Page 41 of Carry On
I bit back a sigh. Ever since my decision to take Lincoln up on the offer, it had been particularly loud and insistent. Bread helped. I wasn’t sure why the bread helped—maybe because it kept me occupied—but at the end of the day, I was grateful for it.
Across the table, Lincoln wrote the rule down on his little pad of paper. The sight made me smile. Always so refined and proper. It was actually kind of adorable, though I kept that thought to myself. There were a lot of little things about him that had crept their way under my skin. Things I adored. Things I didn’t belong adoring.
“You don’t need to write this shit down,” I told him, even though I knew it was pointless. I had a feeling Lincoln couldn’t live without his lists and insane organization. Everything about his place and his personality screamed his desperate need for control.
“It’s not just for me,” he said. “It’s for you as well.”
“Steel trap,” I retorted and tapped a finger to my temple. Unfortunately, that much was true. I remembered more shit than I wanted to. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to forget.
“Well, I like organization,” Lincoln replied. Of course he did. “I have a list of questions as well. Things to help us get to know each other.”
“Not really seeing why we need to get to know each other,” I told him. There was no point in doing so.
“We have to know each other.”
“Why?”
“People don’t get married if they don’t know each other.”
“Sure they do, especially when insurance fraud is involved.”
Getting personal wasn’t important. It wasn’t needed. Things would be easier if we didn’t. I wasn’t in this for the long haul. I’d made a promise to Jay that I’d try to drag my ass out of the bottom of the barrel. I didn’t think I could do it, but he said I owed it to myself. I didn’t need to add getting personal with Lincoln to my list of things to do. The tasks at hand were daunting enough without factoring that in.
“Yeah, well, that won’t work here,” Lincoln retorted, immediately irritating the hell out of me. “There are certain people we have to convince that this is real. These people are lawyers who take their oaths seriously.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they think.” I wasn’t a goddamn circus monkey for him to put on display.
Like they’d ever think twice about you,the voice commented.
“If we don’t convince them and they report it, you and I are both in deep shit,” he said. “I’m not asking you to like them, I’m not saying you and I even need to be friends, but if we don’t know even basic shit about each other like our middle names, people will notice.”
“I thought we agreed that my middle name was Difficult,” I shot back, unable to stop myself. Despite how fucking annoyed I was, I liked the little smirk that it afforded me. “Look, I don’t give a fuck about what any of them think.”
“Well, I do.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.” I resisted rolling my eyes. “So, you got married. Big deal. Who fucking cares? What does it matter what they think?”
“Because they’ve never heard of you, they don’t know you, and they know me,” he replied. With every passing moment, his tone grew increasingly more irritated with me. He pushed away his plate and leaned back in his chair, his jaw ticking as he considered me. Watched me. Studied me like a goddamn experiment, like he was calculating the best way to explainhimself to me. “You have to understand that I don’t make brash decisions. I’m not the kind of man who would just marry a guy on a whim, especially not someone that no one in my life even knows exists. It’ll be hard enough to make it make sense to them, but if I don’t know a damn thing about you? Or vice versa? We might as well report the insurance fraud ourselves.”
Jesus fuck, this man.
“Then tell them it’s a…” I waved my hand in the air, trying to make my point make sense, “… whirlwind romance or some stupid shit like that.”
Even as I said it, he was shaking his head.
“That won’t work.”
“We’ll figure it out as we go.”
“Still won’t work.”
This stubborn fucking man.
“Yeah, it will,” I retorted. My own frustrations began to inch their way toward the surface, pushing up against my skin. He was making this more difficult than it needed to be.
Or maybe he just wants you to walk out the door,the voice chimed in.He doesn’t want to deal with you. Not really. It’s all just an act. You weren’t supposed to say yes.
“No, it won’t.”
