Page 23 of The Fiance Dilemma

A quick but deep chuckle left Matthew, falling right on my cheek. “You didn’t leave me any choice.” Some warmth traveled to my face, but for the most part, I was concerned with the spider-monkey hold I had on the man. “Josie?”

“Yes?” I croaked.

Matthew’s chest rose and fell with a sigh against mine. “What’s going on?”

I extricated my head from his neck and finally looked at his face. Boy, he was close. So much so that I could see the brown of his eyes had tiny specks of green. How had I missed that before? It must be the sunlight, making them shine and—

“Josie,” Matthew murmured, bringing me back.

I summoned an innocent smile. “Oopsie?”

Those eyes I’d been so caught on a moment ago dipped to my mouth. Briefly. “Oopsie?” His gaze returned to mine. “That’s your answer?”

It was a little hard to think when I could feel the imprint of his palm on the back of my thigh, even through my jeans. “Yes?” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. What was the question? And do you, ah, want me to jump off? I could. Just say the word.”

His arms didn’t loosen their hold around me. “Tell me who the woman you were racing is first. The one who’s still circling us like she’s waiting for something.”

Was that why he wasn’t dropping me on the ground? “That’d be Diane,” I explained. “She… Let’s say she’s very enthusiastic when it comes to newcomers. That’s why”—I glanced down at the small gap between our chests—“I did this. I’m protecting you from her. But don’t worry too much. It’s just Diane. Ignore her and she’ll go away. Just let me know when you’re ready for me to stop… protecting you.”

His eyes shifted behind me for a moment. “I don’t think it’s just her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every single person in the stands is staring. Do you have any idea why?”

“Oh. Right. So about that…” I made myself smile. “That’s because this is your hard launch. As my fiancé. Yay!”

We sat in the stands with equally stiff backs, pretending to watch the game.

“On a scale from zero being a golden retriever to ten being a rabid raccoon with a taste for pie, how mad about the surprise intro into society are you?” I ventured. “Be honest, please. I can take it.”

A long sigh left Matthew. He looked more resigned than mad to me. But for all I knew, he might have been secretly seething. “Do you think we should talk about this here?”

I looked around. The stands were packed. And everyone’s attention, as much as it had slowly shifted to the game, was still on us. Except for Grandpa Moe’s. He’d shown up just as my boots touched the ground and grumbled something unintelligible about a beetroot before heading for his usual spot in the front row. Since then, the cranky old man I loved to bits had gone to great lengths to pretend we didn’t exist.

It was my turn to sigh. “That’s a good point. We wouldn’t want anyone to think this wasn’t planned, or a trap to lock up my new man before he gets cold feet and flees town.” I glanced to my right, where a head full of permed curls I knew well protruded from the sea of people. I’d always had my suspicions the perm gave Diane her super-hearing powers, so I turned back to my newly and officially appointed fiancé and I scooted a little closer to him. “So… What do you want to talk about?”

“How about we watch the game?” Matthew offered. “The Grovesville Bears’ defense is starting to struggle.”

My brows arched. “So you’re not just pretending to watch?”

“They’re disorganized,” Matthew commented, his eyes on the grass. “Communication is off, and they’re giving the Warriors too much space.”

I returned my gaze to the game and watched, like really watched, for the first time. He was right. “Wow. It really is like they’ve left the back door wide open.” I stole a glance at the score. “And that explains the 4–0. Oh my God.” I clapped. “Go Warriors!”

“Exactly right,” he agreed. “Bears’ coach is more concerned about yelling than tightening them up.”

I could see as much. “You know,” I started, lowering my voice. “That woman, the Bears’ coach, she got into a little altercation with Cameron and Adalyn last year. During a game, while Cam was coaching the Warriors and Adalyn supervised the team.” Matthew glanced quickly at me, brows up. And I whispered, “She called Cama little bitch,and Adalyn got all worked up.” I chuckled. “I swear, I knew then that she had it bad for him.”

Matthew let out a laugh with a shake of his head. “Unbelievable. Who calls Cameron Caldania little bitch?”

I watched him return his attention to the pitch as if he didn’t want to miss too much of it, but my eyes stayed on his profile. So what I’d heard about Matthew was true. Baseball shirt. Defense talk. Man-crush on former soccer star Cameron Caldani. He really was a sports nerd.

“So… Why are you not working in something like this?” I asked. And the question must have felt just as out of the blue for him as it did for me, because it stole his attention from the ball. “Sports,” I explained. “Most journalists who arealsosports nerds end up following a team around the country or landing some kind of position as a correspondent or anchor.”

But not Matthew. He worked for an entertainment and celebrity news outlet. Or had worked, up until a few weeks ago. Neither Adalyn nor Cameron had ever gone into much detail about his departure, and it hadn’t been broached in our group chat. All Adalyn had told me was that Matthew had been asked to write about Andrew after theTimearticle that had attracted so muchattention, and that Matthew had refused. Adalyn never said it had been to protect her and Cameron, but it seemed like it. Why else would he refuse?

When he didn’t say anything, I felt the need to fill the silence. “I always wondered, that’s all. But we don’t need to talk about it. I can see it’s not a topic you want to discuss. And that’s fine.”

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