I shrugged his hand off, not liking the zap of awareness that zinged through my body at his touch. It never made sense to me how I could find him so fully annoying, and at the same time, sinfully sexy.
“I don’t need you to defend me,” I said. “The proof is in the pudding, right? Look at them. Saccharinely happy. By their own admission, they’re having lots of sex. I can’t buy that fake marriage was any hardship for you.”
“Okay, so why don’t you prove that me and Wyatt weren’t a fluke?” Sinclair said, arching a brow in challenge.
I could only stare at her, not sure where she was going with that.
“I bet you couldn’t be fake married to someone for even one month. In fact, I’d be surprised if you made it a week without running away screaming.” She smirked and held up her beer as if to put an exclamation point on her comment.
I scoffed. “It would be a cakewalk if I had a good reason, like you two did.”
“Even if your life depended on it, I don’t think you could do it.” Sinclair finished her beer.
“I know I could, and I’d prove it except there’s no one crazy enough to try it, especially for nothing in return.”
Sinclair turned to me with that look in her eyes that told me I should probably back off. That look was usually followed by a dare that got me or her or the both of us in trouble.
“Okay, let’s make this interesting. If you can’t stay fake married for a month, you have to give my speech at the Harvest Day concert,” she said.
My guts roiled at the image of standing up in front of the county and talking. To me, public speaking was worse than death. There was so much that could go wrong. I could blank on what I was supposed to say. I could forget to get dressed and end up standing in front of everyone naked. The audience could boo, or worse, laugh at me. Nope. Public speaking wasn’t in my future.
So the answer should have been no. And yet, there was no way I could lose this bet. How hard could it be to live with some man for a month in a fake marriage? Even I, who didn’t tolerate fools or assholes, could do a fake marriage. Seriously, who couldn’t do that with the right motivation?
“That’s a bit one-sided. What do I get if I win besides not having to do your job for you?” I knew Sinclair didn’t have anything I wanted bad enough to goad me into this bet.
“I’ll give back the book.”
Ah, hell. I chanced at glance at Ryder. He and the book and my humiliation over the last ten years were all entwined. Luckily, he was setting a glass of wine in front of another customer and didn’t hear her.
“If you win, I’ll give you back the book and you can destroy it like you want,” Sinclair finished.
“What book?” Wyatt asked.
“When I first learned I was pregnant—”
“Stop. You must never talk about the book.” I practically pressed my hand over her mouth to shut her up.
“What book? What did I miss?” Ryder asked, returning to us.
“We don’t talk about it.” I glared at Sinclair, who smirked as she passed her empty beer glass to Ryder who took it and refilled it.
God, I’d do anything to get that book back. I wanted to burn it. Get rid of all evidence that it ever existed. Even just thinking about it viscerally brought back the heat of anger and humiliation at Ryder’s using the book to embarrass me. He’d earned my eternal scorn for that.
But no. A fake marriage to get my book back? The idea was crazy. Of course, I couldn’t admit that. I had to come up with a good reason why I shouldn’t have to take this bet.
“There’s still no one crazy enough to participate in this test,” I said. For once, my reputation for being a ballbuster would work in my favor. There wasn’t a man in Salvation who’d want to be married to me, even if it was fake.
“I’ll do it.”
My head swung around to Ryder. Of all the people, the last person in the world I wanted to spend time with, much less be fake married to, was Ryder.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I waved his comment away, wishing he’d go somewhere else.
He shrugged affably, but I saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “Just trying to help you get your book back.”
“Of all the people to live with for a month, there can’t be anyone easier than Ryder,” Sinclair said.
She was wrong about that.
“He won’t care about which way the toilet paper needs to go on the roll or where to squeeze the toothpaste. He’ll get off on all your lists, I bet.”
“There’s a right way to hang the toilet paper?” Ryder asked deadpan.
“You’re being crazy,” I said, wishing I had a glass of whiskey. Hell, I wanted the whole bottle.
“I remember saying a fake marriage was crazy when you proposed the idea to me and Ryder. What’s the problem? Too hard to be fake married after all?” Sinclair taunted me.
Dammit. I was proving her point. Surely there was someone else I could do this dumb bet with. I quickly scanned the room, but the bar didn’t show any prospects. Most men were married. Others were too old.
“Ah, leave her alone,” Ryder said.
For a moment, I was ready to thank him for coming to my rescue.
“She’s too uptight for a game like this,” he finished.
I gaped. “Uptight?”
He nodded. “I mean that in a good way.”
My jaw clenched. “Good way?”
“I think what he means is that you’re serious. You don’t like frivolous or spontaneous things,” Sinclair said, in a clear attempt to help her brother out.
“You don’t think I’m spontaneous?” I turned my glare
