And—the icing on the cake—he hasn’t yet settled into a new career.
It’s a win-win situation. I get a fake husband. He gets time to figure out what he wants to do with his life. We both walk away with our own private islands.
Jonah and I have exchanged emails on and off for the past month. Two weeks ago, I looped in my lawyer. Now, the prenup has been signed and all that’s left is the paperwork for the county. Everything is settled.
Everything except my nerves.
I’m still stewing in doubt when Sissy stands up, elbowing me.
I stand as well and turn to see two men walking toward us.
The shorter of the two is obviously Sissy’s brother, Chad. I’ve seen him in pictures, and he shares her dirty blond hair and easy smile.
It’s the other man I focus on.
I don’t know what I imagined a retired Navy SEAL would look like. But the instant I see this guy, it hits me. This.Thisis what I imagined a retired Navy SEAL would look like.
He has the rigid posture and regulation haircut of someone in the armed forces. With broad shoulders and enough muscles to make any woman feel a bit swoony, the guy is big. Tank big. A massive slab of a human hewn from bedrock big.
His face is a little too long and a little too angular to be handsome. His full lips and dark, hooded eyes shoot him past handsome and straight into the panty-dropping-hot range.
He’s wearing cargo shorts and a short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned over a T-shirt, sunglasses pushed up on his head. His clothes are worn, but loose. As impossible as it is to imagine, given that his shoulders are as broad as a linebacker’s, this is him after a few months in the hospital. This is him on the thin side, his cheeks hollowed out, his eyes haunted. He looks exactly like what he is. A man who devoted his life to something only to have it ripped away.
In short, he looks lost.
Which is how I’ll feel if this doesn’t work. Maybe we’ll make a good team, after all.
It’s an unsettling thought—the idea that we might have something in common.
I don’t want to like him. I certainly don’t want to be physically attracted to him, but holy smokes, Batman. This guy is the physical embodiment of everything I never knew I always wanted in a guy.
His steps slow as he approaches us. His gaze flits over Sissy before landing on me. He stops a few steps below me, which puts us almost at eye level.
At five-seven with generous curves, I am not a petite woman. Thanks to my Germanic heritage and my love of Ding Dongs—yes, yes, I know they’re gross; don’t judge me—I look like I should be wearing a corset and hauling fistfuls of oversized beer steins with me everywhere I go. I never feel small or delicate.
But on even ground, this guy will tower over me.
He studies me with equal intensity, his expression nearly unreadable.
Nearlyunreadable.
His gaze moves over me, taking me all in; then there’s an instant when his eyes meet mine. His eyes are such a dark brown, I can’t even tell whether or not his pupils are dilated or contracted. All I know is that I feel an instant, heady jolt of attraction.
But he…he balks. Actually flinches away from what he sees.
He recovers quickly and hides it well, but I know what I saw.
For an instant, his expression flickered betweenfuck meandoh, hell no, before settling into determination.
I’m not going to lie. It stings a little that this guy—no, thisman, this undeniably competent, sexy man—takes one look at me and flinches away from what he sees.
Undeterred, I push the sting away. Who cares if he doesn’t find me attractive? It’s not about that. It’s probably better if he doesn’t.
I thrust out my hand. “Hi. I’m Clara.”
He stares at my hand like it’s covered in flesh-eating bacteria. For a hot second, I’m sure he’s going to refuse to even shake my hand. Then, he huffs out a breath of apparent resignation before giving my hand the briefest of shakes. “Jonah.”
He drops my hand more quickly than what anyone would consider polite, rolling his shoulder and giving his hand an almost imperceptible flex.
