“You just come from a funeral, Wheeler?”
So they were back to Wheeler in that high-brow, back-off tone. One tasty kiss-slash-step-forward and forty steps back.
“For you.” Lucas offered Cia the flowers. Dang it, he should not have picked them out. If he’d asked Helena to do it, like he should have, when Cia sneered at the blooms, as she surely would, he wouldn’t be tempted to throw them down and forget this whole idea. Even a man with infinite patience could only take so much.
But she didn’t sneer. Gently, she closed her fingers around the flowers and held them up to inhale the scent.
After a long minute of people rushing by and the two of them standing there frozen, she said, “If you’d asked, I would have said no. But it’s kind of nice after all. So you get a pass.”
He clutched his chest in a mock heart attack and grinned. “That’s why I didn’t ask. All brides should have flowers.”
“This isn’t a real wedding.”
She tossed her head and strands of her inky hair fanned out in a shiny mass before falling back to frame her exotic features. This woman he was about to make his wife was such a weird blend of stunning beauty and barbed personality, with hidden recesses of warmth and passion.
What was wrong with him that he was so flippin’ attracted to that mix? This marriage would be so much easier if he let it go and worried about stuff he could control, like scaring up new clients.
But he couldn’t. He wanted her in his bed, hot and enthusiastic, hang-ups tossed out the window for good.
“Sure it is. We’re going to be legally married. Just because it’s not traditional doesn’t make it less real.”
She flipped her free hand. “You know what I mean. A church wedding, with family and friends and cake.”
“Is that what you wanted? I would have suffered through a real wedding for you.” His skin itched already to think of wearing a tux and memorizing vows. God Almighty … the rehearsal, the interminable ceremony, the toasts. Matthew had undergone it all with a besotted half smile, claiming it was all worth it. Maybe it was if you were in love. “But, darlin’, I would have insisted on a real honeymoon.”
He waggled his brows, and she laughed nervously, which almost gave him a real heart attack.
A hint of a smile still played around her lips. “A real wedding would have made both of us suffer. That’s not what I wanted. I don’t have a perfect wedding dress already picked out in hopes my Prince Charming will come along, like other women do. I’m okay with being single for the rest of my life.”
“Hold up, honey. You’re not a romantic? All my illusions about you have been thoroughly crushed.”
Romantic gestures put a happy, glowy expression on a woman’s face, and he liked being the one responsible. It was the only sight on this earth anywhere near as pleasurable as watching a woman in the throes of an orgasm he’d given her.
He had his work cut out for him if he wanted to get Cia there.
He put an arm around her waist to guide her inside the courthouse because it was starting to seem as if she wanted to avoid going inside.
The ceremony was quick, and when he slid the slender wedding band of diamonds channel-set in platinum onto her finger, Cia didn’t curl her lip. He’d deliberately picked something low-key that she could wear without the glitzy engagement ring. The set had cost more than his car, but he viewed both as an investment. Successful real estate brokers didn’t cheap out, and especially now, with Lana’s husband on the warpath, every last detail of his life was for show.
With a fast and unsexy kiss, it was over. They were Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler.
The cool, hard metal encircling his finger was impossible to ignore, and he spun it with his pinkie, trying to get used to the weight. Uncomfortable silence fell as they left the courthouse and neither of them broke it. Cia had asked a friend to drop her off, so she rode home with him.
Half-surprised Mama hadn’t crashed the event, he called her with the update before he pulled out of the courthouse parking lot. By the time the wheels hit the driveway of the house, Mama had apparently posted the news to Facebook, which then took on a life of its own.
Text messages started rolling in, and he glanced at them as he shifted into Park.
Pete: Dude. Are we still on for bball Sunday? Or do you have to check with the missus?
Justine: REALLY Lucas???? Married???? REALLY????
Melinda: **&^$%. Missed it by that much. Call me the second you get tired of her.
Lucas rolled his eyes. He hadn’t spoken to either woman in months. Pete yanked his chain twice a day and had since college.
When Lucas went to shut off his phone, a message came in from Lana: Congrats. Nothing else. The simple half a word spoke volumes and it said, Poor Lucas, marrying that woman on the rebound.
“You’re popular all of a sudden,” Cia said after the fourth beep in a row, and her tone tried and convicted him for a crime he’d not been aware of committing.
“It’s just people congratulating us.”
And he was done with that. Lana’s name popping up on the screen, after all this time, had unburied disillusionment he’d rather not dwell on.
He hit the phone’s off button and dropped it in his pocket, then left the car in the driveway instead of pulling into the garage so it would be easier for Cia to get out.
His efforts to untangle Cia’s hang-ups last night had failed. Tonight, he’d try a different approach. “Have dinner with me. To celebrate.”
Before he could move, she popped the door and got out. He followed her up the drive and plowed through Amber’s fancy flowerbed to beat her to the porch.
“Celebrate what?” she asked, annoyance leaking from her pores. “I was thinking about soaking for an hour or two in a hot bath and going to bed early, actually.”
Before she could storm through the entryway, Lucas stopped her with a firm hand on her prickly little shoulder. “Wait.”
With an impatient sigh, she turned. “What?”
“Just because you’ve got your marriage license doesn’t mean we’re going to walk through this door and never speak again. You realize this, don’t you?” He searched her face, determined to find some glimmer of agreement. “This is the beginning, not the end. We’ve been faking being a happily engaged couple. Now we have to fake being a happily married couple. No, we don’t have to put on a performance right now, when no one’s around. But to do it in public, trust me, darlin’, when I say it will be miles easier if you’re not at my throat in private.”
Her tight face flashed through a dozen different emotions and finally picked resignation. “Yeah. I know. I owe you an apology. It’s been a rough day.”
For both of them. “Because you didn’t want to get married?”
She shrank a little, as if she couldn’t support the heavy
