Page 49 of One Foggy Christmas
Hardly. He’s attractive, and by the look of his clothes, shoes, and day bag, he’s wealthy, or successful, or both.
He sets the water bottle on my tray table. “Do you want the real answer of why you married me, or were you just thinking out loud?”
“It’s hard to figure out how I went from being with Stetson to being married to you.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Disappointing, huh?”
I roll my lips together. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Nash slowly drops to the edge of my mattress, leaning his back against the footrail of the bed. He kicks one leg up, mirroring my position from the opposite end. I might’ve been uncomfortable with his nearness, but he’s so calm and casual that I don’t feel too anxious about it.
He cocks one brow. “After everything you’ve seen of me tonight, isn’t it obvious why you fell for me?”
Is he implying I was shallow enough to fall for his body—more specifically, his tight butt and thighs? I blink back at him, unsure how to respond, because, at this point, falling for his good looks seems more plausible than falling for his personality.
“I’m obviously talking about my charm and wit.” Judging by the gleam in his eyes, he wasnottalking about those things.
Was he this flirtatious when he was my boss? I’m one step away from calling Human Resources and slapping him with a sexual harassment complaint—if his place of employment even has an HR department.
“I’m just not convinced that we’re actually married.”
“Really?” He crosses his arms, leaning back even more, as if enjoying himself. “So the wedding, marriage certificate, and the joint apartment…none of that is real?”
“All of that can be real, but the marriage is fake.”
“And why would we need a fake marriage?”
“Maybe you’re blackmailing me. You found out something about me that I didn’t want people to know, and now you’re forcing me into this marriage.”
I’m grasping at straws. We both know it.
Nash does his best to hold back his smile, but he’s not fooling anyone. “So what is this big thing I’m holding over you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
He nods a few times as if he’s thinking through everything I just said. “Or is it more likely that you moved to Chicago because you were bored with your bland life and bland relationship?Once you got here, your boss—that’s me, by the way”—he says it like a sidenote—“charmed the socks off of you until you couldn’t resist falling head over heels for him.”
“No, that doesn’t seem likely. I loved Stetson. Why would I leave him for you?”
The first sign of hurt dots his eyes, and I feel terrible for putting it there.
“I…uh…” My gaze drops as I scratch the back of my head. “Sorry, that came out worse than I intended.”
“Listen, I know it’s easier to focus on what you remember than what you don’t. I get why you’re hung up on pushing me away, but there’s so much more to our relationship and life than those first details of how we got together. I hoped you’d want to know about the other stuff—the things that made us great together, the life we’ve built.”
That’s the stuff I’m not ready to hear.
“I can’t handle everything right now. I just need a little crumb of information about how we came to be.”
“A crumb of information? Okay, I can give you that.” He stares back at me, and I try to find myself in his green eyes, but nothing’s there. “So, back to the beginning. You applied for my internship in Chicago, and I thought you were pretty amazing, so I hired you. My gut has never been wrong.”
I remember Professor Takimori mentioning an internship in Chicago that I should apply for, but that’s where my memory ends.
“So I got the internship, moved to Chicago, immediately fell in love with you, and broke up with Stetson?”
His lips press into a small smile. “It was a little more involved than that.”
“I would hope so.”
