Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(80)

She grinned at me like I was something adorable. “I know.”

I felt my eyebrows jump on my forehead. “You know?”

“Correct.”

“Really?” I turned my head slightly, peering at her. “And you moved in anyway?”

“Our marriage wouldn’t look real if we didn’t live together, and I need it to look real. Knowing my cousin as I do, I wouldn’t put it past him to hire goons to take me to Boston, to lock me up while he pursued his case for guardianship.”

“Oh yeah, about that.” I heaved another sigh, shaking my head. “I have news. Eugene was trying to call you earlier—a few hours ago—and couldn’t reach you on your cell. So he called me right after I landed. Turns out, you’re right, Caleb did hire some guys to pick you up.”

Kat sat straighter like I’d startled her, her lips parting. “What?”

“He—they—flew in this afternoon and were waiting for you at your old place. Eugene wants you to sign the postnup ASAP.” I reached into my pocket and withdrew my phone, navigating to the DocuSign screen. “All you need to do is sign, then we’re done. I’ll email it to him. He wants me to make some broad statement about my lawyers preparing the document, I’ve already drafted the email. Let me see . . . here, sign here.”

I handed her my phone and pointed to the spot where she needed to sign with her finger.

She stared at the screen for a moment, her eyebrows knitted in plain confusion, then signed and handed me back my phone. “Why do you need to make it look like your lawyers drafted it?”

“My guess is he wants to make it look like he didn’t know anything about our marriage until after the fact. Lisa—you know, Nico’s sister?—she’s my lawyer, now our lawyer. She’s supposed to attach the postnup to the email,”—which I was sending to Lisa as we spoke—“tell him you’re married, your address has changed, and then it looks like he wasn’t involved. If he wasn’t involved, then it keeps him off Caleb’s radar and he can still feed us information.” I hit send and the email to Lisa was off.

All done.

She stabbed at her cake, still looking disgruntled. “I can’t believe Caleb.”

“You can’t?”

“No. I mean, I can. It’s just, I’m . . .” She stabbed at her cake again, and she was grinding her teeth.

“Pissed?”

“Yes.” She smiled like she surrendered. “Moving in here was a good idea. It was the best course of action given the constraints of time and resources. I saw through your ploy at the time, but it didn’t really matter. I was going to say yes anyway. And now, I’m gratef—I mean, I’m glad you thought of it.”

By the time she was finished, I was squinting at her, trying to keep the pleased grin from my face. “You ‘saw through my ploy’? You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

“I am smart.” Kat took a bite of cake, licking the excess icing from her fork. My attention dropped to her mouth. I would just have to accept that every time she took a bite of cake she was going to lick her fork afterward. But I swear, it was the best kind of torture.

“What are you thinking about?” She sounded honestly curious. “Are you concerned about Caleb?”

“That shitbird?” I snorted. “No. Eugene said his guardianship order was rushed, temporary, and something about it not being valid if you’re married.”

“That’s a relief.”

She licked her lips. Hypnotic.

“Yeah.”

“Dan?”

I bet she tastes like cake.

“Yeah?”

Only one way to find out.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Cake.”

“My cake?” She smiled, her voice soft and expectant. She had a beautiful voice, and a beautiful smile.

“You could say that.” I lifted my eyes back to hers, wishing I wasn’t jet-lagged. Wishing this was months from now, and things were settled, and she was naked.

“Any requests for next time?”

“Next time?” I was still distracted by thoughts of her naked.

“Yeah, next time. What’s your favorite kind of cake?”

I cleared my throat, scratched my jaw, figuring I probably shouldn’t say, Kat flavored. So I opted for, “I like big bundts and I cannot lie.”

A surprised laugh erupted like a choking sound, and then she covered her mouth when a new wave of laughter overtook her. Her laugh was beautiful.

Meanwhile, I lopped off a large piece of my second slice, again careful to grab some of the top and middle layers of frosting. And then I groaned all over again. Kat, Wally, and cake—could life get any better?