Marriage For One

Two weeks later

I had officially moved in with Jack Hawthorne, AKA my beloved fake husband, the night he had returned from his London trip, which could also count as the beginning of my sleepless nights. The next day, just as we had discussed, he accompanied me back to the coffee shop because he didn’t trust me with the walls of his newly acquired free property. While I did get him to agree—after a very convincing and long talk—that I could, in fact, do a beautiful paint job, he ended up painting most of the place himself, souring my victory.

He exasperated me to no end the entire time and I had no clue what to do with him.

He also wanted me to clear out my apartment in the East Village right away, but I ignored his wishes and slowly packed everything during the painting business. The hell with Bryan’s threats.

Sitting alone in the middle of the coffee shop, munching on a sandwich I had put together in the back, I was waiting for the IKEA delivery guys to bring me my bookcase. Soon after, they arrived, but before I could tackle that project, the chairs were delivered.

When everything was said and done—the bookcase assembled, the chairs where I thought they should be—hours had passed, and I’d only just then sat my ass down for the first time. I groaned and leaned my head back against the wall. I thought closing my eyes just for a few seconds wasn’t a bad idea because my eyesight was starting to get alarmingly blurry.

Of course doing that only reminded me of how much I needed more sleep. Every morning, I quietly got dressed and, as if I were an intruder, tiptoed out of Jack Hawthorne’s little mansion to get to the shop. At night, I chose to disappear into my room the moment I stepped into his apartment.

All my attempts at talking with my husband had failed, one after another, so I had stopped after attempt number four. The more questions I asked, the more I tried to talk to him, either the quicker he annoyed me or the quicker he walked away from me. The short conversation we’d had on the terrace that first night had been our longest one.

Yet…yet, even after the painting was done, he had shown up every single night to pick me up on his way to the apartment. Was it to check on the property?

To say I was confused about my husband would’ve been an understatement. I had no idea what to think about the man.

He had been the one to make the marriage offer, but with the way he was acting, so cool and distant at all times, you’d think I’d held an invisible gun to his head to make him say I do.

I didn’t see things changing any time soon if I didn’t do anything about it.

I also had no idea how we were going to keep this charade up if we actually had to stand next to each other and talk to people as a married couple. If anyone had seen us working together at the coffee shop, or even on the terrace that first night, they would’ve thought we were out on a never-ending blind date, forced to endure every minute instead of making a quick escape.

I must’ve been on the verge of falling asleep because when I heard a loud knock, I leaped up and somehow managed to hit the side of my thigh on the edge of the table in front of me. “Jesus Christ!” Pressing my hand to my leg to ease the pain, I hopped over to the door just as another loud knock filled the coffee shop.

Feeling a little drowsy and maybe a little jumpy too, I lifted the side of the newspaper that was protecting everything going on inside from wandering eyes. My heart rate somewhat slowed down when I saw it was just Jack Hawthorne standing on the other side of the glass. Lifting my finger to indicate it’d be a minute, I taped the newspaper back in place and let out a long breath before I started unlocking the door.

Here we go, I thought.

When he stepped inside, I closed and locked the door behind him. “Jack?” Massaging my leg with my left palm, I let my eyes wander his body from head to toe. If someone had forced me to say one positive thing about my husband, it would be that he was born to wear suits. I would have been lying if I’d said I minded that. The black suit, white button-down, and black tie he was wearing at that moment somehow managed to make his ocean blue eyes stand out even more, and I stared at him a little longer than necessary or acceptable. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s a great question. I wondered the same thing, because it’s not like I come here every night or anything. I called you an hour ago. You didn’t answer.”

“What?” I asked, confused. Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I tried to snap out of my still half-asleep state. If I was checking him out and noticing how his suit accentuated his intense eyes, how his stubble looked so amazingly good on him, I must have still been in dreamland. Instead of giving an answer, he went with another question, looking all kinds of exasperated with me.

“Where is your phone, Rose?”

Taking care not to bump into him, I walked around his perfectly muscled body and perfectly stubbled face back to the counter and leaned over to get to my phone, which I had left on one of the lower shelves a few hours earlier. “I haven’t touched it since the chairs got here, and I must have put it on silent by mistake. Is something wrong?” I looked down at the screen and saw two missed calls from Jack Hawthorne and one from Sally. Sally was gonna have to wait while I dealt with my husband.

“Are you okay?” he asked with a frown on his face.

