Page 50 of Her Fantasy Husband

As they left the park, they paused outside the gates. Josh didn’t want to go home yet. There were too many people at the house, all wanting her time. He liked having her to himself, and he didn’t want to think about that too closely. For many years, he hadn’t allowed himself to get close to anyone. He understood why. Despite his lack of education, he wasn’t stupid. He could sense himself drawn to Lexi, and part of him was scared. But still he couldn’t stay away.

He’d liked the way she looked at him back in the bedroom—like she was starving and he was something deliciously edible. His dick jerked in his pants. He shouldn’t have thought that. Now he couldn’t get rid of the image of Lexi on her knees in front of him. Had she ever given a blow job? Unlikely, if she’d been a virgin. He’d have to tell her what to do, how he liked it…if he could remember. Maybe they could learn together.

“Let’s go get a coffee,” he said.

“Okay. There’s a place just down the road.”

They settled into a booth by the window and both ordered coffee.

Watching her working with the animals had been a revelation. She was a goddamn millionaire, and she spent her evenings cleaning up dog puke. He’d seen the compassion she’d shown to all the animals and their owners. He didn’t want that for himself. He wasn’t an object of pity. What the hell would he need compassion for?

“You look a little…upset,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She regarded him for what seemed like an age, head cocked to one side. “Will you tell me something?”

“I might.”Here we go…

“Why did you marry me?”

The question took him by surprise, and he said the first thing he could come up with. “For the money.”

“To start your business?”

For a minute, he was tempted to agree, let her think that was the case. But something deep inside him wanted to share the truth with her. He’d never told anyone his plan, not even his commanding officer, who’d approached him with the offer to marry Lexi.

He added sugar and stirred his coffee. “No, not to start the business.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me, if it makes you feel bad. I just wanted to understand.”

She was giving him a way out, and maybe he should take it, but now he found he wanted to tell her. Wanted her to understand a little of who he was and why he would never be the man she thought he could be. He sat back and thought about where to start. “I had a sister. She was ten years younger than me. When I was seventeen, she was taken into care and eventually adopted, and I could do fuck all to stop it.”

She reached out and rested a hand on his. “I’m sorry, Josh. Were you close?”

“I brought her up from the moment she was born.” He could still remember the feel of her tiny body in his arms as his mum had shoved the baby at him when she got home from the hospital. “Just stop it crying,” she’d said. And somehow he had. From then on, he’d done everything for her. “My mum was a total screw up. Men, alcohol, drugs. Name a vice and she was into it. She wasn’t interested in a baby, so it sort of fell to me. But from the moment I saw her… Evie was the sweetest, and I didn’t mind.”

“Evie? That’s the tattoo you have on your arm. Your sister?”

“Who did you think it was—another woman? Evie saved me. At ten, I was doing a great job of following in my mum’s footsteps. I thought I was a total badass. I’d have probably been in juvie before I was eleven. Evie straightened me out, made me see there were things worth working for.”

“I bet you were a cute little boy.”

He snorted. “I was a monster. But I changed. She made me take responsibility. I thought she was someone I could love unconditionally.” And look how well that had fucking turned out.

“What happened?”

“My mum met this guy. Apparently, he didn’t like kids, so she got rid of the problem. Handed her over to social services. I begged her not to, told her I’d look after Evie. She wouldn’t even know she was there. She laughed at me. I can still remember Evie’s face when they took her away.”

“I hate your mother.” She sounded so passionate.

“I went to see social services. They told me it was impossible. I was a seventeen-year-old-kid, with no money, no job, no education—I’d missed a lot of school—and a police record for shoplifting. It was often the only way I could get the stuff Evie needed. Anyway, Mum had already signed the papers. Evie was put up for adoption, and that was that.”

He risked a glance at her face, not wanting to see her pity. She blinked away a tear. She was such a softie.

“And I joined the army. It seemed as good a place as any and my options were limited. But I liked it. Loved the order, knowing what I was supposed to do and when. I was good, and I made sergeant.”

“And you didn’t see Evie?”

---