Julianna Morris - Just Between Friends

He glanced around her kitchen with an unreadable expression. “Your place is a little small,” he murmured.

Well, duh.

The last thing Kate wanted was to move into Nanna Jane’s mansion with its dozens of cold rooms and echoing space. She wanted them to live in a place where Dylan couldn’t avoid her, no matter how hard he tried.

It wasn’t as if she was being terribly deceitful, or anything. If he really thought about it, he’d realize how she’d been in love with him forever. And if he still didn’t feel the same about her after being married for a year, she’d agree to an uncontested divorce.

But Dylan was still looking thoughtful, so she pushed aside the possibility of failure and leaned forward. “What’s wrong with my place? It’s not that small and your company did the work to modernize it, so you know it’s in good condition.”

“Hmm…yes.” He scratched the side of his face. “But this is a great old building and there’s a lot of room for expansion. You’ve talked about enlarging—so this would be a good time to get it done. I really think it’s best.”

Kate shrugged in defeat. “All right. Draw up the plans and send me the bill.” So much for a crowded living space pushing them together. The forced intimacy would have helped—now she’d have to think of something else.

Dylan looked scandalized. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s just like the last time.”

“Like hell. Husbands don’t charge their wives for work they do.”

Much as Kate enjoyed the oblique reference to being Dylan’s wife, she didn’t think it was right for him to work on the converted carriage house without getting paid.

“That isn’t fair,” she objected.

“Tough,” he said, still sounding offended. “You won’t change my mind on this, Katydid. As a matter of fact, you’ll have to get used to not getting your way on everything. I’m not spending the next year saying ‘yes’ to you.”

He set his jaw, looking so endearingly macho and stubborn that a quiver went through her stomach. There’d always been a core of strength and certainty in Dylan that fascinated her. He was like a giant boulder in the middle of a river that water had no choice but to flow around. No matter what he might say, she’d never been able to talk him into anything that he didn’t actually want to do.

“Do you understand, Katydid?” he said insistently.

Her chin rose. “I understand. I’m not as spoiled as you think, and that’s something you’ll have to get used to.”

The level note in Kate’s voice made Dylan’s eyes narrow. He had the uncomfortable feeling he’d missed something significant, but he didn’t know what. Hell, women were a complete mystery. If he didn’t comprehend his own sisters, what made him think a woman like Katrina Douglas would be any easier? She lived in an ivory tower, and he lived in the real world.

“I just…all right,” he said finally. “When do you want to…uh…?”

“Get married?”

The easy way she said “married” made him wince. At least it was only for a year, and he wouldn’t have to feel responsible for her getting hooked up with the wrong man. Anyway, taking care of Kate was such a habit he wasn’t sure how to stop.

“Yeah, married,” Dylan muttered.

“It needs to be before my birthday, that’s all.”

“Okay, the sooner we do it, the sooner it’ll be over with. We don’t have to do one of those big society weddings do we?” he asked. “Your grandmother didn’t make that a requirement, did she?”

“No, just that I get married and live with my husband on the Douglas estate.”

“I’m surprised she put something so specific in the will.”

“I’m not,” Kate said glumly. “Grandmamma might have been old, but she had a mind like a steel trap. She was probably suspicious that I’d try to get around the conditions of my inheritance.”

Dylan’s breath caught in his throat as Kate stretched slowly, arching her back like a silky little cat. She took her time, reaching her hands toward the ceiling, her body twisting sensuously. It was totally innocent, and totally devastating to his already shaky peace of mind.

When she lowered her arms again she smiled lazily. “Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well with so much to think about. It’ll be better tonight now that we’re getting things settled.”

Great.

She was going to sleep like a baby, and he was going home to a cold shower.

Gritting his teeth, Dylan ordered his body to stop behaving like a teenager with his first case of lust. This was Katydid, for heaven’s sake, he didn’t have any business getting stirred up over her. She’d asked for his help because she trusted him. Besides, it was temporary insanity. He’d get over it and then everything would be the same between them.

Ignoring the voice inside his brain that was laughing sarcastically, he leaned forward.

“How do you want to handle the ceremony?”

Kate drew a circle on the table with the tip of her finger. “How about going over to Victoria? Your brother’s wedding there was beautiful.”

A frown creased Dylan’s forehead. Victoria, British Columbia, was popular with courting couples, and the O’Rourke women had raved endlessly over what a romantic setting it had been for Kane and Beth’s wedding. But it didn’t seem right for him to marry Katydid in a place intended for lovers, not when they were just friends making a paper commitment for a year. It was much easier thinking about it that way—a paper commitment. Not really a marriage.

“I’d rather keep it smaller, here in Seattle,” he said after a moment. “Maybe just the two of us in a civil ceremony at the courthouse.”

Kate’s eyelids dropped instantly, yet he thought he saw disappointment in their sea-green depths before it was hidden. But surely she didn’t want a romantic wedding—or worse, a church wedding. There was something sacrilegious about going into a church and promising to love, honor and cherish when you were planning to get divorced in a year.

“Won’t your mother be disappointed?” Kate murmured after a moment. “I know how much she enjoyed it when Kane and the others got married. We could ask her pastor to do the ceremony. It wouldn’t have to be a big deal.”

Dylan winced.

Much as he wanted his mother to stop pestering him about settling down, he didn’t want to hurt her. But she’d be both worried and appalled if she knew the truth about why he was marrying Katydid. Fond as she was of Kate, she’d say they were making a huge mistake by using the sacred institution of marriage for something other than love. He was a little uneasy about it himself, but it wasn’t as if they’d really be married.

No sex, for one thing.

Lord, the next year was going to be dismal.

Unfortunately, sex deprivation didn’t seem like a good enough reason to say no. Dylan cleared his throat. Kate was so innocent, she probably didn’t have a clue about what she was asking from him.

“Katydid…I just don’t feel comfortable about having some preacher speak words over us.” His inexplicable physical reaction to her was causing another kind of discomfort, but she didn’t need to know about that.

A stillness crept over Kate until she slowly nodded. “I see. So we’ll do it at a courthouse, or wherever civil ceremonies are offered.”

Swell, now he felt like a selfish crumb.

Husbands probably felt like that a lot, so he was getting off to a good start. Moreover, it didn’t even make sense because Kate knew the ceremony wasn’t supposed to mean anything. So why did he feel guilty?

He sighed. “Look, I know you wanted—”

“No,” she interrupted quietly. “You don’t know. It’s fine. We’ll have a civil ceremony and explain that we were in too much of a hurry to wait for a big wedding. That should satisfy the lawyers. They’ve been nagging me about the deadline, anyway, so they should understand.”