Page 46 of Just My Fake Husband

She swallows hard, her gaze out the window. “It’s just been a wild day, that’s all.”

“A lot of changes, yes.”

A chuckle bursts out of her. “Right? This is hands down the most wild thing I’ve ever done.”

“Except for that weekend in Prague, this is a close second.”

She cringes loudly. “I don’t know, that was one twenty-four-hour period. This is for an entire year. I think this is more wild.”

“Agree to disagree.”

She shakes her head and sniffs. “No matter what, it hardly feels real. It hasn’t hit me yet.”

“Me, neither.”

We reach the house, and she gasps a third time. Is this a thing for her? The gasping at everything? I can’t decide if I like it or not.

“You weren’t kidding when you said it was tiny.”

“I think you’re going to like it,” I assure her.

I ease the Bronco into the detached garage around back. And as I open the door to the house, I don’t miss that in a normal scenario, I’d be carrying her over the threshold of this place. I would love to hold her in my arms like that.

I let out a short, hot breath. I have to get over thinking like this. I can’t let her beauty get to me.

This is going to be a very long year.

Chapter 16

River

Gabriel insists when we enter the house that I get the bedroom, and he doesn’t need to ask twice. Because holy cow. I might never again get a chance to stay in the actual Venn diagram of a luxury home, a tiny haven, and a twenty-first century reimagining of the Sistine chapel.

I know it sounds impossible, but you’ve got to trust me on this. It’s the smallest bit of opulence I’ve ever seen. The finishes are high end, the ceiling is high, the walls thick and hung with rich, textured wallpaper.

Somehow, it all works.

“Crazy, huh?” Gabriel says, grinning at my jaw dropping at the gold and smoked crystal chandelier in the kitchen.

“There’s a chandelier in every room, I think,” I say.

He nods. “Even the bathroom.”

The tour is short because I’m guessing the cottage is barely pushing nine hundred square feet.

“Who built this?” I ask as I sit on the bed, bouncing a little on the mattress straight from heaven. “And why so small? Obviously, they have the money to go much bigger.”

He’s filling in the whole space of the doorway with his broad, long swimmer/runner physique.

Seriously, how am I going to look at him for a year without my feelings going out of control?

“My friends said they wanted to keep all the trees up here, so they built it in this natural clearing,” he says.

“Wow.”

“Steve and Meagan lived here for a year or so before deciding to move to a vineyard in Italy. They said they’ll come back eventually.”

“And we’re housesitting? Just paying for utilities and maintenance?”

---