Her Fantasy Husband (Things to Do Before You Die) (3 page)

But, crazy or not, he was going to have to cut ties to his fake wife before he could move on and have that no-strings sex he needed.

He’d thought it would be easy, hadn’t expected to meet any opposition, which had obviously been short-sighted of him.

For the first time he considered things from his wife’s point of view. Why had she entered into this marriage? He’d thought her some little rich bitch who wanted access to her money so she could party harder. Now he was revising that opinion. Her clothes had been old and basic—apart from the killer heels—and she wore no jewelry. Her fingernails were short and unpainted. If she was spending money, it wasn’t on her appearance.

Maybe something to do with her family? They obviously believed the marriage to be real. And she was determined to keep it that way.

And that was nothing to do with him, either. He wanted his annulment, though he was quite prepared to do it quietly if she wanted to go on pretending they were married. Or she could tell everyone they’d divorced. That part was up to her.

But the annulment itself? Somehow he needed to persuade her it was in both their best interests. He took another sip of scotch and remembered the taste of her on his tongue. His dick twitched in his pants. She wasn’t his type, but she’d felt good in his arms, soft and curvy and…

He groaned. He needed to get laid, and that was all. He needed to get out of this sham of a marriage, find himself a woman, and maybe then he could stop thinking about sex.

Because thinking about sex with his wife was not an option.

And it never would be, so his dick was just going to have to get over it and move on like the rest of him.

Chapter Three

Lexi loitered outside the gate and peered down the road every thirty seconds. She’d decided it was probably better if Josh didn’t come into the house; the setup could be a little overwhelming at first. And he needed his wits about him tonight. She glanced down at herself and gave a rueful shrug. Her black dress was covered in paw prints.

She’d stayed tidy for five minutes. That was probably a record for her. And it was nearly seven-thirty—her grandmother would be waiting. No time to change now.

Besides, if she went in, she might not come out again. She was feeling a little shy every time she remembered that she had kissed him. Correction: first she’d jumped him,
then
she’d kissed him.

And now he wanted an annulment. She’d talked to her lawyer that afternoon, and this had the potential to become a huge mess.

In some ways, her father had been a very modern man, in others he’d bordered on antiquated. He’d left most of his money to Lexi—in trust until she was twenty-four, or when she married. As though having a husband would miraculously make her capable of handling a fortune worth millions.

Now, if the marriage was annulled and her family wanted to be difficult—and hell, when hadn’t her grandmother wanted to be difficult—they could claim she’d had access to the money fraudulently. They could tie her up in legal knots so she wouldn’t even get access when she turned twenty-four. It was a nightmare.

A nightmare Joshua Slater was responsible for. And could prevent.

A big, black car drew up right on the dot of seven-thirty. A sensible car. Spotlessly clean. And expensive.

She drooped a little at that. She’d held out hope that he was just as money hungry as her family, but he was obviously not in need of cash. Which was bad news, because that would have been an easy solution. It would have depressed her a little, and she realized she wanted Josh to be…nice. Okay, nice might be pushing it, but the honorable man of her dreams, at least. But she’d decided, after the conversation with her lawyer, that she would offer him more money if that was what it took—money to do nothing for the next six months, and then a quiet divorce when it would no longer matter.

A divorce would be fine. An annulment would be a disaster.

Pity they hadn’t consummated the marriage—at least not in real life—then an annulment wouldn’t be a possibility.

Not an option, Lexi.

And now it seemed unlikely offering him money would be an option either.

He leaned over and opened the car door for her, and she slid into the passenger seat, casting him what she hoped was a casual peek. Then turned back to stare. He was stunning, gorgeous in a dark gray suit and a white shirt, open at the collar showing the tanned column of his throat.

“Hi,” she mumbled, brushing at the paw prints down her front. “Thanks for coming.” She hadn’t been entirely sure he would.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“The Ritz.”

“Of course we are.”

He was silent for a minute as they headed into the traffic. She glanced down at her hands in her lap and noticed a run in her stockings. She tugged the hem of her dress down to cover it and sighed. They needed to talk and didn’t have long. She’d made a mental list of topics to cover. Time to get started.

She cleared her throat. “So we need to get our stories straight. Grandmamma will be asking you questions.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve been trained to withstand torture.”

“Ha. You think this is funny. Just wait.”

“So the story… What do they know?”

“As little as I could get away with.” She thought for a moment. “They know you were in the army. And they know I met you through Uncle Jamie.”

