Not to mention too gorgeous for life, I think to myself, clenching my mouth shut so it doesn’t slip out.
“Art and architecture are two different fields.” She grins. “Plus, I like the way it feels to have my hands buried in the clay, smoothing and pinching and bringing something new to life.”
Sweet hell, the dirty thoughts that image brings.
How did I ever think this girl was just a drunken partier?
“I tried pottery once—”
She rolls her eyes. “Sculpting goes way beyond pottery.”
“I know, but I wasn’t very good at pottery either. I just did it to get this girl to like me. But I shelled out fifty bucks at this ‘make your own coffee cup’ place, and there was no second date after my mug turned into a watering can,” I say, taking a long pull off my bottle.
Paige laughs, a lash of hair falling down her face.
“Desperate measures! I’m not sure why you’d even have to fake liking pottery to get a date, Ward.”
“Seems like faking romance is what I do.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Honestly, that story sounds more like your brother than you.”
“You don’t think Nick has a monopoly on stupid, do you? I was twenty-three and just back from Iraq. Can you blame me?”
“No. I’m just surprised you weren’t uptight back in the day.”
I cock my head. “Uptight? I was more serious than Nick even then, certainly, but that was before—”
Maria. Her name sticks in my mind like a barb.
It was before Maria, before I felt the family curse, before I realized I’d have to be straitlaced to the letter of the law to prove that I’m more than another bad seed.
“That was before some shit got serious,” I correct sharply. “After that last deployment, I was completely off my game. Turns out, covering your boys from enemy snipers while they’re playing real-life Minesweeper makes you a little jumpy long after you’re back home.”
She lets out a low whistle.
“Whoa, that’s rough. I’m sure you didn’t love Iraq, but did you like the Army?” she asks, her green eyes enchanted in a new way when she looks at me.
“No one loves MRE breakfasts and being packed in like sardines with a dozen other men, much less an active warzone,” I say. When I came back from Iraq, I didn’t feel like I had much purpose. There, it was life and death and in your face. Long stretches of extreme boredom poached by ambushes from hell. Everything seemed dull after that. Truth be told, I loved the discipline, the sense of purpose, and the friends I made along the way.”
“You have friends?” She stares, then blushes. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
“I’m a busy man, Paige, and I know when to keep my colleagues at arm’s length. Believe it or not, I do have a social life. And if you’re the best fake fiancée ever, you just might see it.”
We trade tense smiles.
Smart mouth aside, I’m actually a bit touched. I can’t remember the last time someone asked about me in this detail.
Maybe we’re not so different over wine. Tonight, I’m not her boss or even the prick who’s paying her to pretend we’re getting married.
I’m just a man with loose lips lost in her emerald eyes.
Bang. Bang. Bang!
Just like that, our moment ends.
“Food’s here.” Paige pops up and moves behind the couch, then stops. “Umm—this place is so huge—”
I chuckle, setting the wine bottle on the table.
“No worries, darling. I’ll get it.”
She doesn’t hammer me over the d-word this time. It also falls out with an ease that would scare me, if I let myself ponder it for more than two seconds.
Fuck.
Paige bites her bottom lip, a ripe cherry, and for a second I wish it was my lip she’d chew on.
“You could just show me. If I’m going to be here for three months, I need to find my own way around, don’t I, darling fiancé?”
Her eyes gleam, face framed in blond softness my hands ache to pull.
I stand, shifting so she doesn’t see my raging hard-on.
“Right this way.”
The next morning, I’m opening the Lincoln for Paige as a blinding light explodes in my eyes.
I blink several times, clearing my vision. Footsteps pound the pavement, surrounding us at the curb. Reporters, meaner than a pack of javelinas.
“Wow, word travels fast,” Paige says.
“Hurry and get in,” I order.
She climbs in the car and slides to the middle, making room for me.
“Do you think we’ll be ambushed a lot?” she asks once we’re moving away from the swarm.
“I hope to hell not. The next moron who shoves a camera in my face gets it rammed up their ass.”
“Ward, you can’t do that!” She gasps through her smile.
“Why not?”
“Don’t think you’d enjoy the prison time, for one. Also, if we don’t smile and think happy thoughts, this isn’t going to work. It’ll all be for nothing if Ross Winthrope thinks we’re anything less than soulmates and grown-ups,” she whispers. “So smile. Be so in love with me you put the ragies aside. Pretty please?”