She exhaled a frustrated breath, her nostrils flaring. “I’m being serious, and you’re being a jackass.”
I grinned at how easy it was to get a rise out of her and held up my hands in surrender. “Iambeing serious. And we’ll seriously need to act like we don’t hate each other for the next however long this grant shit takes.”
“I don’thateyou,” she mumbled, her focus on her task list as she checked off items one, two, and three.
“Careful, hellcat. That almost sounded like you said something nice to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I said I didn’t hate you. Don’t make it weird.”
“We’re planning our fake marriage, and you’re suggesting wewaveto show our affection. It’s already weird,” I said. “But for the record, I don’t hate you either.”
She slid me the world’s most intense side-eye. “And yet you worship daily at the altar of annoying the ever-loving fuck out of me.”
“And yetyou’remarrying me anyway.”
“I must be out of my mind,” she muttered, eyes back on her notes. “Okay, time to get our stories straight.”
“Nice. I’ve never discussed committing a felony on a first date, but I’m glad you’re the one popping my cherry.”
“I’m not joking. I don’t want your brothers to ambush me because you forgot what lie you’re supposed to be telling.”
I waved off her concern. “Atlas and Declan will take this at face value—Atlas because he trusts me, and Dec because he doesn’t give a fuck. Xander might be a little trickier to get things past, but we can do it. Your brother, however…”
Was absolutely going to kill me.
“We’re not telling him. Not yet.”
“That can only end well,” I said dryly.
“Let me handle Beau. As for everyone else, we’ll tell people we eloped. Spur-of-the-moment decision, which isn’t totally out of character for you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t one,” she said flatly. “Since this is highly out of character for me, that might be harder to sell.”
“I don’t think we’ll have an issue.” I braced my forearms on the bar, leaned toward her, and flashed her my dimples. “Peoplearen’t going to have any trouble believing I charmed my way into the rest of your life.”
She stared at me blankly for a long moment. “God, you aresoannoying.”
My grin widened as she shifted her attention back to her notes, checking things off as she went.
“Maine doesn’t have a waiting period, so we can get married tomorrow, if that works for your schedule.”
“You bringing that clipboard to our wedding?”
“Since you’ll be lucky if you remember to bring pants, I’m bringing the organized approach to our shared felony.”
God, she was hot when she was snippy.
“Anything else, wife?”
“Temporarywife,” she corrected, flipping a page. “Last thing… We need to keep up the whole in-love act while we’re waiting for the grant money.” She let the page fall and met my eyes. “That means you cannot sleep with other women while we’re in this little arrangement.”
I stiffened, offended she would even suggest that. “You think I would?”
“I think this is fake. And people who aren’t really married don’t usually follow married rules.”
“Well, I do,” I said, firmer now. “I’ve never cheated on anyone, Willa. I sure as fuck wouldn’t start with my wife.”
