Page 35 of The Promises We Break

“Let me understand. You knew your parents wouldn’t let you move here for a job. So you told them you met someone, in an entirely different state, and they were okay with you leaving? Alone?”

“Yeah.” She chuckles shyly. “Ass backward, right?”

“It’s not Elliot specific?” I ask.

“Nope, not for me, at least. I mean, we dated, and my parents think he’s God’s gift to… well, everything. He was my boyfriend during some of my college years and my next-door neighbor. He sort of works for my dad, and my dad has been pushing Elliot to propose because it really helps his campaign, even bought the ring for him and everything.

“I’ve never had a desire to be married.” She gives me another shy smile, even though her statement feels like a stab in the heart, considering we areactuallymarried. On paper, at least.

“My mother is at my dad’s beck and call. What he likes, she likes. His good days are her good days. His bad moods are her bad moods. She’s never had a life of her own. I don’t want that for myself. I want a career and a life that I choose... for me,” she confesses.

I cross an arm over my chest, using it as leverage for my other. I press my mouth into the back of my hand to mask my face.

I am obsessed with a woman who is terrified of relationships.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

“So, you see, Hud, this is a perfect setup. I can fake it for your coach, and you can help me get my parents off my back for a bit. We just have to promise each other we won’t make it complicated with feelings during this little arrangement of ours. After that, we’ll just have the paperwork to clean up the whole accidental marriage thing. It’s a win-win for us both.”

Fuck. That.

Not only did she eliminate a future with me, she called me “Hud”, sentencing me to the goddamn friend zone.

Pushing this, pushing her, isn’t going to work out well for me.

I have to keep this light, unless I want to keep seeing the back of her head.

“Okay. Cross my heart and hope to die. No complications,” putting an X on my chest.

“Oh no, I don’t like that. It’s too morbid.” She places her elbow on the counter and holds her pinky out to me. “Pinky promise.”

“Pinky promise? I don’t think I’ve pinky promised anyone since grade school, little red,” I quip back with a chuckle.

“It’s better than crossing your heart, hoping to die! Who came up with that, anyway?”

She’s not wrong.

I slip my pinky in hers, my eyes bouncing back and forth between her eyes, lips, and our intertwined pinky promise that I know is impossible to uphold. There is no way I can stop myself from the feelings I have brewing inside me, and it’s the first time I have no intention of keeping my word.

She releases our bond, and I realize how much I hate it when I’m not touching her.

“So, not only do you need me to attend this... what kind of event is it?” I don’t think she said.

“My parents’ wedding anniversary,” she replies quickly.

My face flashes a pinch of shock before recovering. “Yourparents’ weddinganniversary?”

She just nods, biting into another strawberry, and the way her lips wrap around the base is ridiculously distracting.

“Well, you’re going to owe me. Big time.” I exaggerate the ‘big’ part.

“What? How so?” she whines a bit.

“Attending your parents’ wedding anniversaryandyou need a place to stay for the next two weeks. That’s two favors. The playing field is no longer even. Oh, how the tables have turned, Mrs. Byrnes,” I say to her with a smile.

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head with a smile. She leans forward, crooking her finger at me. So, I lean in to meet her.

“For as long as you get to call meMrs. Byrnes, we’re even, Mr. Byrnes.” Her whisper of mister and missus is playful and sounds so goddamn sexy.

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