Glancing up at him, I was finally starting to get it together—only I still didn’t have it together enough to realize he’d asked a question, so I didn’t answer. I just kept staring. For several long seconds, I was thinking he’d somehow managed to look better at the end of the day, every day, while I looked worse as the day went on. Not one single light brown hair was out of place on his head. The longer I looked, the deeper his brows dipped, which added this weird appeal to him that I shouldn’t have noticed. He looked amazing when he frowned—which happened often, as I could attest to—and I was starting to like that expression on him more and more. He didn’t need the frown to make him look all intense and broody, but it definitely worked in his favor.

“Rose?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Accepting the fact that I had long ago lost my mind since I couldn’t stop thinking about how truly attractive he was, I chose to act like nothing was wrong and nodded. Then I realized that was the wrong direction for my head to move and quickly shook my head instead. Flustered at being caught, I moved to stand behind the counter to put some space between us. I wasn’t planning on throwing myself at him, but still.

“I fell asleep for a few minutes so I’m a little out of it, that’s all. Why did you say you called again?”

“I was heading out for dinner and was going to ask you if you’d like to join me. I ate already.”

I yawned. “Oh, no. Was it a work thing? Did I miss the first work thing? I’m sorry if—”

“No, it was just me. I thought we could go over a few things and have dinner.”

That was a first—him voluntarily offering to talk and have dinner. “Go over things…like?”

“We’ll do it another time. I’m assuming you’re done here since you were sleeping?”

The guy didn’t budge. He didn’t smile. He certainly didn’t laugh or look happy or look…anything other than broody and serious, really.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was just taking a break, resting my eyes and I guess I dozed off for a little while.”

Looking around the shop with disapproval, he shook his head. “It’s not safe for you to be here alone at night, let alone fall asleep. What if you hadn’t locked the door, which you forgot to do before? It could’ve been anyone walking through that door and finding you sleeping.”

“But I didn’t forget to lock the door. It was just that one time. I’ve been making sure it’s locked no matter what time it is,” I countered. I wouldn’t admit that for a brief moment when I’d heard his hard knock, I’d been just a bit scared.

My reply earned me another disapproving look. “I see you finally got your chairs,” he commented, his gaze taking everything in.

“Yes. The delivery was delayed, but I finally got them a few hours ago. What do you think?” I asked. Even I could hear the hopeful tone in my voice. He was the first one to see the place filled with the furniture and so close to what it would look like on opening day. I was desperate to hear from someone that it wasn’t just my imagination and it actually did look good.

Our eyes met as I held my breath, waiting.

“About?” he asked.

I tamped down the urge to groan.

He couldn’t find any fault in them—there was no way. They looked perfect with the color scheme. Elegant, chic, comfy, inviting—all the good stuff. So, I smiled instead and tried again. “Everything. The chairs, tables, everything.”

He followed my gaze, but his hard features stayed exactly the same, not a single smile in sight.

“Is it done?”

“Not yet,” I said slowly, my smile dimming. “I’m working on it, but it’s pretty close now.”

All eleven—I hated that it was an odd number—of my wooden round tables were exactly where I wanted them, and I’d placed the brownish nude cotton-velvet chairs that looked gorgeous with the flooring and the freshly painted walls in their places. I’d also taken out the black steel bar stools and the dark green cushions from the kitchen where I’d kept them stacked. They were the same material as the chairs, and I had put them all in front of the coffee bar I had running along the front windows. It already looked amazing, but apparently only to my eyes.

“Never mind,” I said, breaking the silence in an effort to avoid hearing Jack’s negative thoughts. His rigid body language and disapproving gaze were telling me everything I didn’t want to hear anyway. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to deal with this. If you need to be somewhere else, I wouldn’t want to keep you. I’m gonna be here for another hour I think, to put some stuff up.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I got there before he could.

“I know—I’ll go to your place when I’m done here. You don’t have to keep coming back here every day. I know the way.”

His hands in his pockets, he walked toward the big archway that connected the two sections of the coffee shop and turned toward the back, out of my sight. I’d have bet money he was shaking his head after noticing my bookcase sprawled on the floor, or if not that, he was probably scalding the bookcase with a disapproving look. I’d assembled it just fine on my own, but I hadn’t dared to actually lift it and move it. That would be the next day’s job, or the next. It all depended on how my back was feeling.

“How are you planning to get in exactly?” he asked, his voice just barely rising so I could hear him.

“Get in where?”

“Into my apartment—our apartment.”

Our apartment. Dear God. Exactly when would I get used to the fact that I was living with this man now, and how, for two entire weeks, had it not even crossed my mind how I’d get back into his little mansion? Then again, since he came to the coffee shop every night to pick me up, I had no reason to think of keys.

