Page 62 of Fake Wife
Like running from me in my workshop.
Her blinding smile evaporates the worry in an instant and her cheeks turn pink. “No.”
“What is it?”
I need coffee, but her blushing draws me to her. After everything we did last night and this morning, this is what she becomes embarrassed about? Women are strange.
I turn the laptop so I can see the screen.OREGON WEST COLLEGEflashes on the screen in navy and gold. Below it are the wordsApplying for Financial Aid. I scroll down the page, scanning the applications for scholarships and a link to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid website. The hell?
She doesn’t need any aid or help.
She’s chewing on her thumbnail, looking more uncertain than she did the day I whisked her into the French restaurant.
“You’re going back to school?”
We’ve talked about it. The first weekend we spent together I mentioned she can take the time to do whatever she wants to do, find a job, go to school…but she hasn’t talked about her plans since. She’s never once mentioned doing anything with her time, and I don’t mind taking care of her.
Iwantto take care of her, contract or not.
Oh. That’s her problem.
“You want to finish school, Teagan?” I ask.
“Well, yeah, I was going to.” She nibbles on her nail again and moves to slide from her stool.
I step in front of her before she can. “You can still do it. Nothing in that has to change.”
“I don’t want to be kept. It feels wrong.”
God. Crazy women. “I know.” I cup her neck with my hand, brushing her jaw with my thumb. “That’s why I want to keep everything the same.”
A little line appears between furrowed brows and she cocks her head, tilts it up to me. “I don’t understand.”
I laugh softly and kiss the top of her head. “I want to take care of you, and I promised you I would. Nothing has to change. I like that you want to do this on your own. I really like that you don’t give a shit about my money, and if there were questions about it before, which I didn’t have, by the way,” I add before she can scrunch up her nose, “they’d be gone now. I want to help. I want to help you reach your dreams. Let me.”
“I don’t know.”
She turns from me and I let her go, giving her another brief kiss at her temple before I get my coffee.
“I was thinking about taking night classes,” she says. “I can go to school at night, get a job at one of the horseback riding ranches nearby.”
I smile down at the counter. All the places she’s looking at are out in Cannon Bluffs. My little angel doesn’t want to be in Portland any more than I do.
I add a spoonful of sugar to my coffee and stir, waiting to see if she’ll say anything else, but she doesn’t. There’s quiet clicks of fingers on her keyboard but nothing else until I turn around and rest my ass against the counter.
“Take the day classes. Get it done as soon as possible. Work on days you don’t have school, study at night. You do too much you won’t have time to study.”
“It seems like so much to ask of you.”
I want to strangle her. And I wish she’d be as certain of us as I am, and even if she’s not, we have two years to become certain.
What difference does it make whether I pay for it now when we’re fucking or later because we signed our names to a contract that can’t hold up in court anyway?
It’s all coming from the same pocket.
“I have to get to the office for a few meetings today. I’m thinking since you have to go dress shopping with my mom on Friday, we can stay here this week and then move out to Cannon Bluffs. That okay with you?”
“Move?”
