She dropped her hand and glanced to the flowers. “Well, you keep up with those sweet gestures and you’ll be taken in no time.”
Taken. The only place he wanted to be taken was to a bed with Josie. Or here in the kitchen would work.
But Josie had everything and everyone in a particular slot, and he was in the friend zone, which hadn’t been an issue...until now. The structure in her life stemmed from her retired military father. Her mother had passed away when Josie was a toddler, so she didn’t remember her and Reese had never met the woman.
“I’m not looking for marriage,” he stated honestly. “Being engaged was enough of a scare to make me realize I prefer being married to work. That’s a relationship I can feed into and grow, not to mention control.”
“Ah, yes. Control. Well, that is why you’ll always be alone. Women don’t want to be controlled,” she scolded. “Don’t you want to have someone to come home to? Someone to share everything with? Someone to grocery shop with?”
Reese laughed. “First of all, I don’t grocery shop. Second, I tell you everything. And when I come home, I have a glass of bourbon. All my bases are covered.”
Josie rolled her eyes. “That sounds so lonely.”
“And in my defense, I’d never want to control a woman,” he told her. “I know not to fight a losing battle.”
“You really are a great guy,” she stated again.
“Are you vying for a new position?” he asked. “We are engaged, after all.”
“We’re not engaged,” she laughed. “Though I might need to convince Chris you were telling the truth because clearly he didn’t believe us or he just doesn’t care.”
“Or he’s an idiot, which is my vote,” Reese added. “Pack a bag and come to my place.”
Josie’s eyes widened. “What? I’m not just coming to your place. My house is falling in, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Your house isn’t falling in. My guy will be here to fix everything and you don’t want to be here during that construction anyway.” Reese reached for her and raked his thumb over her ring finger. “We need to get a ring.”
Josie pulled her hand away and laughed. “Can you focus for two minutes?”
“Oh, I’m focused.”
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the flowers. “Let me find some tissue paper and ribbon. I’m out of vases.”
“Just gather them all up and we’ll find vases at my house,” he told her. “Grab a bag of whatever you need to stay the night.”
“This is silly, you know.” Josie started gathering the flowers. “I can stay here.”
“You can, but why?” he countered, helping her gather everything. “We’ll do a movie night like we used to.”
She stilled and gave him a side-eye. “I get to choose the movie?” she asked.
Reese cringed. “Don’t tell me.”
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Josie squealed and a wide grin spread across her face. “Oh, you know it.”
Yeah, he did. Her all-time favorite movie was An Affair to Remember. She’d first introduced it to him when they were in high school and he’d absolutely hated it. Since then, any time she chose the movie, that’s the one she went with. He didn’t hate it now—hell, he could say the thing word for word. If she enjoyed it, that’s all that mattered.
“Go pack your stuff and I’ll take the flowers,” he told her. “I’ll meet you at my house.”
“Deal.”
She practically skipped from the room and Reese couldn’t help but feel a niggle of worry deep in his gut. Spending more time alone with Josie had never been an issue before, but his hormones had never entered the picture before, either. At least, not like this. Now she was coming to his house for the night and Reese couldn’t help but wonder how much more he could take before he snapped and crossed the line they couldn’t come back from.
He was a jumble of nerves—between the mysterious closet she hadn’t explained, the letter he’d received and the fact that he wanted Josie more than anything he’d ever wanted.
One night. He just needed to take this fake engagement one night at a time. Surely he could control himself for one night...right?