Best Friend Bride

She had to have another reason for being here. And all at once, he wanted to know what it was.

Four

Ten minutes into dinner, Jonas figured out his grandfather’s angle. The wily old man was trying to drive him insane with doubt about pulling off this ruse, especially now that he had impulses of the heart echoing through his head. Jonas was almost dizzy from trying to track all the verbal land mines that might or might not be strewn through random conversational openers.

Even “pass the butter” had implications. Grandfather hated butter.

And if Grandfather failed at putting Jonas in the loony bin, Viv was doing her part to finish the job, sitting

next to him looking fresh and beautiful as she reminded him on a second-by-second basis that she was well within touching distance. Not just easily accessible. But available to be touched. It was expected. Would a loving husband sling his arm across the back of her chair? Seemed reasonable.

But the moment he did it as he waited for his mom to serve the kimchi stew she’d made in honor of Grandfather’s visit, Viv settled into the crook of his elbow, which had not been his intent at all. She fit so well, he couldn’t help but let his arm relax so that it fully embraced her and somehow his fingers ended up doing this little dance down her bare arm, testing whether the silkiness felt as good all the way down as it did near her shoulder.

It did.

“...don’t you think, Jonas?”

Blinking, Jonas tore his attention away from his wife’s skin and focused on his dad. “Sure. I definitely think so.”

“That’s great,” Brian said with a nod and a wink. “It wasn’t a stretch to think you’d be on board.”

Fantastic. What in the world had he just agreed to that had his father winking, of all things? Jonas pulled his arm from around Viv’s shoulders. At this point, it seemed like everyone was convinced they were a couple and all the touching had done nothing but distract him.

Viv leaned in, her hand resting on his thigh. It was dangerously close to being in his lap. One small shift would do it, and his muscles strained to repeat the experience. But before he could sort her intention, she murmured in his ear, “We’re playing Uno later. As a team. You’ll have to teach me.”

Card games with a hard-on. That sounded like the opposite of fun. But at least he knew what he’d absently agreed to, and shot Viv a grateful smile. Her return smile did all sorts of things that it shouldn’t have, not the least of which was give him the sense that they were coconspirators. They were in this farce together and he appreciated that more than he could say. At least they could laugh about this later. Or something.

Grandfather was watching him closely as he spooned up a bite of stew, and Jonas braced for the next round of insanity. Sure enough, Grandfather cleared his throat.

“Will you and your bride be starting a family soon?”

Not this again and from his grandfather, too? Obviously Jonas’s mother had a vested interest in the answer strictly because she wanted babies to spoil, but Grandfather wasn’t asking for anything close to that reason. It was all part of the test.

“Not soon,” he hedged because family was important to the Kims. It was a source of frustration for both his parents and his grandparents that they’d only had one child apiece, and Jonas imagined they’d all be thrilled if he said Viv wanted a dozen. “Viv owns a bakery and it’s doing very well. She’d like to focus on her career for a while.”

Yes. That was the reason they weren’t having kids right away. Why had he been racking his brain over that? Except now he was thinking about the conversation where he had to tell everyone that while he cared about Viv, they were better as friends, so the marriage was over. While it soothed his sense of honor that it was the truth, he’d never considered that the annulment would upset his family.

“We’re having her cupcakes for dessert,” his mother threw in with a beaming smile. “They look scrumptious.”

Perfect segue and took some heat off a subject that Jonas suddenly did not want to contemplate. “The lemon are my favorite. One bite and that was when I decided I couldn’t let Viv get away.”

The adoring glance she shot him thumped him in the gut. The little secret smile playing about her lips worked in tandem, spreading tendrils of heat through him in ways that should be uncomfortable at a table full of Kims who were all watching him closely. But the sensation was too enjoyable to squelch.

“Honestly, that was when I knew he was special,” Viv admitted, and Jonas nearly did a double take at the wistful note in her voice. “He appreciates my cupcakes in a way regular customers don’t. A lot goes into the recipes and I don’t just mean my time. It’s a labor of love, born out of a desire to make people happy, and I can see on his face that I’ve done that. Most customers just devour the thing without stopping to breathe, but Jonas always takes one bite and immediately stops to savor it. Then he tells me how great it is before taking another bite.”

Well, yeah, because he could taste the sunshine in it, as if she’d somehow condensed a few rays and woven them through the ingredients. How could he not take his time to fully appreciate the unique experience of a Viviana Dawson cupcake?

Jonas blinked, dragging his lids down over his suddenly dry eyes. He didn’t do that every time, not the way she was describing it, as if a cupcake held all that meaning.

He glanced at his mom, who looked a little misty.

“That sounds like a magical courtship,” she said.

“Oh, it was,” Viv agreed enthusiastically. “It was like one of those movies where the hero pretends he only wants the cupcakes when he comes into the shop, but it’s really to see the baker. But I always knew from the first that the way to his heart was through my frosting.”

His mother laughed and Jonas checked his eye roll because the whole point was to sell this nonsense. Everyone was eating it up, no pun intended, so why mess with the ridiculous story Viv was spinning?

Except the whole thing made him uncomfortable.