her the lunatic.”
I chuckle as I move to the window to watch my woman stomp off. Then a pang hits me where it really shouldn’t.
She’s not mine, but I want her to be.
If she were really mine, I’d fill her with babies andbuild that picture-perfect happy life I never thought I’d have.If she were mine…
I pull out a stack of sticky notes and scribble, ‘kids’ area’ onto the neon orange pad. I peel it from the stack and slap it on the drawing, stabbing my fingertip into the center of it. “This is what we’re missing.”
Nash gives me another headshake. “You do know this is fake, right?”
I give him my eyes and tell him honestly, “Not anymore, it’s not.”
His brows lift. “Does she know that?”
