Marriage For One

“Are you okay?”

Her hand shot up. “No, sit. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’ve bugged you enough, so you just get back to work.”

“You could never bug me, Rose.”

She froze then laughed, and for the first time, it seemed forced and tight. Her eyelids drooped and she glanced at the floor. Pushing her hand behind her back, she moved it around until she was able to grasp the door handle and open it. Eyes on me, she backed out of my room.

“Nice touch—a very husbandly thing to say. So, good night then.”

“Sweet dreams,” I said, and she hesitated as she was closing the door.

“What did you say?”

“Sweet dreams.”

“That might be a very, very bad idea, so let’s all have normal dreams instead—normal and alone dreams.”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes, studying her expression. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Perfect. A little flustered, actually, because kissing you is a little weird, so excuse my weird behavior.”

I raised an eyebrow, confused. “Kissing me is weird?”

“Yeah. You know, you’re my husband, blah blah blah, but also you’re not, blah blah blah.” Sniffing, she gasped and suddenly tilted her head back. “I’m going to sneeze. Okay. Bye.” She slammed the door shut, leaving me staring after her, confused.

I crossed the room and opened the door, listening to her running up the stairs and then hearing another door slam shut.

I walked back to my desk with controlled steps and took my seat. The email was still open, waiting for me to send a response. I was feeling much better than I did just five minutes before. My mind consumed with Rose, it took me a while to gather myself enough to form one simple sentence and press send.

You even think of threatening me again, I’ll turn your sorry excuse of a life into a living hell, Joshua.

Chapter Sixteen

Rose

It was caramel week, and Owen had baked four different caramel treats while I had tackled our basics—sandwiches, brownies, and berry muffins. Even our basics tended to change day by day since we were such a new place, but in a month or so we’d have a more set menu after we got to know our customers and learned what they enjoyed more.

On Monday, I had taken my usual ride with Raymond at five and had joined Owen in the kitchen as soon as I got in. Sally had come in an hour after me, earlier than her usual time. The mystery was solved when she started trying her best to flirt with a straight-faced Owen.

“You think you could teach me how to make this salted caramel banana bread? It’s really good.”

Owen just grunted and kept working the dough in his hands. He was making cinnamon buns, my absolute favorite.

Sally gave me a wide-eyed look and rolled her eyes. She was relentless. Resting her elbows on the marble workspace that dominated the center of the kitchen, she pushed him some more.

“I’ll cook you something. What’s your favorite food? I can’t bake to save my life, but I can cook.”

“If you can’t bake, what makes you think you’ll be able to make banana bread?” Owen asked, his eyes and hands busy, busy, busy.

Sally just slid a little closer to him. “You can teach me. I’m sure if you teach me, I’ll get the hang of it, and from what I understand, banana bread isn’t that hard to make.”

“Can you back off a little? You’re gonna be covered in flour if you come any closer.”

Barely holding back my burst of laughter before I attracted Owen’s fierce frown, I turned away from the doorway and focused on stacking up the sandwiches under the glass dome. Owen didn’t like anyone messing with his routine. He barely tolerated me working alongside him for a few hours in the mornings, so even though he sounded rude, it was just his way, not to mention he was also a very private person.

“Would you like me to make you coffee?” I heard Sally push on, ignoring his rudeness.

As Owen grunted a nonverbal response that didn’t quite reach my ears, I couldn’t help but lean back to take a peek into the kitchen. Sally had been dismissed to her original starting point right across from him.

“How about cinnamon buns then?” Her voice was still upbeat and positive.

“What about them?”

“Can you teach me how to make cinnamon buns? It looks like a lot of fun, all the rolling and cinnamon stuff.”

“Stuff… Don’t you have work to do at the front? It’s almost opening time.”

I bit down on my lip and got back to my own work. Owen was somewhat like Jack— essentially, not a fan of using a lot of words. Speaking of Jack…I was still experiencing the effects of my dream and then everything that had happened after it. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d been thinking when I’d decided to work on our kissing technique, but at the time, trying to see if what I had felt at the charity event was a one-time thing or not seemed like a good idea. Maybe my dream was the driving force behind me having the bravery to face him, but I couldn’t complain. The second kiss was just as good as the first one, maybe even better because we’d been all alone in his study, away from all the curious eyes. It was still temporary, this thing between us, but the dream had shifted something inside me, I felt it with every fiber of my being.