To be fair, he had never acted as if I wasn’t welcome in his home. Sure, he was curt and exasperating sometimes, but still, every night, he offered to give the tour he had mentioned that first night and asked if I’d had anything to eat. You’d think that was sweet of him, but that was all he would say. Still sweet though.

“I tried to leave a set of keys with you this morning, but when I knocked on your door, you were already gone and I had to leave for work,” he explained. Surprised, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then he reappeared in the archway and came back to stand in front of me, patiently waiting for an explanation.

It hit me, and I winced. “Ah, is that why you come here to pick me up every night?” I blew out a breath and sighed. “I was just thinking I shouldn’t keep apologizing to you, but for the last time, I’m sorry. I hope you haven’t been cutting your plans short and coming here just because I don’t have a key.”

“No need to apologize. I only thought about the key last night, and no, I’m not coming here every night just because you don’t have a key. Today, I was already on the east side, and when I couldn’t get in touch with you, I thought I’d come here and give you a ride back.”

What about all the other nights? I wanted to ask but kept my mouth shut.

“I’m still having trouble sleeping. I’m not exactly sure why, but I always wake up at four or five. I wait until six and then leave. Instead of tossing and turning in bed, I try to do something useful around here.” I met his gaze, out of words, out of explanations.

“I know what time you leave, Rose.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, he started to take off his suit jacket, and my attention shifted again.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“I’m assuming the bookcase won’t be living on the floor and you want it up, correct?” He looked around and then pointed to the exact spot I’d planned to put it, right next to where my humongous espresso machine was going to happily take up residence in just a few days. “There?”

“Yes, that’s wha…”

He unbuttoned his cuffs and my gaze dropped to follow his movements. This again? Then he started to roll his sleeves up, and I couldn’t remember what I had been about to say—which was becoming annoying, if nothing else—but also his fingers looked really long. Apart from having strong features, insanely beautiful eyes, a very enjoyable-to-look-at face, and a jawline that worked extremely well with that broody personality he had going on, he also had very manly hands. That must’ve been nice for him. They were easily twice the size of mine. They looked strong. The kind that made you look twice, if you were into that sort of thing. Apparently I was. Very.

Jeez, Rose.

I mentally shook myself out of it, looked away, cleared my throat, and spoke up. “I was planning on doing that tomorrow. You don’t have to get your clothes dirty, Jack. I can handle it myself.”

I wasn’t one of those people who would reject help at all times, but getting help from Jack…I didn’t want to be indebted to him more than I already was.

Ignoring me, he moved toward the bookcase while still working on those sleeves, for Christ’s sake. I followed him in quick steps, my eyes—the traitors—stealing glances at his hands rolling those sleeves up. He was still wearing his ring, he never took it off.

“Jack, I can take care of it. You really don’t have to—”

“You don’t have to handle it all on your own. I’m here. I’m capable of moving a bookcase.”

“I know that. Of course you are, but I’m saying you don’t have to do it. I’m used to handling things on my own, and that’s what I’m comfortable wi—”

The sleeves had been rolled meticulously, so he lifted his head to give me a long look. I shut up.

Fine.

If he wanted to get his expensive suit dirty, he was welcome to do so. After scolding me with a simple stare, he started to walk around the bookcase.

“It might scratch the flooring,” he said as he glanced up at me and then back down.

“No, it won’t. I put four of those soft thingies under the legs, so it won’t scratch.”

That got him to look at me. “Thingies,” he deadpanned.

I couldn’t help it—my lips slowly curved up and I smiled, with my teeth showing and all. “Sure, it sounds ridiculous when you say it.” If one of us didn’t relax around the other, I was surely going to commit murder before the twenty-four months ended. Since I didn’t think Jack ever relaxed or had ever relaxed before, it looked like I was going to be the lucky winner in this marriage.

I was going to try my best to loosen up around him and ignore the fact that he was the type of guy I always stayed away from.

Because we were complete opposites.

Because we had very different outlooks on life.

Because, because, because…

He was standoffish, prickly, arrogant at times, aloof.

He gave me a quick unimpressed look and turned his back to me. “That’s because it is a ridiculous word.”

When he wasn’t looking at me anymore, I took a deep breath and glanced up to the heavens, though I couldn’t actually see them. “Your suit is gonna get dirty,” I said for the last time. When those hard eyes met mine, I lifted my hands up. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh, wait!” Before he could give me a sarcastic answer, I rushed out of the alcove, all the while yelling over my shoulder, “Give me a second and I’ll wipe it down first.”

