Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(49)

“You think anyone will believe you have all your marbles if you don’t insist on some kind of marriage contract?” While I spoke I gave her my back and deleted the text she hadn’t sent. Then I hammered out a response to this Eugene guy.

Kat: Hey. This is Dan. Send me the thing. I’ll sign it. Here’s my email.





I felt her eyes on me, the weight and heat of her displeasure, and fuck me, that was sexy too. When I turned back to her and held out her phone, she grabbed it. Then she read the message I’d just sent. Then her eyes turned into little swords of fury.

“You will not sign it.”

I snorted, laughing a little. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Dan,”—she leaned forward and grabbed my wrist, looking stern and a little scary—“what if Caleb uses it as evidence that you’re not fit to be my guardian? That I don’t trust you?”

“You think your lawyer guy would have me sign something if it negated the marriage or exposed you to criticism? No. He’s the expert. He wouldn’t be calling you every five minutes if it weren’t important. We both know the real reason you don’t want to ask me to sign a postnup is the same reason you offered to pay me.”

She was still uneasy, and though her hand remained on my wrist, her grip lessened. “It doesn’t seem fair. I’m asking so much of you, and you get nothing out of this.”

Oh Kit-Kat, if you only knew.

“Look,”—I covered her fingers with mine—“you don’t seem to understand the situation here, so I’m going to mansplain it to you.”

She huffed a surprised laugh, which grew as she tucked her lips between her teeth, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. She stared at me, her eyes glassy with humor, but also desperation.

“You got something like, a gabillion dollars, right?”

She stared at me, her laughter tapering.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Well, I don’t have a gabillion dollars. So, to protect your ass . . . sets, it’s a really fucking good idea to get a contract, a postnup.” I could see she was still skeptical, so I added, “Plus, I need to protect my own ass . . . sets.”

“From me?” Her gorgeous eyes grew thoughtful. “But I owe you everything—”

“I have Wally, don’t I?” Of course Wally was the first thing I thought of, because he was rarely far from my mind. “You think I want you taking Wally if we divorce?”

The uncertainty behind her stare told me she wasn’t convinced about the contract, and her words confirmed it. “It doesn’t seem right. You won’t let me give you anything in return. Please. Please let me pay you, or . . . or anything you want. Please.”

She’d leaned forward, her stunning face just a few inches from mine—maybe six, or eight at the most—and I caught a whiff of something that smelled like coconut. Her perfume? Nah. More likely her shampoo or lotion. My sisters’ perfume always smelled like flowers, but their lotions usually smelled like food.

Faced with Kat’s pleading eyes, and her smelling like something I would eat, I had a selfish thought.

“There is one thing.”

I wasn’t a good person. But in this moment, I was really okay with that.

“What? What is it?”

“I do have one request.”

“Anything.”

“For however long we’re married, however long you need me, I ask that . . .” I inhaled all the air that would fill my lungs, but—as usual—it didn’t feel like enough; that shitty feeling in my chest was back in a big way. Don’t worry, my selfishness allowed me to power through. “I ask that you don’t have any relationships of an—uh—intimate nature with anyone else.” Studying her closely, I didn’t miss the blanket of frost sliding over her features. Or how she removed her hand from mine.

She swallowed. The face she made after swallowing had me wondering what tasted so bitter. “Yes. Fine. That’s fine.”

“Good. Then it’s settled.” I leaned back in my chair while we traded glares. She looked like she wanted to speak, like a protest was on the tip of her tongue, but she stayed quiet. Instead, opting to look at something incredibly interesting in her lap, her hair falling forward to cover her face.

I heard her clear her throat from her hiding place—yes, I knew she hid behind her beautiful hair . . . often—but she said nothing.

Maybe I should’ve felt like an ass for asking, for making demands. I didn’t.

I was getting hitched to a woman I was crazy about, so excuse me if I didn’t want to watch her get all polyamorous in our marriage. Yeah, it was fake. Yeah, it wasn’t going to last. But as long as it did last, why would I want to put myself through that masochistic bullshit?