Page 42 of Fake Wife
I’m prodding. Bordering on turning into the asshole she’s seen too many times, something truly uncharacteristic of me, but damn if I don’t want a reaction from her. And I do. Her jaw clenches and her shoulders pull tight.
She bites a carrot, chewing it like it’s hard as nails. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to ask me. I want you to be curious. That yeah, you want to know where I am when I’m not with you.”
I want you to care about me.
The reality slams into me, making my chest burn. I do. I want her to give a shit about me for more than a monthly allowance and an easy couple of years to start her own business.
I want her to wantmemore.
“Okay. So what kind of work do you do out at Cannon Bluffs?”
“You know that bed in your room there?”
“Yeah.”
“I built it. Started a company a couple years ago, been slowly refining the craft, growing local customers. Trying to expand it regionally.”
She freezes, a soft look passes over her features, and her gaze moves to my living room before slowly coming back to me.
“You make…furniture?”
God. Why does her approval mean so damn much to me? And yet the fear of not getting it holds me back.
“Have to do something other than be a playboy trust fund baby.”
“Don’t do that,” she says, shaking her head. “Don’t talk about yourself like you have nothing to offer anyone. You’ve helped me, given me a place to stay when I needed it, and you have really good friends who care about you. Plus, Caitlin told me you helped her.”
“It’s easy to help people when you have money.”
“Maybe.” She steps forward, hesitant little steps, and a pink spreads from her cheeks down her neck. God she’s pretty. If my plan was to find a normal girl to marry, I failed hugely. There’s nothing normal about Teagan. Her hand presses against my chest, a barely there glimpse of a touch, and before she can pull back, I grip her hand and hold it against my chest.
“Teagan—”
“It might be easy to help people if you have more money than God, Corbin, but you also have to have a heart.”
She’s making me lose it. The feel of her hand sears my chest like a branding iron and I want that…to be branded by her. Perhaps if I hold her hand to me forever, I’ll become the guy she thinks she sees.
A groan builds in my throat, the tension between us crackling, spreading, swirling around us, pulling us together, and I can’t help myself.
She’s all I have thought about for a week, all I’ve craved since I moved her in here.
I don’t want to think about contracts and pretending. I want to truly see what we can have.
“Can I see it?”
Her question confuses me. “See what?”
“Your furniture.” She grins, and it’s sparkling. The hesitancy has vanished and there’s only excitement reflecting back at me. “I want you to show it to me.”
“It’s all around you,” I tell her. Almost all the wood pieces in my own home are things I made, most of it crafted as my first pieces. Not good enough to sell, but I was able to use some of them to promote Bluffs Builders at the beginning, over two years ago.
I don’t want her to see the old, early pieces. I want her to see everything. I want her to see the doors I was working on all day, thinking of her.
“Go pack an overnight bag,” I say, my voice gruff. Too thick to be polite. “We’ll go back to Cannon Bluffs.”
“Tonight? We can’t. We’re supposed see your mom tomorrow, be engaged. All that stuff.”
