I glance over at him with a furrowed brow. I thought when he kept saying until the kid turns eighteen, he was serious.
I realize how ridiculous that thought is, but we hadn’t really discussed a timeline. Two years, six months is a good chunk of time.
“You guys are making a huge mistake,” she warns.
“Maybe we are,” I agree.
“But maybe we aren’t,” Dex says, his eyes meeting mine. “And it’s our mistake to make.”
She huffs out a breath. “Fine.”
“We need you to sign an NDA,” Dex says. “I’ll text it over now. Please just sign it. Don’t make me regret allowing Ainsley to convince me that telling you the truth was a good idea.”
“Whatever,” she grumbles.
“Love you, Ive,” I say, shortening her name by dropping the last syllable.
“Be careful,” she says in reply, and then she says, “I have to go.”
She cuts the call.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Dex says. “Maddennext?”
I’m tired since I haven’t slept more than five hours at a time since I arrived here, and now my life is changing in the blink of an eye.
It’s a welcome change, but it’s still going to be a lot of work to fool the entire world into believing Dex and I are married. And that leaves me with an important question that I blurt out the second it enters my mind.
“We’re going to have to convince the world that we’re really married, so what’s your answer going to be when you’re asked why you’d settle for a girl like me?”
“What do you mean by that?” he asks, his brows drawn together in confusion.
I lift a shoulder. “You’re Dex Bradley. You could have any woman you want. And you’re marrying a plain-Jane girl eleven years your junior who doesn’t even have a job?”
He stares at me as if I’ve grown two heads.
“What?” I ask. I tuck my hair behind my ear self-consciously.
“Plain Jane?” he repeats. He tugs at the hair I just tucked so it comes untucked. “You’re anything but plain, Ainsley.” His voice is low and raspy as he says the words, and need pulses between my legs again.
I blow out a breath.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to fake this when I find myself more and more invested with every passing moment.
CHAPTER 14: Dex Bradley
I Do
I decide to hold off on calling the rest of my family until later tonight. It can wait, and the longer we put this off, the better the chances we’ll decide not to go through with it.
I change into khaki shorts and a white collared shirt, and I head out to the family room. I find Madison, who is still on summer break, here to watch Jack, who’s currently napping, while Ainsley and I go get married.
It sounds so wild when I say those words in my head.
Speaking of my future wife, she emerges wearing a light pink dress a few minutes later. It’s simple and sweet and so very muchher.
So why does my dick respond by shifting around as the blood rushes straight for him? I wish I knew the answer to that.
I blow out a breath, and we head down the back elevator to the parking lot, where we slip into my black Challenger. I drive us to the Clark County Marriage License Bureau downtown, and shortly after that, we’re walking from the bureau down the block. I stop in front of the closest chapel.
