“I think she realized it,” Tanner said, but it sounded like he was in a tunnel with the way her brain matter sorted through scenarios of how this could play out with the least amount of effort for her and for Knox.
“Do something, Knox,” Bax said, earnestly. “You’re losing her.”
“Hold up, Chickpea,” Knox said, striding back to her with the type of command she’d wanted him to take with that not-a-kiss situation. “Before you go wild and call off the wedding…” He reached for her shoulders, rubbing his hands there.
Dammit, she hated that she wanted him to keep doing that.
“Remember we made a deal,” he continued. “My side of the deal has not come through yet. Therefore, by section b, subsection twenty-five, you arestilllegally required to marry me.”
“Section b?” Irina asked, scrunching up her nose and trying to make her brain work again because it’d gone blank when he got close. They’d gone all verbal on this thing and there was no talk of subsections. Though there was a prenup in her inbox that Knox’s manager had had drawn up to ensure their assets remained separate through the entirety of their sham. She had every intention of signing it once she had a free moment to actually read it.
“I’m just saying that you’re getting your cookies early, but mine are still baking.” Knox crossed his arms, He had a look of genuine concern that she might ditch him. “Until they finish baking and move to the cooling rack, we see this through.”
“I’m not…” She glanced around the room to the guys, then to the iPad where Courtney and Bax held Harley between them. “I didn’t say…”
“You didn’t really have to,” Mach said, examining his now-apparently-super-interesting beer bottle. “We get it, no one actually wants to marry this lug.”
Generally, she was an adept enough actress that her standard mask of neutrality was practically adhered with muscle memory, but not tonight. Tonight, she growled.
“Check it out, she just growled at you.” Tanner knocked Mach’s arm with his elbow.
Now that she’d released it, Irina turned her growl on him.
Oblivious, Knox was frowning as he thumbed through his phone, tapping on the screen as though sending a message. This was good news because they couldn’t ruminate on the toe-curling kiss from before or the not-a-kiss from three seconds ago.
They were being totally normal. She was in her cozy apartment, Knox was fiddling with his phone, and Tanner and Mach had stopped giving her shit. The only thing to make it better would be Courtney in the same room.
“Okay.” She maneuvered into her kitchen and pulled out a brand-new box of red wine from the cupboard. Cracking the seal, she poured herself a glass. “Here’s the deal.”
She took a deep drink, trying to think of the best way to say this.Simple, go with simple.
“Of course I’m still going to marry Knox.” She slipped her gaze to Knox, who glanced up from his phone and stared at her kind of funny, like he’d genuinely been concerned she might bail. “Because he’s right, we made a deal and I’m not backing out on that.” She wouldn’t do that to him.
“Good to hear,” he said, but his heart wasn’t entirely in it. His forehead scrunched as he went back to his phone, frowning deeper.
The air around him had turned fuzzy and he wasn’t his usual happy-go-lucky, MyTube-watching self.
She didn’t like that, not one bit.
Chapter Six
KNOX
Damn.Damn. Dammit. Damn.
Knox stared at his cell like it’d grown a head and spoken directly to him.
“Do you all want to give us a minute?” Irina asked through the fog of have-to-deal-with-this rolling through his mind.
His cell rang and he set it on the table beside the sofa, carefully backing away. It continued to ring with a chirping bird tone he’d programmed for his mother’s calls because it was supposed to be calming. He figured if it was calming, maybe he’d want to answer it. Unfortunately for him, all it did was give him a hefty aversion to all things bird.
Vaguely aware that Tanner and Mach had left, and Irina had turned off the video messenger with Bax and Courtney, he couldn’t pull his eyes from the birds chirping from his telephone.
She reached for it—
He hopped forward and blocked her before she could swipe it. “Don’t do anything. Stay still and maybe it’ll stop.”
Her pretty pink lips made a cute little oval, but he didn’t move. She didn’t move. No one moved.
