Page 48 of Meant for Mayhem

“What?”

I nearly dropped my tablet at the sound of his voice, having both forgotten he was here and painfully aware of every breath we shared.

“Oh.” Heat crept into my cheeks. “Nothing.”

His eyes lingered on me for a second before he went back to reading.

I gave up on romance altogether and downloaded the first murder mystery I could find—someone getting stabbed felt refreshingly low stakes compared to my life.

A while later, Mikko slid a bookmark between the pages of his paperback before setting it on the nightstand. He folded his glasses on top, reached over, and switched off the lamp. “Goodnight, Shannon.”

“Night.”

Darkness settled over his side of the room while the soft glow of my tablet illuminated mine. Within minutes, his breathing evened out. Lucky bastard. Meanwhile, I spent the next several hours becoming intimately acquainted with every inch of a California king mattress.

I read the first chapter of the murder mystery. Then the second. Then realized I couldn’t tell you a single thing that had happened because I’d been too busy wondering if Mikko was even asleep.

I rolled onto my left side. Then my right.

Fluffed my pillow.

Kicked one foot out from under the comforter before pulling it back underneath again.

Read another chapter.

Started another.

Somewhere around the point where the detective found a second body, the baby monitor crackled, a tiny whimper drifting through the speaker.

Mikko reacted before I had fully registered the sound. One second he was asleep, the next he was sitting upright. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, then paused when his gaze landed on the tablet still glowing in my hands.

“You haven’t slept?”

I looked over, gripping my tablet so hard like it held the last of my sanity. “Good book. You know how it goes.”

His eyes flicked from the tablet to my face. “...Mm.”

He didn’t press me on it. Didn’t challenge the lie I’d told, even though I promised I wouldn’t lie to him. But the one eyebrow raised told me he didn’t buy it either.

He simply padded quietly toward Leena’s room, easing the bedroom door shut behind him.

I looked back down at the same paragraph I’d been reading at for the last twenty minutes. Sure, I’d married a man I’d barely knew. Shared a bed with him, even. But it wasn’t fear keeping me awake. It was the terrifying realization that Mikko wasn’t like any man I’d ever met before.

11

When I slipped back into my bedroom after getting Leena settled, Shannon was finally asleep, tablet still in hand. I placed it on the nightstand, then climbed in bed to resume my failed attempts at sleep.

With my back to Shannon, it should have been easy to pretend I was in bed alone, but I saw her everywhere. In the boxes stacked in front of the bookshelves. In the bathroom door cracked open, revealing a dark purple bag on the counter. The floral scent of her shampoo wafting through the air.

Every inch of me knew that I’d made a mistake in marrying Shannon. Not because I didn’t think we could do this, but because it was far too easy to imagine we could.

But Shannon hadn’t agreed to marry me because she had feelings for me. Hell, I didn’t even have feelings for her other than a bone-deep attraction I couldn’t ignore and an odd feeling that she was the right person for the job.

She’d agreed to this for Leena.

We’d agreed to this for Leena.

I needed to remember it.