“You know, don’t you?” she asked, not quite able to meet his gaze.
“That you had your dirty way with me before marriage?” Garrett said, watching her lips twitch.
“She switched out my birth control,” Kristen said, making Garrett’s stomach drop.
“What else?” Garrett asked as he dropped down on the chair across from her.
“Besides the fact that she tried to ruin my career, made me the target for thousands of pissed-off readers, and apparently had a hand in knocking me up?”
“Besides that,” Garrett said, waving it off as though that was a given.
“She apparently plagiarized one of my books years ago under a different pen name and was forced to remove it when readers discovered it,” Kristen said, looking lost in thought.
“She put that in there?” Garrett asked, stunned that anyone could be that stupid.
“She really is an idiot. That, and she wrote the book as a tale of revenge, so she felt the need to share how she pulled it off and why,” Kristen said with a heavy sigh.
Nodding, Garrett thought that over as he said, “You know that I’m going to marry you, right?”
“Because of the baby?” Kristen asked after a slight hesitation.
“I can’t have our child thinking that I’m a whore, Kristen,” Garrett said, making her lips twitch as he sat there, debating how he wanted to do this, find the roll of painter’s tape or find some twine. “I think we’ll go with a traditional Bradford wedding,”
“What’s that?” Kristen asked as she reluctantly reached over and started straightening out the paperwork that was going to make what he was about to do to Amber a hell of a lot easier.
“Well, first I’m going to have to kidnap you, which usually involves some form or tape or rope, then I’m going to have to take you across the street and tear your house apart to find your birth certificate for the marriage license unless you want to take pity on me and just tell me where it is,” Garrett said, watching as her lips twitched.
“You’re joking, right?” Kristen asked as he released a heartfelt sigh and got up, knowing that there was no point in putting this off any longer.
“Not even a little bit,” Garrett said, shrugging as he made his way to the closet.
“You know that you could just propose, right?” Kristen said while he searched his closet until he found a fresh roll of painters’ tape.
“Bradfords don’t propose,” Garrett said, shrugging as he turned around to find her frowning as she looked from him to the roll of tape in his hands.
“Why don’t they propose?” Kristen asked, watching as he made his way back to the couch and knelt down in front of her to make this easier.
“Proposing implies that you’re thinking clearly, which kind of defeats the purpose,” Garrett said conversationally as he grabbed her hands and gently placed them together before he began wrapping them together with tape. “Bradfords don’t get married until they’re willing to risk a felony charge, letting themknow that they are head over heels in love with their bride,” Garrett said, making quick work of taping her hands together before he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers and-
“You probably should have made a run for it when you had the chance,” Garrett said, shrugging it off as he reached for her legs.
“That’s what I was just thinking,” Kristen said, nodding solemnly.
“If you want, I can help you get to your feet and give you a thirty-second headstart,” Garrett offered.
“Sixty seconds would be better,” Kristen said, raising her arms so that he could help her to her feet.
“It’s the least I could do,” Garrett said, stealing one more kiss before he gestured towards the door. “You might want to put that sixty second headstart to good use.”
Kristen went to do just that only to frown as she asked, “What happens when you catch me?” making his lips pull up into a shit-eating grin.
“That’s when the fun begins.”
CHAPTER 40
She couldn’t believe it actually worked, Amber thought, unable to help but smile as she ran her fingertips over the first-class ticket to Fiji that she’d maxed her credit out for before she grabbed her laptop and made her way back into the living room.
For the past ten years, she’d been struggling to sell her books only to have every one of them flop. She’d tried writing mystery, drama, sci-fi, paranormal, and even romance only to have every single one of her books get buried and she had no idea why. She had a master’s degree in literature, graduated with a near-perfect GPA, and had been told by every single one of her professors that her work was immaculate, which was why none of this made sense.
