Marriage For One

“Excuse me?” he said in a low voice, cutting me off.

“I don’t know, maybe that’s the wrong word to use, but I can help with that, too. I can be a good friend, if that’s something you need or want. I can do—”

“Stop talking.”

The harsh tone he used was unexpected and shut me up pretty quickly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, putting his hands on the counter and leaning in.

I leaned back. “I’m not divorcing you, Jack.” I dropped my head and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I hate myself for saying this, but I’ll make trouble for you.” God, as threats went, it sounded pretty weak even to my own ears.

He blinked at me a few times, and I thought maybe my threat was working. “You’ll make trouble for me,” he repeated in a detached tone, and I closed my eyes in defeat. He wasn’t buying it. If one of us was going to make trouble for the other, it would be him making my life miserable. He had all the power. “Just out of curiosity, what kind of trouble would you make for me, Rose? What did you have in mind?”

I looked up to see if he was making fun of me, but it was impossible to tell anything from his stony face. When I couldn’t give him an answer, he straightened up and pushed his hands into his pockets.

“If I was planning on divorcing you why would I say the things I said to Bryan? I came here to ask why your things aren’t at my place, why you haven’t moved in.”

Oh.

“I…what?”

“You were supposed to move in when I was gone. You didn’t. Even though this isn’t going to be a real marriage, we’re the only ones who know that, and I’d like to keep it that way. From everything you’ve said, it sounds like you don’t want a divorce. If that’s true, we need to live together. Surely you could’ve guessed that, especially with your cousin coming around.”

That was not what I had been expecting to hear from him at all. Had I spent almost two weeks worrying about nothing? “You said, before you got out of the car…you said we shouldn’t have done this and didn’t call or contact me in any way for the entire time you were gone.”

“And?”

I found the strength to get a little pissed. “And what was I supposed to think after that remark? Surely you knew I would think you regretted your decision.”

“And you wanted to get married that day?” he retorted.

“No, but—”

“It doesn’t matter. Didn’t Cynthia call you about moving into my place?”

Momentarily rendered speechless by his audacity, I closed my eyes and barely managed to lift my hand high enough to rub the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t get any phone calls.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I have work to do, so we need to leave now.”

Meeting his eyes, I frowned at him. “What do you mean we need to leave now?”

“I’ll help you pack a few things from your apartment and then we’re going back to my place. You can get everything else later.”

My frown deepened and I shook my head. “You can leave if you want to, but I also have work to do, as you can see, and I’m not going anywhere before it’s done.”

If he thought he could order me around just because we were married, he had another thing coming. Before he could come up with something else and piss me off further, I turned my back to him and gently bent down to pick up the paint roller, quietly wincing as I tried not to whimper or make any other sound though my back was actually killing me. Just as I started on the first wet roll, I heard some rustling behind me. Not thinking anything of it—because, in my humble opinion, if he wanted to leave, he was more than welcome to do so—I kept painting. It was at a much slower pace than before, but I was getting the work done, and more importantly, I wasn’t backing down.

Only a few seconds later, his palm circled my wrist and stopped my movements. I only felt the heat of his skin for a quick second, and then it was gone.

Taking the roller from me, he put it back down and then started to roll up his stark white—and extremely expensive—sleeves. I’d always thought there was something irresistible about watching a man roll up his sleeves, and Jack Hawthorne was just so meticulous and thorough about it that it was impossible for me to take my eyes away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked when he was finally done and in the process of picking up the paint roller.

He gave me a brief glance and started painting. “Obviously I’m helping you finish what you were doing so we can get out of here faster.”