He didn’t say anything so I assumed he was waiting for me to come back. As soon as I had a wet dish towel, I hurried back only to see he already had the bookcase up and standing.

“It’s not a big thing, but I want you to meet some of the partners in my firm,” he started as I stepped aside with the towel in my hand and he started to push the bookcase toward its new home. “There is a dinner tomorrow with two of the partners and a potential client, nothing formal, just a simple meal. They know we got married and asked me to bring you with me. I know you’re working day and night to open this place so if you can’t spare the time, you don’t have to join us for this one. I’ll explain it to them.”

I put the towel down on one of the tables and pulled the two chairs and another table that were in his way to the side. “No, I’ll come.”

He stopped pushing and tilted his head to look at me from the other side of the bookcase. “Are you sure? Like I said, you don’t have to.”

“We made a business deal, right? And you keep helping me when you come here. I have to do something in return,” I answered as I gripped the other end of the bookcase and started helping him turn it around so we could push it the rest of the way with the back facing toward the wall. A dinner wasn’t such a bad thing as long as we didn’t freeze up and he didn’t go all cold on me in front of other people—which wasn’t my problem.

“Right,” he said in a clipped tone, and we both started pushing.

The only problem about going out to dinner with Jack and his partners was that I could only imagine what kind of restaurant partners at a high-profile law firm would go to, and unfortunately, I didn’t have anything nice enough to wear to a place like that. Every cent I had earned up till that day, I’d put aside for the dream coffee shop I would open in New York. Now that dream was actually coming true, and when you were working as hard as humanly possible to do that, other things usually suffered, like my fashion choices.

“So, I’ll come. Okay, stop. Just give me a sec and I’ll move the tables so we can push through.”

While I moved the table on the right, he took care of the one on the left. Then we pushed the chairs aside, opening up enough space for the big bookcase to go through.

“You want it to touch the wall? The dinner is at seven.”

“Yes, flush against the wall. I’ll be ready before that. Sally will drop by for a few hours tomorrow to help so it shouldn’t be a very long day like today was.”

With a small grunt from me, we started pushing again until it was in place. After putting the tables and chairs back where they’d originally been, we stopped.

I stepped all the way back to the archway so I could make sure it was centered on the wall. Jack followed and silently stood beside me.

“Thank you. That looks perfect right there.” I glanced at him and caught his small nod.

“Sally?” he asked, his eyes still assessing the bookcase.

“My employee, the second and last one. I hired her while you were in London. She’s been here a few times to talk about what we’re going to do here, and she officially starts on opening day.”

“Who is the first?”

“Oh, that would be Owen. We briefly worked together at a café before, that’s where I know him from. His pastries are amazing. He’ll be here part-time, come in around four-thirty in the morning and start on the baking before I join him. Sally will help me in the front.”

“What else needs to get done today?” he asked.

Even though the bookcase was perfectly placed, the two tables in front of it just didn’t look right where they were, I retraced my steps to move them so they’d be on the sides of the bookcase instead of in front of it.

When I looked up, Jack was already standing across from me, grabbing the edge of the table and helping me lift it. “What do you mean what else?” I asked as we put the table down where I wanted and then moved the chairs.

“What else needs to be done?”

We went to the other table and repeated our actions. “You don—”

“If you say I don’t have to help one more time—”

“As a matter of fact, I was not going to say that.” I actually was. “You should listen first before accusing someone. You’d think, as a lawyer, you’d know that.” When he looked at me, I gave him a sweet smile without teeth. He didn’t return it, of course. He wasn’t a fan of sarcastic comments; I had discovered that much on my own, which was probably why I enjoyed making them in the first place.

“I want to get this up.” I walked behind the counter and stood directly in front of where I wanted the floating shelf to be. “I drilled the holes, and the brackets are secured and everything, but it’s a pretty damn big wooden shelf, almost two feet I think, so I couldn’t lift it on my own.”

He joined me, and I moved to the side to give him space. It was a big enough area for four people to work comfortably, but still. After looking at his hands that much, I couldn’t trust myself.

“You drilled these?” he asked, inspecting the brackets.

My feet were starting to kill me again, so I leaned against the counter and waited for his disapproving comments to start. I had some comebacks still. “Yeah. I borrowed a drill from the chair guy and got them done quickly. Go ahead, tell me how bad of a job I did. I’m ready for it.”

He sighed and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Where is the shelf, Rose?”

