Stella snorts.
Okay, wrong answer. But something isn’t right. I can tell.
“Too much time away from home?” I ask.
“I’m fine, Roman,” she deadpans.
“Only you aren’t. I thought we were going to be honest with one another,” I say.
And it’s possible those are the wrong words. I’m driving, but I still see her head swivel until she’s staring at me.
“Are you serious?” she says, and while I don’t scare easily, that tone is frightening.
I clear my throat and keep both my eyes on the road. Itjust feels safer. “Well, yeah. I thought we had this breakthrough and now?—”
“Geez, Roman!” she yells. “We did have a breakthrough. I’m trying not to send us backward.”
“Then just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
I glance at her to see her eyes shut, jaw clenching.
“Okay, something,” she says. “But it’s dumb and childish, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Stell. Talk. Right now.”
She rolls her neck to the side and opens her eyes. “It’s just that—I have never seen a man so intent onnotkissing his wife. That’s all.” She shrugs. “See? Dumb.”
“Wait—what?”
Pulling in a breath through her nose, she swallows. “The thought of kissing me is just so awful to you. You gave your kiss to Zev. You asked the judge to skip that part of our ceremony. Mistletoe, and you can only bear to touch just the corner of my lips. You work really hard to avoid any kind of intimacy, and while I understand this relationship isn’t exactly real, you are my husband—and it’s starting to make me feel less than desirable.”
My head is blown. You know that emoji where the little guy’s brain is exploding from his head? That’s me. Literally. “Are you messing with me?”
“No.” She wiggles in her chair, attempting to inch away from me in her buckled seat. It doesn’t work. “I said it was dumb. I know what this is. Can we just drop it?”
“Stell, you’ve looked in a mirror, right? You have talent and skill and,” I huff, “plenty of sass. You are the kind of woman that gets into a guy’s head and refuses to leave.” I squeeze the steering wheel, my knuckles turning brightwhite. “You take over a man’s sanity and build a fire there.” I take one more glance her way. Because I can’t believe we need to have this conversation. “There isn’t anything you could do to yourself that would make you unattractive. Not even a hit from a family of skunks could do the job. I would never in a million years call you—” I hold to the wheel with one hand and rake my other through my hair. “Geez, Stella, are you serious? That’s what you thought?”
Her voice is small, but she sits tall in her seat. “What was I supposed to think?”
“That I was respecting you. That I was keeping the boundaries of real and fake to keep you comfortable. That I didn’t want to take advantage of you in any way.” Believe me, keeping those boundaries has been the greatest trial of my life.
“Right.” She slumps in her seat, turning her head away from me.
“Stella,” I say, calling for her attention. “Are you—” I groan. Crap, tell me she isn’t crying again. My heart can’t take anymore tears.
“I’m sorry,” she barks, but she still won’t look at me. “I feel pretty childish.”
“Holy—” I brake, jerking my Bronco onto the shoulder and shifting into park. Stepping out of the car, I ignore the cold breeze coming down from the mountain and storm around to Stella’s side. I yank open her door, lean in, and unbuckle the woman. Then I manhandle that woman right out of her seat, shutting the door behind her.
“What are you?—”
“Do you want me to kiss you, Stella?”
“Me?” She blinks up at me in the dim light of the nightsky. Her honey-blonde hair rushes in the wind, and I brush a stray hair from her eyes. “I mean,youdon’t want to kiss me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
