“Do you always travel with a personal driver?” The question comes out stiff. The opposite of the cool, nonchalant vibe I was going for. “Or is this special treatment for your fake wife?”
Liam looks up from his phone. A smirk dances in his eyes—amused rather than offended.
“No, I don’t usually have a driver.” He tilts his head toward the windshield. “I have my motorcycle. But I assumed you’d prefer a car to riding on the back of my bike, given how our first meeting went.” He pauses. “Unless you’d rather try it? I can have the driver pull over.”
The memory of headlights bearing down on me rushes back. The screech of brakes. The smell of burning rubber filling my lungs as I braced for impact.
“No, I’m good,” I blurt.
His smirk widens, knowing he’s won this round. I roll my eyes and turn toward the window, watching the resort’s grand façade recede as we pull away.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“My place.”
The words are matter-of-fact. They sound obvious. Like the answer should have been self-evident.
But it isn’t. Not to me. Because suddenly, reality is beating down on me with the full weight of what I’ve agreed to.
I’m moving in with this man.
Not just agreeing to marry him in some abstract, future sense. Or playing pretend at a dinner party tonight. I’m going to his house. Right now. To live there. Share space with him. Wakeup under the same roof as him every day for the next three to five years.
The car becomes too small. The leather seats too confining. The air too thick. The suffocating atmosphere presses against my chest as my fingers curl into fists in my lap.
“Hey.”
Liam’s voice cuts through the panic. I turn to find him watching me, phone forgotten in his hand. The performative polish is gone from his expression, replaced by a gentler, more human concern.
“It’s going to be fine,” he says. “If you don’t approve of the house, you can act like a real wife and change it.” He shrugs, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “Redecorate. Rearrange. Nag me about my socks. Fix all my deep-seated personality flaws while you’re at it. I’m told that’s what wives do.”
He leans back against the door, relaxed, with one brow arched.
I know what he’s doing. Liam is provoking me, being an ass on purpose. But fighting with him makes it easier. It gives me something to push against instead of drowning in my anxiety.
“Your view on the meaning of marriage is heartwarming,” I say, my voice dry as dust. “You really know how to make a woman feel special.”
He grins, unrepentant and infuriatingly charming. “I try.”
Liam picks up his phone again, ending the conversation, but the crushing weight on my chest has lifted enough to breathe. I turn back to the window as the lake flashes blue between the trees. Somewhere ahead is a house I’ve never seen, belonging to a man I barely know, where I’ll spend the foreseeable future pretending to be someone I’m not.
I’m taking a direct route deeper into a mess I’m not sure I can fix, no matter how many throw pillows I buy.
12
LIAM
Peyton is quiet as the driver opens her door. She climbs out, craning her neck to take in the full scope of the house—the modern lines, the walls of glass, the way the structure seems to hover above the hillside.
I brace for the usual reaction. The one I get from investors, dates, or the occasional distant relative angling for a loan. They look at the house and see dollar signs, success, a man who has his shit together.
Peyton stares at it differently. She tilts her head, and her expression isn’t impressed or calculating. It’s closer to… concerned.
I dismiss the driver and lead her inside.
I thought I had the situation handled, that I could flip a switch, treat this like a merger acquisition, and breeze through the next three years. But seeing Peyton standing in the middle of my living room, dwarfed by the soaring space, shows me how that plan is full of leaks.
She looks small against the expanse of glass, a splash of chaos in a house designed for monochrome minimalism.