“Yeah, it’s probably a pretty safe assumption.”
“Well, anyway, this isn’t about my lack of a paternal figure. This is about the overbearing presence of yours.”
He laughed. “My mother is old-fashioned—so is my father. My brother Devlin is a little bit too, but he’s also something of a rebel. He has tattoos and things. He’s a likely ally for you, especially since he got married a few months ago and is feeling soft about love and all of that. My brother Isaiah isn’t going to like you. My sister, Faith, will try. Basically, if you cuss, chew with your mouth open, put your elbows on the table and in general act like a feral cat, my family will likely find you unsuitable. Also, if you could maybe repeatedly bring up the fact that you’re really looking forward to spending my money, and that you had another man’s baby four months ago, that would be great.”
She squinted. “I think the fact that I have a four-month-old baby in tow will be reminder enough.”
The idea of going into his family’s farmhouse and behaving like a nightmare didn’t sit as well with her as it had when the plan had been fully abstract. But now he had given names to the family members. Now she had been here for a while. And now it was all starting to feel a little bit real.
“It won’t hurt. Though, he’s pretty quiet. It might help if he screamed.”
She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I have a feeling your mom and sister might just want to hold him. That will be the real problem. Not having everyone hate me. That’ll be easy enough. It’ll be keeping everyone from loving him.”
That comment struck her square in the chest, made her realize just what they were playing at here. She was going to be lying to these people. And yes, the idea was to alienate them, but they were going to think she might be their daughter-in-law, sister-in-law...that Riley would be their grandson or nephew.
But it would be a lie.
That’s the point, you moron. And who cares? They’re strangers. Riley is your life. He’s your responsibility. And you’ll never see these people again.
“We won’t let them hold the baby,” he said, his expression hard, as if he’d suddenly realized she wasn’t completely wrong about his mother and sister and it bothered him.
She wished she could understand why he felt so strongly about putting a stop to his father playing matchmaker. As someone whose parents were ambivalent about her existence, his disregard for his family’s well wishes was hard to comprehend.
“Okay,” she said. “Fine by me. And you just want me to...be my charming self?”
“Obviously we’ll have to come up with a story about our relationship. We don’t have to make up how we met. We can say we met through the ad.”
“The ad your father placed, not the ad you placed.”
“Naturally.”
She looked at Joshua then, at the broad expanse of table between them. Two people who looked less like a couple probably didn’t exist on the face of the planet. Honestly, two strangers standing across the street from each other probably looked more like a happily engaged unit than they did.
She frowned. “This is very unconvincing.”
“What is? Be specific.”
She rolled her eyes at his impatience. “Us.”
She stood up and walked toward him, sitting down in the chair right next to him. She looked at him for a moment, at the sharp curve of his jaw, the enticing shape of his lips. He was an attractive man. That was an understatement. He was also so uptight she was pretty sure he had a stick up his ass.
“Look, you want your family to think you’ve lost your mind, to think you have hooked up with a totally unsuitable woman, right?”
“That is the game.”
“Then you have to look like you’ve lost your mind over me. Unfortunately, Joshua, you look very much in your right mind. In fact, a man of sounder mind may not exist. You are...responsible. You literally look like The Man.”
“Which man?”
“Like, The Man. Like, fight the power. You’re the power. Nobody’s going to believe you’re with me. At least, not if you don’t seem a little bit...looser.”
A slight smile tipped up those lips she had been thinking about only a moment before. His blue eyes warmed, and she felt an answering warmth spread low in her belly. “So what you’re saying is we need to look like we have more of a connection?”
Her throat went dry. “It’s just a suggestion.”
He leaned forward, his gaze intent on hers. “An essential one, I think.” Then he reached up and she jerked backward, nearly toppling off the side of her chair. “It looks like I’m not the only one who’s wound a bit tight.”
“I’m not,” she said, taking a deep breath, trying to get her jittery body to calm itself down.
She wasn’t used to men. She wasn’t used to men touching her. Yes, intermittently she and her mother had lived with some of her mother’s boyfriends, but none of them had ever been inappropriate with her. And she had never been close enough to even give any of them hugs.
And she really, really wasn’t used to men who were so beautiful it was almost physically painful to look directly at them.
“You’re right. We have to do a better job of looking like a couple. And that would include you not scampering under the furniture when I get close to you.”
She sat up straight and folded her hands in her lap. “I did not scamper,” she muttered.
“You were perilously close to a scamper.”
“Was not,” she grumbled, and then her breath caught in her throat as his warm palm made contact with her cheek.
He slid his thumb down the curve of her face to that dent just beneath her lips, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt...stunned and warm. No, hot. So very hot. Like there was a furnace inside that had been turned up the moment his hand touched her bare skin.
She
