Paper Marriage Proposition (Gage Brothers 1)

It took him a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice could’ve melted the ground under her feet. “I don’t really care if you were faithful to Halifax, but I care that any woman with my name attached to hers is faithful to me.”

Faithful to Landon Gage…

Something effervescent slid through her veins, and an awful burn arrowed down her breasts to the warmed, aching place between her thighs. She felt branded, taken in a way that didn’t demand their clothes to be off, as Landon’s eyes sucked her into their depths and filled her body with a horrible ache.

“This is a mock marriage, but I still can’t risk making any mistakes for my son. I’m not and won’t be seeing anyone, period.” Her eyes narrowed as another thought occurred to her. “What about you? Will you be making the same guarantees?”

“Contrary to general beliefs, I’m not a womanizer.”

“But it takes just one woman to turn your life upside down,” Beth countered.

“I’m looking at her now.”

His succinct words and their unmistakable meaning flooded her with mortification, but they didn’t seem to have the same effect on him. Landon was utterly still; unapologetic, patient, male.

Bewildered, she pulled her attention back to the contract and inhaled once or twice, she couldn’t be sure. Her heart was still doing that flipping thing fish did when they were dying.

She kept hearing two words the lawyer had mentioned: intimately acquainted. “Our arrangement is strictly a…partnership. Right?” she said.

A tomb-like silence gripped the room.

His lack of response made her edgy. She stole a peek at Landon, and the intensity in his stare made her close her legs tight under the table. Hunger glimmered in the depths of his pupils, wanting, desire. Deeper warmth flagged her cheeks, hot as flames. “What is it, exactly, that you’re demanding of me?”

More silence. His face was as unreadable as a wall as he steepled his fingers before him. “All I demand, Beth, is your fidelity. If you want to sleep with someone—you’ll sleep with me.”

Oh, God, when Landon spoke that last, her skin went hot. He made it sound like a promise, a decree.

And though romance and sex were the last things on her mind right now, his ill-concealed interest stirred her interest and made her aware of how beautifully virile he was. His body had to be the most exquisite living sculpture she’d ever beheld. Landon filled the shoulders of his jacket, his broad, strong frame overpowering the chair. The air was so charged with his masculinity, Beth couldn’t help but remember she was female.

They engaged in an unsettling staring contest. The silence was finally interrupted by the brown-haired lawyer with the glasses who jumped up to the podium, sounding a bit flustered. “Well, then. On a private addendum that is to remain under Mr. Gage’s supervision, we state that after gaining custody of your child, the marriage will proceed for a short time, until the waters calm down,” he argued, his tone softer than White Hair’s. “And when the moment comes to part ways, Mr. Gage expects you to grant him a fast, discreet divorce in exchange for a small settlement, which you and your son can use to begin a new life.”

She couldn’t believe the discomfort of discussing this—her son, her economics, her future divorce—in a boardroom, and briefly she thought she’d rather her seat rear back and catapult her to the sky.

For some reason, her body pulsed with Landon’s stares, with his nearness. Each quiver and tingle of awareness reminded her of every want and need and craving not appeased for years, for a lifetime.

Stopping the lawyer in midsentence, she glared at the dark, still man across the table, and firmly whispered, “I don’t want your settlement. It’s you I want, you’re the only one who can hurt Hector.”

He betrayed no reaction, except that, on the table, his fingers slowly curled into his palm.

“Now, in

case any child results out of your union, Mr. Gage gets full custody,” the lawyer said.

Shock swept through Beth. “There will not be a child.”

Her reaction was so wild and instant, Landon threw his head back and gave a bark of laughter. The sound was such an unexpected rumble, striking such a discordant note with the rest of his composed self, it sent an uninvited jolt into her system. Outraged, she glowered. He really thought this funny?

To risk a child for a little bit of sex with the man!

“You’d take a child away from me?” Beth asked, disbelieving. “Is that any way to start a marriage? An association? A war team?”

His eyes danced in what seemed like mirth. “The way I see it, Beth, we start with honesty, which is more than I can say for my last marriage.” He sobered almost instantly, and his shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I distrust everyone, please understand.”

Her chest contracted. He could’ve reached inside her with those tanned, blunt hands and squeezed her heart.

Beth understood too well.

He’d lost one child, and he wouldn’t lose another.