“No such thing between a husband and wife. Where are you?”
“At Mum’s hospital.” I knew better than to hope this would make my future husband more understanding.
“Good,” he said drily. “If you start running now, you’ll make it to the meeting in time.”
“I’m speaking to her doctor,” I protested, my anger rising in a cloud of heat, settling on my cheeks.
“Her doctor can wait. This meeting can’t. Oh, and, Gia?”
At least he’d stopped calling me Miss Bennett. Glass half-full.
With cyanide, but still.
“What?” I gritted out.
“Don’t forget my coffee on your way here.”
I pushed open the doors to the conference room, holding his precious coffee.
Black, like his soul.
The place was empty other than Tate. He wore a charcoal herringbone three-piece suit with a black turtleneck and looked like pure dopamine poured straight into my veins.
I peered around, catching my breath after sprinting here in my heeled Louboutins. “Where is everyone?”
“I decided to cancel the meeting to tend to more pressing issues.” He didn’t look up from his laptop screen. “Namely, your part of our deal.”
He made me drop everything, leave in the middle of an important conversation about my mother’s future, for a meeting he’d canceled?
“I loathe you,” I said quietly. Coolly. “I truly do. I will honor our agreement. I will marry you. But I will also make your life miserable. You’ll be so unhappy, you’ll regret the day you ever met me.”
“Thedrama.” He sat back, yawning. “I forgot the downside of a tight, young pussy is dealing with the person attached to it. Your theatrics don’t impress me.”
“Don’t deal with me then. Cancel our deal.”
“My coffee?” he asked wryly, snapping his laptop shut. He dragged a thick contract across his desk and perched it over his laptop.
I plucked his coffee order—black, filtered, unsweetened—from the cup carrier, setting it by his elbow. He set his red pen down and reached for it, bringing it to his lips. He stopped before the rim touched his lips.
“Did you spit in it?”
“No.” I waited for him to take a sip before adding, “So if it tastes different, that’s why.”
Tate chuckled deviously, popping open the lid of his coffee and dragging the cup across the table to where I was standing.
“Go on then.” A daring glint sparkled behind his pale eyes.
I stared at him, aghast. “Go on, what?”
“Spit in my coffee. You know I’m very particular about my brew.”
“I waskidding. It was a joke.”
“Well, I’m not. It tastes off. Spit in it.”
“You’re depraved.”
“You’re delectable.”
