Page 50 of The Marriage Bid
My mouth widened with my best business smile. “What do you think?”
Richie raised his head. “I think we can work with it. It does not seem like an insane proposition. Right, Ty?” When he turned to Tyler, he stopped talking.
“Can you all leave me with Miss Channing, please?” Tyler’s command did not need repeating. They all filed out, leaving their laptops, pens, and notebooks.
“Anything wrong with what I said?”
“Not what you’ve said, but what you’ve done.”
I glanced back at the slide, trying to work out what he might be referring to. Everything about this project has so far been above board. If I didn’t let Tyler know of any hiccups, his second-in-command would be the next person I spoke to. “I don’t follow.”
“You were flirting with a married man again.”
“Oh my god, not this.” I crossed my arms.
He got up and stalked over to me. I stood my ground. He was not going to scare me, and that’s what he wanted to do. “It’s not right.”
“And you are a married man cheating on his wife. You ceded the moral ground a long time ago.”
He smirked. I don’t know what it was with him today, but he looked more handsome than before. The double-breasted pinstriped suit paired with a waistcoat and a maroon tie would have looked comically old-fashioned on anyone his age, but he wore it like a classic eighties Master of the Universe. “Are you jealous?”
“No more jealous than you are.”
His smirk widened as though I had admitted to something he had been assuming all along. “Is that why you ran away at the marathon last week?” He took a step forward. I remained standing.
“I had work to do, that’s it. And besides, I didn’t want to cockblock my cheating husband.”
“Right. Because you care so much for Lauren. Why didn’t you tell her then, if my cheating, as you call it, is so immoral?”
“I feel sorry for the woman, pure and simple. She has to date someone fickle like you.”
“Why? I plan on marrying her.”
My balance wobbled, and I had to reach for the table to maintain it. He planned on getting married? So he was serious about looking for a wife. They did not seem serious the last timeI met them. However, he had declared to everyone that she was his girlfriend. He was probably serious about her.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Does she know?”
“That I want to marry her? No, but she fits the bill.”
“The bill?” Then I remembered his little list. He didn’t love her. He was only dating her because she fit the bill. “Now I really feel sorry for her.”
He tilted his head to the side. “You act as though you were married to me for real.”
“I have enough experience in our marriage to know that her life is going to be hell,” I scoffed. “She’s dating a cheater.”
“Is that so? And here I was thinking you and I were getting divorced. Isn’t the period we’re in called separation? People date other people during separation.”
“We’ve been separated since you and I got married.”
“That’s why I don’t understand why you care so much. Unless, of course,” he stepped closer, “you still want me.”
I wanted to push him away. I should have, but his intoxicating scent drove me to say something I never would have had the confidence to say if this were five years ago. “Why did you never kiss me?”
The question caught him off guard. “What?”
“Why? Do you have a little quirk? Are you afraid of women’s lips? Why?”
I stepped closer until my lips were brushing his neck. He did not push me away. Instead, he bent his head and brushed his lips against my neck, licking and biting like a vampire about to devour its prey. Then I twisted my neck and placed my lips on his, giving him the kiss I had always wanted to give him. Taking his lips into mine, I kissed him like I had imagined so many times when I was a kid.
