Page 28 of One Wealthy Wedding

Right. Last night, when I was busy getting drunk, she was directing the movers. I grunt in response.

“The bedroom next door to yours has the best bed. A firm mattress, with a plush topper. Surely you won’t mind?”

I mind. I very much mind. I do not want her close to me. “Catherine. Go away. It’s early.”

“It’s ten a.m.”

“So?” I finally look her in the eye, which turns out to be a mistake. She’s sleep-tousled and trusting in the morning. A fresh face, plump pink lips, and those damn nipples. I could tongue them through the silk. I bet they’d get hard and sensitive. I run a hand through my hair, glad that, for once, I wore a shirt to bed. I don’t need to be even one inch closer to naked. I might tease Cat about sleeping with me, but if it ever happened, it would be on my terms. Not in my bed and never at her behest. Ideally, I’d be wearing clothes, I’d fuck her against a wall, and then I’d walk away forever.

“Don’t you want to…I don’t know, get brunch or something? Pretend to be a couple? Nurse our woes over a Bloody Mary that’s more vodka than tomato juice? Or whatever it is you dissolute sorts do on a Saturday morning?”

“Us dissolute sorts are usually not up this early. You know, with the hangovers and all. I’d usually be getting ready for round two or three.” I give her a cocky grin full of sensual meaning. It should send her scurrying.

She stares calmly back.

“Okay.” She shrugs. “I’m going to study. I thought I’d ask. Since you were the one in a froth about making this marriage seem real.” She turns and walks down the hall. I can see the bottom curve of her butt under her silk shorts.

“I don’t froth,” I shout down the hall. “I’m very calculating. Good at what I do, you know.”

“Sure, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” I grumble before shutting myself in my room.

When I stride into the kitchen thirty minutes later, she’s there, because of course she is, and her head is bent over what looks like a textbook.

“I didn’t go back to sleep after you barged in this morning.”

“I’m very sorry,” she murmurs, but her lips curve up. Her pen is in her mouth, her full lips closed around the tip. I turn abruptly to the fridge.

“There’s no food. I checked,” she says.

“I don’t need food. Besides, there’s beer.”

“Can’t have beer for breakfast,” she says primly.

“Watch me,” I growl. But I don’t go for the beer. I skate straight past the healthy shit Cole makes me buy. I don’t blame her for not wanting that. Hidden in the bottom drawer are all the treats I buy for myself—chocolate mousse, caviar, illegal unpasteurized cheese. I go for chocolate mousse, and when I sit down at the table, Catherine ignores me while I peel the gold foil off the top.

“You look fresh,” I remark.

“Feeling like crap?” She underlines something in her textbook and glances up, a half smile pulling at the lips I was just fantasizing about. “You got in late last night.”

I scowl at her. She’s too pretty and distracting, and I’m particularly weak this morning. Letting her move in was a bad idea.

“I’m fine. Like you said, I’ll just have a Bloody Mary and be right as rain.” More like forty-five minutes of laps and some electrolytes. “How do you know when I got in?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugs. “It being a new house and all. And I never sleep well. You know that.”

I do remember that about her. She was always ready for late-night mischief because she never slept.

“Do you want a tour?” I probably should have given her one last night, but I was too focused on forgetting about my problems.

“Maybe later,” she says absently. She makes a humming sound and underlines something in her textbook. She won’t even look at me.

“What are you studying?”

“Nothing at all, with the way you keep talking to me.” She flips to the back of her book, looks at a financial statement, and flips back. I smother a smile.

“Come on, wife. Talk to me. We’re supposed to get to know each other.”

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