I looked up, meeting his surprised stare. “I’m coming with you, Khalifa. You don’t have to like it—you just have to accept it. Besides, you still owe me a honeymoon.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose and went into the kitchen.
I cleared my throat, trying to sound casual. “How’s your hand?”
The corner of his lip curved just so. “It’s perfect. I barely felt a thing. Guess there wasn’t anymanhiding under that pretty face.”
My brain was too flustered to come up with an acceptable response.
He leaned a hip against the counter, studying me. “What did he say to you before I came?”
You’re too much for anyone to handle.
I swallowed and forced a small shrug. “Nothing really.”
You’re not enough.
His eyes didn’t move from my face. “You looked upset.”
Who would want you?
“I wasn’t,” I said lightly, fidgeting with the zipper on my suitcase.
“Why are you checking a bag?”
I frowned. “This is a carry-on.”
“That isnota carry-on, Lillian.”
“Yes, it is. I always carry this bag on.”
He shook his head, grabbing a travel mug from the cabinet. “You must’ve been flying with very forgiving airlines. Did you even buy a ticket?”
“No,” I said, chin lifting stubbornly. “You can buy one for me at the airport.”
He stared at me like I was the most exhausting person alive. “Oh,I’mbuying it?”
“Yes, you are. I didn’t agree to do fifty-fifty.”
He rolled his eyes, shoved the second coffee he’d made into my hands, and brushed past me toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Sixteen
I LEARNED MORE ABOUTKhalifa in the last three hours than I had in the last three months of being married to him.
First—he wasloaded.
Not only did he buy my ticket, but he bought me abusiness classticket. There was no hesitation, no “it’s too expensive,” no “you can pay me back later.” Just a casual “I added you to the booking,” like he was ordering an extra drink on a flight that was, apparently, made of sovereigns.
I blinked at the confirmation email, trying to process the price tag. Who knew universities were out here paying in gold bullion for lectures about deceased monarchs and men who “discovered” continents that were already inhabited? Somewhere, a history department accountant was laughing maniacally while my student loans devoured my paychecks, leaving me in shoes from three seasons ago and calling it a vintage aesthetic. It wasn’t fair. Ideservedmy income. I spent several hours a day bringing life into the world, juggling hormones, tears, and husbands fainting in delivery rooms, while he yapped about dead civilizations for a few classes and somehow made a fortune.
Second—I didn’t know if it was my recent, very unfortunate realization of his...physical appeal, or the fact that my brain had decided to develop a completely uninvited, severely stupid mini crush, but I was noticing things I hadn’t before.
Like how he walked. Purposeful, unhurried, confident in a way that made up for the half-inch height difference between us—and maybe even added a few inches on top of that.
Or how his shirt clung to his shoulders, how his forearms flexed when he lifted my suitcase into the overhead bin, how his veins caught the light just so. I hadn’t realized until now that I’d gotten shallow enough to stop noticing a man if he wasn’t over six feet tall. But there it was, my shallowness, waving like a little white flag.
And, most annoying of all, it wasn’t justmenoticing.
