Fake Marriage (Contemporary Romance Box Set)

“Please call me Joyce.”

“Joyce. I have a suite down this hall. Again, we can redecorate it as you’d like.”

“Oh, I don’t know that I’ll be staying that much.”

“Well, for when you are here.” I opened the door and like Mason, she seemed a bit in awe of it. It was a reminder of how for

tunate I was financially.

“Erica, there’s the room you stayed—”

“Simon.” She gave me a knowing smile as she pressed her hand on my chest. “We’re married, remember?” Then I saw a flash of vulnerability. As if she worried that maybe I didn’t want the full benefits of marriage and family.

I put my hand over hers before she could remove it. “I didn’t forget. I just wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

“What do you want?”

“I want it all. I want you and Mason, and a mother-in-law,” I said with a quick glance to Joyce.

“I don’t think in the history of the world a man has ever said he wanted a mother-in-law,” Joyce laughed.

I smiled. “I do. I want a real family Erica.” My heart stalled in my chest as I waited for her to respond.

“Simon, don’t you know? You do have a real family.”

We finished the tour and I took them down to the kitchen where we celebrated with cookies and champagne, milk for Mason.

Later, I watched in awe as Erica put him to bed.

“Good night daddy,” Mason called to me while I stood at the door.

Erica nodded her head for me to join them, but it felt like I was entering a sacred moment.

Mason held his arms out, so I hugged him and kissed him on the head. “Good night, champ.”

Mason grinned. “Champ!”

“You go to sleep little man,” Erica told him. “No wondering around the house okay? Do you remember where grandma’s room is? And daddy’s.”

“Yep.”

“If you need something, you go to grandma or us, okay.”

“’k.”

I needed to get baby monitors, I thought. I couldn’t risk him wandering around the house and getting hurt. I scanned my brain to remember if I locked the pool room.

When we finished tucking him in, I led Erica to my bedroom. Her eyes took in the grandeur. The large four poster bed. The window overlooking the Nebraska prairie lit by the moon.

“We can change this too…if you’ll be staying.”

She turned to me. “Tell me you want me, Simon.”

“I want you.” I pulled her to me. “But you have a job and a life—”

She pressed her fingers over my lips. “I can work anywhere.”

“I thought your job at—”