be a bad thing.” It definitely would be bad for him, and he would make sure it was good before. His ex-wife had lied about him five years ago. Sparring with her was giving him the idea that maybe an annulment was hasty. Perhaps he could convince her to give their marriage as shot. And, if she insisted on ending it, he at least wanted to enjoy his conjugal rights if his relationship record suffered another black mark.
For a few seconds, a moment ago, he’d thought that she was hurt by the idea of him not wanting his mom to find out they were temporarily married. Just a flash of something across her face that had hit him wrong.
“Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her dainty breasts up. He couldn’t not look. There wasn’t much about her that he didn’t want to look at.
“Why is it a bad thing? For you, I mean? My mother will lose her mind and light St. Patrick’s on fire with the number of candles it will take to save my soul if we get divorced.” Not to mention what he’d have to deal with from his father. He hated the sting of rebuke he felt from the man. His father was a lion of the business world. But, like male lions in the wild who killed their young, he only respected strength. Two divorces would stink of weakness all the way to Chicago.
Even more than he wanted to avoid censure from his parents, he wanted to know why she was so freaked out by the idea of marrying him. He stepped closer to her and her breath caught, making his dick go more than half-hard.
“Do you have any idea how competitive the world of ballet is?”
He’d thrown in the money for a web series on the American Ballet Theatre School in New York last year, so he had a fleeting understanding.
“A vague one.”
She nodded and her lips turned into a thin line. “If word gets out that I’ve run off and gotten married, the piranhas will start circling.”
“Who are the piranhas?”
“The corps de ballet.”
“Aren’t they—like—your backup dancers?”
She let out a short laugh. “No, they’re the enemy.”
Charlie couldn’t help but smile at the militant set to her jaw. Seeing her so worked up and passionate had him even more determined to get some time with her, to touch her velvet-soft skin and make her grit her teeth with pleasure. He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping to get ahold of himself. “I’ve gotta admit, your military metaphor kind of has me even more turned on.”
She blushed and let out a huff of breath. “Of course, you don’t understand.”
“I understand, but there’s no reason anyone has to find out that we got married.”
“We don’t even know how many people already know.” The panic in her voice decidedly did not turn him on—in fact, he’d do just about anything to assuage it.
“We’re connected through your cousin and my best friend. If we go out to dinner and someone”—he stepped closer to her—“sees us, they’ll probably just assume that we’re dating. You know? Like real people.”
“I’m not real people.” Again, with the school teacher voice that got him hard.
“Sure felt real to me at the wedding.” He ran one finger over her forearm, and the electricity between them nearly set him on his heels.
The flush underneath her olive skin travelled all the way to her hairline when he said that, and he knew she was remembering what they’d done to each other. How shamelessly greedy she’d been with her kisses, how generous with her moans. He wanted that girl back, and he knew he could get her at dinner.
“Just one dinner.” He smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear, almost feeling her heart skip with just that light touch. “I’d like to know a little bit about the woman I married.”
“But no sex?”
That almost sounded like a complaint, but he was going to let it go. He didn’t need to scare her off with the possibility that given some candlelight, delicious food, and his massive flirting ability, they wouldn’t be able to resist ending up naked and sweaty—and in a very real, very consummated marriage.
He put two fingers up in a salute he remembered from the Boy Scouts. “Scout’s honor.”
Her eyes narrowed into slits, and he had to bite his lip to stop from laughing when she said, “You were a Boy Scout? Shocking.”
“Why’s that shocking?”
“It just seems so—wholesome.”
“I’m a very wholesome guy.”
“Yeah, a wholesome guy who marries a strange woman and sticks his hand up her skirt at a wedding.”
“Hey, you called yourself strange, and I’ve only ever done that once.”
“You did a pretty good job with the hand/skirt thing for your first time.”
It was his turn to blush. “You’ve given me enough shit. Agree to dinner.”
“Fine. Sunday night.”
It might be the least romantic night of the week, but he’d take it.
Chapter 3
“Abuela!!!!!”
Laura’s yell echoed through her loft condo. She’d lived with roommates—other dancers—until recently, when Carla, Jonah, and the baby had moved to a house together. Carla had called her up one day, asked a criminally low price for the condo and popped the keys in her mail.
A few days later, her grandma Lola had shown up with a suitcase and ensconced herself in the guest bedroom. Laura welcomed the time with her grandmother, who she hadn’t seen much growing up. She’d had a convenient excuse because it had been difficult until recently to travel to Cuba, which Lola had refused to leave for decades after her children and ex-husband had moved to the mainland. But even if the borders had been open, Laura wouldn’t have been able to spend school vacations in her ancestral homeland. She hadn’t had school vacations; she’d had ballet.
Sometimes, when she returned home from rehearsal, she felt suffocated by Lola’s presence. They didn’t really know each other, and Lola had a big personality, the kind that swept a person up and set them down when it was good and done with them. Lola was like the twister from The Wizard of Oz. Except less predictable.
But tonight, Laura’s condo was silent, and she was a bit a disappointed. If ever a girl needed her grandmother’s good counsel, it was when she’d accidentally gotten married to a dashing stranger at a tropical destination wedding.
And then agreed to date him.
From what Lola had told her about her past, which was way TMI, it seemed like precisely the kind of situation that Lola had gotten herself into and out of plenty of times over the years.
Laura pulled one of her pre-cooked meals out of the fridge and turned the oven on to low heat. She’d hired a service to bring her nutritionally balanced, low-calorie food every week so she didn’t have to think about it. Everything in her life was like that—suited and engineered to the life she’d chosen for herself. Looking down at her sad three ounces of salmon and par-cooked broccoli—no oil, no salt, no flavor—she wondered if it was worth it.
Seeing herself on that tape earlier, looking wild and carefree, was in stark contrast to how she’d felt later, at rehearsal. Dancing at her cousin’s wedding, she’d looked happy. Thinking back, that whole weekend—far away from the company—she’d felt free. Rehearsing a new production of Carmen, she’d been scolded multiple times regarding her face. Apparently, she’d looked too sad to be a believable destitute sex worker. Her face was telling the story of being burnt out, tired, and sore all the time. It wasn’t the kind of soreness she could shake off with a trip to the trainer, a massage, or even a frigid ice bath. It was the kind of soreness that told her she was approaching her