Page 16 of The Witch is Back

He hated this. All the questions that popped up like hands at a press conference. He desperately wished he could go back to a time when it was just the two of them against the world. His closest friend.

“I shouldn’t have phrased it like that.” She pressed her lips together. “Maybe a better word would be official. I know this marriage has to be official, but it will be in name only.”

“In name only?”

She seemed to pick her words carefully. “I’ll marry you, but we won’t live together and be a—a couple. I’ll live in Chicago. I’ll still work at the bar. At my own place.”

He wanted to ask why she’d chosen a bar, why she’d left, but this wasn’t about them becoming friends again. This was about saving his mom. Keeping Emmaline happy was key to that.

“And me?” he prompted.

She shrugged. “You can do what you want. Like you always have.”

Ouch.

“You want to live separate lives.” He repeated it for clarity.

She nodded.

Vows were for life. That was just understood in their society, which was why marriage contracts and family bloodlines were so important.

He cocked his head. “Don’t you want children?”

The color that had just vacated her cheeks hurried back. He almost grinned at the familiar sight. Her arms drifted to her sides. “Maybe,” she whispered.

Testing her, he eased closer, slipping into his old charming façade. “You know how kids are made, right?” He swirled a finger, had a strand of her hair dance playfully around her face.

She shot him a look. “Yes.”

“Then you know we’d have to be together at least some of the time. And a lot closer.”

She batted her hair. “Stop it.”

“Make me.”

“You’re a child.”

“Yes.” A true grin pulled at his mouth as an exasperated breath puffed from her.

“Fine. Let me revise that. In name for now.” She pointedly ignored his teasing so he let her hair drift down. “Maybe we could, I don’t know, revisit it again in twenty years.”

“Ten.” He didn’t know why he’d countered. Maybe he was just being an ass, but he was also a man and she wore irritated well. “But we can live apart for now. If that’s what you want.”

“Don’t pretend you want to be married,” she said. “I’m just saying what we’re both thinking.”

He didn’t even know what he was thinking anymore, but he did know he needed her to marry him. So he nodded. If it was possible, her mouth pulled even tighter.

What had he done now?

He moved on. “Okay, living apart. For now. You’ll keep your job, I can do whatever.”

“Or whoever.”

Swear to the Goddess, he thought he’d heard that wrong. A full thirty seconds passed. “You did not just say that.”

Irritation mixed with obvious embarrassment, but she jerked a shoulder. “I’m serious. I’m not really going to be your wife. I don’t expect fidelity.”

A weird, misplaced anger completely at odds with his doubts stewed in his stomach. “Well, you should. Hell, Emmaline—”

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