I straightened and squatted. There was a lot of pain involved in that process. “Here.” I pulled just one side of the wood from under the counter so he could see it. He held on to the other side and we lifted it up with a small grunt from me then placed it on the counter. The damn thing was extremely heavy, not to mention expensive, but it was going to look perfect with the dark green walls.

There were a few seconds of inspection on his side then he grabbed his end again. “Ready?”

I released a long breath, nodded, and gripped the edge tighter.

He paused and gave me a new look I couldn’t interpret.

“On three. You ready?”

My exhaustion was coming back in full force so I simply nodded again, heaving it up when he said three. I was pretty sure he was taking most of the weight because my arms didn’t hurt as much as I expected them to, and in a few seconds, he’d slid the shelf onto the brackets and we were done.

Facing me, he studied my face. “Can we leave now?”

Again, I just nodded.

He strolled out into the open area in front of the counter.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed my things from the big island. Coming out of the kitchen with one arm in my jacket, I struggled to get the other one in.

Jack was rolling down his sleeves. “You don’t have anything else heavy that needs to be moved, do you?”

Frowning and trying to think as I watched him, I shook my head. “No. That was the last one, I believe.”

Then he put his suit jacket back on, and he looked just as he had when he’d showed up earlier, minus the tie.

“You look like you’re about to crash.”

He wasn’t even looking at me—how did he know?

“I think I can make that happen.” Feeling a little silly after his comment and about the fact that I was still struggling with the other jacket arm, I cleared my throat. “The crashing, I mean.” He came forward and, with a long-suffering sigh, pulled the jacket off, freeing my arm. Then he held it up for me and I felt myself blush as I successfully got both arms in.

“Thank you,” I muttered quietly.

“I’ll call Raymond so he can park out front.” He was looking down at his phone, but then his eyes met mine for a brief second. “You look worse than you did last week.”

I opened my mouth then decided to close it. I looked down and noticed that my knees were covered in dust. Nice touch, Rose. Really nice touch. I gently dusted myself off, all the while thinking who knew what other substances I had on my face or what said face actually looked like. Jack apparently did know, and it so happened to look worse than it had the week before. No biggie. Every husband made comments like that to their wives…I thought. Essentially, we were settling into married life. I thought he was broody male perfection, and he thought I was…well, to be honest, I was too scared to ask and hear his answer.

I sighed and looked up so I could meet his gaze. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m actually starting to consider keeping you around as my husband, permanently, Jack. I’m really liking these compliments so far, but I’m warning you, you can’t blame me when all these pretty words start to go to my head.”

I thought I imagined his lips pressing together in an effort to hold back a smile, though maybe it was a lip twitch. I would never know, but I squinted to make sure I was seeing right. Then again, my eyesight was still kind of blurry, so I was almost certain it had been just a trick of my eye.

When he commented in his businesslike tone, I knew for sure there were no smiles involved. “Would you like me to lie to you instead? I’m not sure I can be that guy for you.”

“Oh, no. I know you’re not that guy. Like I said, I’m content with my choice of husband right now. We’re settling into married life. When I ask you if I look fat in my jeans one day, I will always count on you to give me your honest answer. I’m sure it’ll come in handy.”

“If you have everything you need, we can leave. Raymond is waiting out front.” After pocketing his phone, he met my eyes. “You’re not fat.”

And right when I thought he wasn’t even listening to a word I was saying.

I grabbed my handbag from the counter where I had left it while I was struggling to get into my jacket then I followed Jack outside.

“I could lose a few pounds, actually—ten, maybe fifteen. Chocolates are great for your soul and happiness, but they don’t tend to be good for the hips. You know how the saying goes, right? A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.”

He stepped out onto the sidewalk as I turned off the lights and set the alarm.

“If you can’t give up chocolate maybe you can work out more.”

After locking everything up, I turned to him and caught him looking at my ass. My face heated, but thankfully, the chilly air prevented it from being obvious. Trying to ignore where he had been looking when he’d said his last words, I tried to play it cool by placing my hand on my heart and saying, “See, now you’re just trying to spoil me. If you keep this up, I’ll never want to leave you when the time comes.”

His eyes focused on my hand and I knew, I knew what he was going to say before he even parted his lips.

“You’re not wearing your ring.”

“It’s in my bag. It’s a very expensive ring, Jack. I don’t want anything to happen to it while I’m working.”

He gave me an unimpressed look then turned around and left me standing on the sidewalk. His ring was on.

We were settling into married life just fine.

At least I thought so.

The number of times Jack Hawthorne smiled: nil.