Nash leaned in, mirroring her position. “I’ve never been incahootsbefore. Is there a secret handshake?”
She shoved his leg with hers. “Are you ever serious? This is my future—and the future of over ten thousand employees we’re talking about here.” Though her question had some bite to it, her eyes remained friendly. “I’m starting to doubt Aunt Pamela’s interview process is as thorough as she claims.”
If she only knew. “You don’t have to worry. When it comes to a workday, I put in my all.”
“Great.” She smiled softly, tracing her free hand over the bumps in the distressed tabletop. “Well, if we can make it through the funeral without our quickie marriage blowing up in our faces, then I have hope for the rest of our plan.”
“What are our chances of avoiding a blowup?”
“I’d say eighty-twenty.”
“I’ll take eighty.”
She paused in her tracing. “We get twenty, the dynamite gets eighty.”
“You like to live on the edge.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He liked the sound of that. Kenzi was the opposite of intimidating with her sweet heart-shaped face and her petite frame, but that was all misleading. Her mind was a powerhouse. “What else have you got up that sleeve?”
Her cheeks took on a rosy hue. “I was thinking about Raquel not believing we are married—I mean, she believes it now, but there will be others who need convincing.”
He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, waiting her out as she organized her thoughts into words.
“We need toactmarried.”
An image of him and Kenzi curled up together on the couch, him leaning back against the cushions and her head on his chest while he rubbed lazy circles on her back, came to mind. Only, in his head they were alone in the room and he was contemplating shutting off the movie and kissing her.
Snap. Snap. “Hello?” Kenzi’s concerned face came into focus as her fingers snapped in front of his face.
“Sorry. I was on a tangent for a moment there.”
The air between them took on a sharp feeling, like peppermint rain. She began gathering up the supplies. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. No matter what label we put on this marriage, it’s still a business relationship.” Her hands trembled as she arranged the dry erase markers back in their box.
Kensington Donegal didn’t wear vulnerability well. It hung on her like an oversized, heavy coat—and it tugged at his protective instincts. He’d played the field for a while, when he was a big shot, and he’d broken a couple hearts because he was too wrapped up in himself to prioritize the other person’s feelings.
Being knocked off the pedestal had given him a new perspective on people. Kenzi hadn’t asked anything that was outside of his ability to give, and the asking part had been hard for her.
Nash touched Kenzi’s elbow to stop her hurried movements. “I’m uncomfortable lying to people, but in this case, we are newlyweds. We can look the part.”
She looked down at him, the air changing from peppermint cool to fireside warm in an instant. Nash’s heart began to build a thunder he’d rarely experienced in life.
He trailed his fingers down her arm and then hooked her pinkie for a brief moment before letting go. Flirting with danger had created this sensation—once, when he bungee jumped off the side of a bridge, and several times as he sat in the courtroom.
The courtroom.
He scooted his chair back and cleared his throat. “I’m going to do some online product research in my room.” He jumped up to run from Kenzi and her sweet-smelling skin. Why did women have to smell so good? They’d whittled away the afternoon and he’d hardly noticed the time pass.
“Jackie should have dinner ready in a half hour,” Kenzi called after him. “Do you want to eat with the family?”
He wasn’t quite ready to roll out the newlywed show. He needed some time to shore up his walls before he touched Kenzi again. She’d gotten through his defenses with surprisingly little effort on her part. “I’d prefer to eat on my own.”
“I don’t blame you. I could use one more night without having to see everyone as well. I’ll have someone deliver our meals to our rooms.”
That wasn’t ideal. Knowing Kenzi was just a hop, skip, and how-do-you-do away wouldn’t give him the space he needed. Closed doors were the best he could ask for under the strange circumstances of their arrangement. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He entered his room, the plush fabrics and amazing view doing nothing to take his mind off the way Kenzi’s skin felt like velvet under his fingertips. He stared down at his hand before closing it into a fist as if he could hold the memory in his hand forever.
In an instant, his wonder flipped to frustration at his reaction. He was stronger than this. If three years in prison had taught him anything, it was to keep his emotions on lockdown. No matter what Kenzi stirred up inside of him, he could handle it. He would make himself handle it.
