Nope. No way. Absolutely not. “I have a very nice apartment downtown.”
“Do you want us to live there? I need two bedrooms for my computer monitors alone.”
I pressed the back of my head against the leather seat and wished for the millionth time this was all a bad dream. This sort of thing was cute in a rom-com movie, but the reality of waking up married to a man you didn’t mean to wed was the pinnacle of awful. “I can’t live with you.”
He twisted in his seat to face me. “Who’s going to believe we’re married if we live apart?”
“Couples do it all the time,” I said. “Maybe you should move back to the West Coast for authenticity’s sake.”
“Nope. We live right here. Together.” Lachlan pushed his remote again, and the garage door lowered with a clang, closing us in. Like a jail.
In a fog of numbness, I followed Lachlan inside.
The garage led into a kitchen that would’ve made Ina Garten proud. Ceiling-height cabinets and quartz countertops lived alongside gleaming stainless appliances. The room was almost as big as my entire apartment.
Lachlan went to the restaurant-sized refrigerator and produced two water bottles. “I’d offer you something stronger, but we shouldn’t tempt fate again. With our luck, I’d wake up pregnant.” He patted his stomach. “I just lost twenty pounds, and I amnotgoing back to my fat joggers.”
We migrated to a den, a comfortable spot with a TV large enough to transmit images to outer space. I’d seen smaller screens in movie theaters.
“Take a seat.” Lachlan gestured to a cozy, overstuffed chair. “We should get our stories straight.”
Panic dug sharp, insistent claws into my insides, and I blinked back tears. It was so unfair. Everysingletime I’d ventured off my life plan, disaster had followed. Historically speaking, this sham marriage could not end well for me. “Lachlan, I’ve been thinking…and I can’t do this.”
He settled at the end of the couch, his knees inches from mine. “Don’t chicken out on me now, Livvy. It’s six months. When it’s over, we both get what we want.”
“And in the end, I can tell my family the truth?”
“After they sign NDAs, sure.” But Lachlan didn’t sound like he meant it. “Speaking of family, what should I expect when they show up here?”
Finally, a question with an easy answer. “Some interrogation from my sisters. A planting of undetectable surveillance cameras from Frannie. A challenge to a duel from my grandma.”
Lachlan took a swig of his water. “Pistols or swords?”
“Knowing Sylvie, just bare hands.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “That woman will have me on the ground in seconds. But your grandma’s not the only one out for blood. I’ve already fielded a few death threats from Miller. Your future brother-in-law is very protective of you.”
That was sweet. “Hattie’s found a good one.”
“And you got me.”
He didn’t need to remind me, though I did note the odd dip in his self-confidence. “Let’s review, shall we?” I dreaded convincing my family of something I could hardly utter myself. “You and I reconnected as soon as you moved back to town, and things escalated quickly.”
Leaning back, Lachlan rested his hands on his stomach and crossed his feet at the ankles. “So quickly you didn’t have time to tell anyone.”
Our foundation was already shaky. “I would never withhold that information.”
“Ah,” he said, “but I asked you to keep it quiet because of pending business developments. I had to be sure you were ‘the one’ before our relationship went public.”
“That’s kind of dumb.”
“If you have a better explanation, I haven’t heard it.” Irritation clipped his words. “One of us here has crisis management experience, and one of us creates a virtual reality with exploding aliens. Excuse me if I’m not operating on my strengths here.”
It would have to do. “Fine. That’s our story. We’ve dated the two months you’ve been in town. You swept me off my feet.”
“I like how you say that as if I gave you an incurable rash.”
I leaned toward the man. “Let me be really clear that I still don’t like you.”
