Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
He looks right at me. “You.”
“But you said she knew about me. Our arrangement.”
“She did. But then, when I realized I had to marry her or lose her, I started looking into the divorce process. Read through the prenup, learned about your brother’s little game …”
“Ah,” I say, everything clicking into place. “Rebecca was okay with you having a wife you never saw. Not so much a wife you live with.”
“Well, actually, she was okay with it. At first. And then she looked you up, and it all sort of went to hell.”
“Looked me up?”
“I hadn’t told her anything about you prior to the prenup situation, and she made it a point to know as little about you as possible. I suppose I thought it would be easier for her if you weren’t a real person in her mind. No offense.”
“None taken.” I wish she weren’t a real person in my mind either.
“Then,” he continues, “when we realized what the next three months would hold, you suddenly became real. She Googled you.” He glances up. “You were apparently not what she was expecting.”
“What was she expecting?”
“I don’t know. We got into it a little after she saw your photos online. Even more so after she saw some picture on Facebook of the two of us at your mom’s party. I just wish … I wish … I wish you didn’t look like that,” he says, dropping his hands and giving me an exasperated look.
My lips twitch. “Like what?”
“Shut up,” he says irritably. He flops back on the couch, looking so boyish and out of sorts that I feel myself softening.
I stand and move around the coffee table to sit beside him on the couch, pulling one leg beneath me so I can face him.
“Colin.” My voice is gentle. “Are you engaged to Rebecca, or not engaged?”
He lightly runs his palm over his jaw, and I notice that he still hasn’t shaved today, which is all the proof I need of how far off his game he is.
“Engaged,” he says slowly. “It’s why she was so upset, I think. It hurts. It hurts knowing I’m with someone else, even platonically.”
I let out my breath on a huff, hating this situation. For me. For him. Even for Rebecca.
“So where do things stand now?” I ask.
“She’ll cool off. You and I will get through the next two months. Somehow.”
“Two months in which I’ll be stuck wearing your bathrobe,” I grumble.
“You could get your own robe,” he points out. “Or get something to sleep in that doesn’t show so much … skin.”
I bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that the morning before Rebecca had rung our doorbell, he hadn’t seemed to mind all my skin. At all.
“All right,” I say, giving him a sisterly pat on the knee. “What do you need from me other than to keep my skin to myself?”
“Well, you can start by getting rid of all the dead flowers all over the apartment. When I said I didn’t have any vases, I did not mean to fill every single cup in the house with flowers that are now dead.”
I wave my hand. “What else?”
“Well, actually,” he says slowly, “Rebecca brought up a good point last week—”
“In between the screaming?”
“Yes, in between the screaming,” he says, refusing to rise to my bait. “And quite frankly, it’s something I should have thought of before now.”
“Okay …”
“Well, we’re following the prenup’s stipulation that we live together—”
“Oh, trust me. I’m well aware of all those joys.”
He continues. “The problem is, when these months are up, it’s not going to be enough for us to say we lived together for the required amount of time. We’ll have to prove it.”
“I don’t know how we can. Your place is already paid for, so we can’t cosign a lease. I guess we could put my name on the utility bills.”
“What’s the address on your driver’s license?”
I wince. “My old address in San Francisco. I tried to keep it as my parents’ address for as long as possible, but eventually I needed a California driver’s license.”
“I thought as much.” He sighs. “How do you feel about a trip to the DMV?”
Chapter 21
Saturday, September 12
“So. The DMV on a Saturday. Not one of your better ideas, hubby.”
“No,” Colin says grimly as he shifts in the uncomfortable folding chair where we’ve been sitting for the better part of an hour. “No, it was not. But it’s either this or take time off work.”
“Cutting into your precious Rebecca time?” I say to needle him.
But he doesn’t look up from his iPhone, much less respond.
“Not that you aren’t fabulous company,” I ramble on, “but you realize you didn’t have to come with me, right? I’m the one with the California driver’s license that needs to get updated.”
“Actually, we both need new IDs,” he says, putting his phone away. “Mine still has my old address. I need it to match yours.”