29
PEYTON
I wanted the performance of a lifetime, and Liam is giving it to me.
From the moment I pull into the driveway, he plays the besotted husband role to perfection. My car has barely rolled to a stop before he’s opening my door, reaching for my hand like a man who’s been counting the hours.
“Hey, you.” His voice is pitched low and intimate. For my ears only, except it’s not. My parents are climbing out of their sedan ten feet behind me.
Liam pulls me out of the car and into his arms. He cups my cheek with one hand, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone in that way he does that makes my skin buzz. He locks eyes with me with an intensity that steals my breath.
And then he kisses me.
No tongue, my parents are right behind us, watching, but it’s not chaste either. His body presses into mine until I end up with my back against the car. The kiss lasts only a few seconds, but when he lets go, I’m sparkling like a shaken can of soda. Full of bubbles that have nowhere to go. Pressure building with no release valve.
“I missed you,” he murmurs against my lips.
“It was two days,” I whisper back.
“Longest two days of my life.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners in that smile. The one that’s not for show. Even if the playfulness in his gaze seems to ask,How am I doing?
Too damn good.
“Peyton!” My mother’s voice cuts through the moment.
He’s doing so well, he made me forget the PDAs are for my parents’ benefit. Not because he couldn’t wait to kiss me.
“Are you going to introduce us?”
I step back from Liam, smoothing my hands down the front of my sweater, waiting for the carbonation in my blood to settle, and turn to my parents. “Mom, Dad—this is Liam. My husband.”
The word still sounds strange in my mouth. Foreign. But looking at Liam, you’d never guess we were anything but starry-eyed newlyweds deep in our honeymoon phase. He shifts into host mode seamlessly. He shakes my father’s hand, gives my mom a warm hug that makes her blink in surprise, and launches into pleasantries. Questions about the journey and their first impressions driving through town. He’s charming and attentive and in control.
And his hands never leave me.
At A Slice of Heaven, Liam guides me through the door with his palm warm against the small of my back. When we slide into a booth, he drapes his arm over my side, and now, as we wait for our food, he’s holding my hand over the table, his thumb tracing lazy circles over my knuckles.
He’s acting like he did that first dinner at his parents’ house. With the same calculated touches and constructed show of intimacy.
Only now it feels different.
More significant. More real.
I don’t know if it’s the same for him, but for me? The dynamic has shifted. Deepened. Mine is no longer a simple physical attraction. The inconvenient awareness of how good he looks in dark jeans and a leather jacket or how his voice sounds in the morning. Though that’s still there. But a deeper appreciation for his character has settled in. He’s the first man who hasn’t asked me to be “better” or “easier.” He follows me in my craziness, like the pettiness over the wine opener. And I can’t ignore how safe and comfortable I feel in his arms when I asked him to hold me through the night. Not that he doesn’t do that already. The little sneak cuddler. He protects me without trying to control me, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I don’t have to carry the weight of everything alone.
I might—and I’m terrified to even think this—have a mega crush on my husband.
My mother sits across from us, her gaze sweeping over Liam with the assessing precision she reserves for tax audits. She’s cataloging everything. Her eyes miss nothing. The ring on my finger that I wasn’t wearing when I went home, Liam’s hand over mine, but hopefully not the nervous energy I’m trying to contain.
My father is quieter beside her, but no less observant. He’s on the prowl. Looking for cracks in our façade, inconsistencies in our story. Waiting for Liam to slip up.
But he doesn’t.
My fake husband is charm-bombing my parents, and they seem as powerless to resist as everyone else. He asks about their plans for the new CPA office, nodding along when my father describes the challenges of relocating a practice. Liam offers them help to find a suitable new house and a commercial space, saying he’ll show them some of his real estate holdings’ new developments.
My father’s eyebrows lift. “That’s very generous.”