“Look, I know this sounds insane,” I say carefully. “But think about it.”
“Think about what, exactly?”
“You need a knight in shining armor and five grand, right?”
She nods, narrowing her eyes.
“And I need a wife.”
Something about the way this comes out snaps her out of her haze. She comes alive with a laugh.
“You. Are. Out. Of. Your. Damn. Mind.” She squares her shoulders to mine. The sweetness of the wine on her breath, mixed with the disbelief on her face, makes me grin. “This isn’t funny.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You do realize you’re insinuating that I could be your wife, right?”
“I do.”
“You’re nuts, and you’re even nuts-er if you think you are my knight in shining armor.”
She marches to the counter behind me. After swiping up my glass and the empty wine bottle, she stomps across the kitchen. Looking me straight in the eye, she tosses the bottle into the trash.
“Did you stop at the bar on your way home?” she asks.
“This town has a bar?”
“Good point. Did you do drugs, then?” She places the glass in the sink. “Because there’s something seriously wrong with you, Doc.”
I shouldn’t laugh. I know it. There’s really nothing funny about this . . . except watching her be so defiant. Fuck it if she isn’t pretty when she’s fired up.
She narrows her gaze at my outburst.
I stick my tongue in my cheek. “You know, Jessica was much nicer about it when I asked her to marry me.”
“Because she probably liked you.”
“Oh, like you don’t like me.”
She snorts in disgust, but it’s not real. We both know it. “I suppose in Jessica’s defense you probably never repossessed her engagement ring and ate it in front of her before.”
I laugh again. “If I knew how much that was going to haunt me, I would’ve let you keep it.”
“As you should’ve.”
The air between us moves as if it has absorbed some of the energy blasting between us. Because there is energy—something comfortably electric between Sophie and me that I can’t deny.
And that’s why this marriage of convenience could be the ticket.
“That’s why this could work, Sophie.”
“Why? Because you owe me a ring?”
I ignore her attempt at deflection. “No. Because we get along. We have a history and friendship and a certain built-in trust level.”
She places a hand on her hip and blinks as if she’s bored.
“And we both . . . like my grandpa?” It’s the first thing that pops in my head. “And we enjoy spending time together.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do. You know it. We have fun together.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re not totally terrible to be around, but I don’t know that I’d go all out and say you are fun.”
“Yes, I am. You smile the whole time we’re together. Or most of the time,” I say when she opens her mouth to argue. “See? It’s the perfect, or as perfect as we’re going to find, setup. I’m not going to have my feelings hurt if you yell at me for leaving my socks on the bathroom floor.”
“Ha! I’m not doing your laundry.”
“Good, because I have a system and I quite like it.”
This seems to calm her down. She crosses her arms over her chest, but the panic in her eyes fades. I’m afraid to say anything else and ruin the progress I think I just made.
The more I think about this, the more perfect this crazy idea becomes. It would be a symbiotic relationship, a mutually beneficial situation in which we would both come out smiling on the other side. That never happens.
But it could.
If Sophie will marry me.
Holy shit.
“I bet you at least got down on one knee when you asked Jessica to marry you,” she teases.
I grin. “I did, and I’m more than happy to do that right now if it’ll help.”
“It won’t. It would just tempt me to kick you, and we don’t need that.”
I laugh.
We stand in the middle of the kitchen and watch one another, feeling each other out. The longer it goes with neither of us speaking, the more it feels like we’re waiting on the other to break the ice.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, she sighs. “You aren’t really serious, are you?” she asks.
Am I?
I do a quick evaluation of the situation. She can help me get the job, and I can help her find some relief. Neither of us would take it seriously, so there’s no harm there. And she’s pretty great to look at, which doesn’t hurt either.
“Yes,” I say with conviction, my mind made up. “I am.”
She looks at the ceiling. “I don’t even want to get married right now—especially to you.”
“And why not me?”
Her brows furrow, but she releases them. The gesture seems like she’s letting go of more than that.
“Why not you?” she asks. “Because if I get married again, I want the fairy tale. I want the real knight in shining armor. I want . . . I want a man that wants to live the life I live and be happy in it. And that might be stupid—it probably is. But I want it.”