“And we fell in love. How sweet.”

“Actually, no. I told them we had to get married. I was pregnant.”

His gaze shot from the road to her face, then down to her stomach, and then thankfully back to the road. “You were?”

“Of course I wasn’t. They think I lost the baby at three months, but that seemed more believable than the whole love thing.”

“You don’t believe in love?” He sounded vaguely amused.

It felt weird talking about love with this man. Not even in her fantasies had he ever told her he loved her. She didn’t have that good of an imagination. But best not think about fantasies with his big body so close to her in the confines of the car. It was having a weird effect on her concentration.

She gave a little shrug. “Maybe, but it didn’t seem likely that anyone would believe you’d fallen in love with me.”

He frowned. “Why not? Don’t you think you’re loveable?”

The question sort of stopped her. The truth was, while she was sure her parents had loved her, she could hardly remember them. Her Uncle Jamie was fond of her but she wouldn’t call it love. Her grandmother…sometimes she thought her grandmother hated her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But anyway, at the time it seemed more believable.” And it had really pissed them off—that had been an added bonus. Her grandmother hadn’t spoken to her for a year afterward. Not even after she’d written and told them about the miscarriage. A whole lovely year.

“So I take it your family wasn’t happy.”

“They might have forgiven me if you were an officer.”

“And a gentleman.”

“Yes.” She frowned, then added quickly, “Not that I don’t think you’re a gentleman or anything.”

“Honey, I’m about as far from a gentleman as you can get. And don’t worry about offending me—you won’t.”

When he called her honey, little flutters started up in her belly. She tried to ignore them. “Anyway, I told them you were a soldier and…” She chewed on her lip. He’d said she couldn’t offend him. She wasn’t sure that was true, and she would no doubt soon find out. “I said you weren’t very bright.”

“
What?
”

Yup—he definitely sounded disgruntled. “I said you were gorgeous and sweet but a little slow.”

“Sweet?” He sounded almost outraged.

What was wrong with sweet?
“And gorgeous,” she repeated to make up for the slow bit.

They’d stopped at a set of traffic lights and he turned to face her. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

Why was he asking her that? He must know he was. She was betting he had women chasing after him all the time. She studied his face—the intense blue eyes, the high cheekbones, the long line of his jaw, the narrow nose. He was stunning. She sniffed. “You’re okay.”

He chuckled, and she liked the sound. It did all sorts of strange things to her insides.

“So I’m thick?”

“Yes. If grandmother asks anything you don’t know the answer to, just act…”

“Stupid.”

She relaxed a little; he seemed to have taken that well. “You stayed in the army after we were married. I thought that best in case of any surprise inspections. If anyone turned up on my doorstep unannounced, I could always say you were out of the country.”

“Makes sense.”

“You could probably say you left recently though—just be a little vague. Then we need to decide what you’re doing next.” She cast him a quick look. He was concentrating on the road; they were coming up to the Ritz and running out of time. “What
do
you actually do?”

“I run a security firm. Started it up straight after we married.”

“Is that what you needed the money for?”

“No. I needed it for something else, but that didn’t work out. So I started the company. And it’s done well. So I can afford to pay you back. With interest.”

“I don’t want paying back.” She really didn’t want to get into that discussion now. She was already wound up enough. “We’ll say you work in security. What else? I sometimes came out to visit you, and we took at least one vacation a year together. But we haven’t spent that much time with each other, so it’s understandable if there are things we don’t know. But maybe we should cover a few of the basics. What’s your favorite color? Mine’s orange.”

“Black.”

“Food?”

“Steak.”

“Oh. I’m a vegetarian. TV or reading?”

“Reading.” He glanced over with a hint of a smile. “Perhaps I should stick to comic books to fit in with my image.”

She bit back her own smile—he needed to take this seriously. “Perhaps.”

“So ours is more of a physical than a cerebral relationship?” he asked as he pulled up in front of the Ritz.

“I suppose.”

He looked at her, his gaze dropping to her cleavage, and her nipples tightened in a totally over-the-top response.

“We just meet up”—he raised his eyes to her face, held her gaze—“screw each other’s brains out, and don’t bother with much conversation.”

She cleared her throat; something seemed to be lodged halfway down. “I guess.”

“We know all about each other sexually, but not a lot else? Hmm…so what’s your favorite position? Just in case your grandmother asks.”

