Page 85 of One Wealthy Wedding

I guess I deserve that. “Pass.”

“You can’t pass.”

“I’ll give you another dare.”

He snorts. “You’re not going to be happy when I come to collect. I’m going to make you do something wicked, Catherine. Maybe I’ll make you stand here next time I’m solo. With your back turned. So you can’t see anything, and all you can do is…imagine.” He breathes the last word, and I flee the room.

His laugh follows me all the way down the hall.

“Cat,” I hear. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

“Go away.” I put a pillow over my head and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Cat.” Theo laughs. “You’re worse than I am.”

“Divorce me,” I grumble. “It would be better than this.”

“We’re doing your bucket list.”

I shove the pillow off and sit up. Theo’s holding two tumblers of coffee and wearing a grin that says he knows I want to stab him, and he prefers it that way.

He holds one up. “Still want to divorce me? It’s hazelnut.”

I hold my hands out, and he passes me the tumbler. He’s in black sweats, with his hair ruffled and his eyes sleepy. How he’d look if we woke up together.

Oh, baby, I’m so close.

I sip the coffee and avoid looking at him.

“How’d you sleep?” He’s smirking at me, like he knows where my thoughts are.

“Great,” I snap. Terribly. I went back to sleep at three a.m. with an ache between my legs and the knowledge that Theo was on the other side of the wall.

“No bad dreams?” He smiles, lazy and satisfied. “Or good dreams, as it were?”

I scoot off the bed and stand. Theo chokes a breath. That’ll teach him. I’m wearing a silk sleep shirt I bought yesterday, and it barely covers my ass. If I’m going to be unsettled, then he will be too.

“Much as I hate to tell you to cover up, we’re going on the roof,” he drawls. Not unsettled enough, I guess.

I pull a sweater and jeans out of my drawer and yank the shirt over my head. Theo’s sharp inhale is loud in the silent room.

“Little warning?”

“What can I say?” I turn to him as I pull the sweater over my bare skin. His eyes are on my stomach and my lace thong, flicking over me like he wants to memorize every detail. “I’m not feeling charitable about being woken up early.”

“Not a morning person?” His mouth hitches up.

“You know I’m not.” As a teenager, I slept late. I never sleep well, and the morning hours are my best sleep. The hours after dawn feel safer, like my body can finally relax.

“I thought maybe you grew out of it.”

“I didn’t,” I say shortly, grabbing my tumbler and gesturing for him to precede me. “Onward into the depths of hell.”

Theo snorts a laugh. “It’s dawn, not torture.”

“They executed prisoners at dawn,” I say as I follow him down the hall to the stairs.

He tosses me a smile. “You say the sweetest things, wife.”

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