I wasn’t fooling her. She looked at me suspiciously, smiling slyly.
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“Josie...”
“What? Are you going to make me tell you, fiancé?”
“You know I can do just that.”
I leaned in closer, touching my fingers to her cheek, resting my thumb right under her lower lip. She gasped, widening her eyes. There was no one with us. No one to pretend for. But I couldn’t be next to her and not touch her. Hell, I was barely refraining from kissing her. She exhaled sharply, licking her lower lip. I very nearly took what I wanted but stopped just in time.
There would be plenty of occasions to kiss her, and I was going to take advantage of them. A lot.
Chapter Eight
Josie
On Wednesday, Hunter surprised me yet again. An employee from my bank called me at 8:00 a.m.
“Ms. Gallagher, someone by the name of Hunter Caldwell has transferred one hundred thousand dollars to your account. We just wanted to check a few things. Our internal compliance requires us to ask a few things when sums this large are transferred.”
I nearly fell off my chair. “That’s my fiancé... I think our wires got crossed somehow. But don’t approve it.”
What was he thinking? He’d said that he’d take care of all extra costs that arose because I was married to him, but I hadn’t explicitly agreed to this. And we weren’t even married yet. After ending the current call, I pulled up Hunter’s number on my phone but disconnected before it rang.
No, I wanted to talk to him about this in person. The money weighed on me the entire day, as I shifted through statutes for my clients, billing hours like crazy.
I was on track to become partner—my bosses had heavily hinted that I was in the running to be promoted by the end of this year. I couldn’t wait for that to happen. It came with a hefty salary increase. I’d already budgeted the extra dollars for the first year—I was going to reimburse my parents for helping me with law school.
I left work at seven o’clock and headed to Hunter’s office. I wasn’t even sure he would still be there, so I called him.
“Hey, fiancé,” I greeted when he picked up. “Where are you?”
“Not sure you want to know.”
“Oh?”
“On second thought... wait a second. Ryker’s been killing me with planning my bachelor party for the past hour. Care to rescue me?”
I chuckled. “You can’t rescue yourself?”
“Not after I just asked him to be my best man.”
“Right... that does require outside intervention. Where are you?”
“At the Greek restaurant near my condo.”
“I need about twenty minutes to get there. Think you can handle Ryker on your own?”
Hunter groaned. “I’ll try.”
“Won’t he be suspicious that I’ll just show up there?”
“No, he’ll just think we’re madly in love.”
“Of course he will. Can you order a moussaka for me? I’m starving.”
I took a cab to the restaurant, pressing the side of my head against the cool window. When we’d visited that house, I could practically see myself living there, raising kids, growing old... with Hunter. My heart was getting involved in this already, and that was dangerous.