She stared at him for a moment, heat washing through her, then a little giggle escaped her as she imagined the scene. He was teasing her, and she supposed she was awfully easy to tease. She licked her lip, stared into his blue eyes. She didn’t want him to think she was a total pushover. “I like it from behind.”

…

Crap.

His head filled with an image of her on all fours in front of him, and his dick jerked to instant life in his pants.

She giggled again, and he shot her a dark look.

“What?” he said.

“The expression on your face.”

He shrugged. “I guess you surprised me.”

“I did?” She looked a little too pleased with herself.

“Yeah. I was expecting you to say the missionary.” That would work for him as well; her lush little body sprawled out beneath him, her breasts pushing upward. She’d have pink nipples to go with that creamy skin, and maybe freckles across her breasts.

Stop thinking about sex.

Especially sex with Lexi.

He’d gone into the office that afternoon to catch up on some paperwork, but he’d found himself going over ways to convince Lexi to go along with his annulment. And what to do if he failed.

It wasn’t a
real
marriage. Maybe he could pretend it didn’t exist. But that wasn’t really an option. Promiscuity was something else his mother had cured him of; she’d never been faithful to one man for any length of time. Though she’d once told him that his father had been the love of her life. He’d walked out on her when she’d told him she was pregnant. His mother didn’t even know who his sister Evie’s father was. There were two or three contenders, but no one had ever stepped forward.

His mother had left him with a deep desire for order—he wanted his relationships nice and tidy and one at a time. And while the marriage might not be real, he needed it cleared up before he could comfortably move on.

So he’d have to persuade Lexi.

Because he wasn’t waiting six months.

No, any chance of waiting a single month, let alone six, had disappeared as soon as her mouth had touched his.

Something had happened with that kiss, as if his body had woken from a long sleep. Now it was wide awake, and he couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

More worrying, he couldn’t get the memory of Lexi in his arms out of his head. Which was very inconvenient, because while he wanted sex, he most certainly did not want married sex. That would make him truly married, and that was never going to happen.
Ever.

There was a car in front of them, and they stopped for a moment. She fidgeted with a loose strand of hair then turned to him. “Do I look okay?” she asked.

He studied her, head cocked to the side. She wore a wrap-around black dress that molded her curves and showed off her cleavage, black stockings, and high-heeled black pumps. Her hair was up in some sort of knot on the top of her head, exposing her slender throat. She was beautiful, and for a moment, he couldn’t drag his eyes from her.

She squirmed under his scrutiny, biting her lip.

“You have lipstick on your teeth,” he said.

“I do?”

He nodded. “There are tissues in the glove box.”

She pressed open the door and stared. “Oh.”

He followed her gaze and raised an eyebrow.

“You have a whole box of condoms in your car.”

“They were a present.” Logan had given them to him, saying that if Josh was going to get laid, he needed to be prepared—hence the condoms.

She reached past them tentatively, as though she might catch something from touching the box. She really was amazingly naive. For a married woman. For the first time, he wondered what
she’d
been doing for sex all these years. Had she had boyfriends?

She grabbed a tissue and wiped off the lipstick, then bared her teeth at him. “Okay?”

He nodded, and looked down over the rest of her, lingering on the deep V of her cleavage, then lower. He stretched out a hand and touched one finger to the run in her pantyhose, where he could see her creamy skin through the tear.

“You have a run. I don’t suppose you have a spare pair.”

“Not a chance. I’m never that organized. I’ll just have to do.”

His hand was still on her knee, and his finger moved without his conscious thought, stroking up her thigh, pushing her skirt out of the way.

A horn blared behind them, and he snatched his hand back.

What the hell?

He moved the car forward and switched off the engine. “Let’s get this over with.” He knew his tone was harsh as she gave a little flinch. She didn’t wait for him, just scrambled out of the car and stood, foot tapping nervously on the pavement. After getting out, he handed the keys to the valet, came around, and stood beside her.

She appeared a little distant. “Just girding my loins,” she muttered. “Come on.”

“You’re really nervous about this?” They crossed the reception area. He’d never been to the Ritz before. It wasn’t his sort of place even after he had the money to pay the prices.

“Yes. I don’t want you to think I’m a wimp or anything. Usually I’m pretty tough. But it’s hard to undo the conditioning you receive when you’re young. I grew up disappointing my grandmother at every turn. For years I tried to be the sort of person she wanted me to be—I think we all need to impress the ones we feel we should love, however little they seem to appreciate the effort.”