Kat Cantrell - In Name Only - Best Friend Bride (In Name Only) / One Night Stand Bride (In Name Only) / Contract Bride (In Name Only)

This was something else. A test. An “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Maybe Grandfather scented a whiff of the truth and all it would take was one slipup before he’d pounce. If pressed, Jonas would feel honor bound to be truthful about Viv’s role. The marriage could be history before dark.

A healthy amount of caution leaped into Viv’s expression. “This weekend? As in we have two days to figure out how to act like a married couple?”

“Now you’re starting to see why my face looks like this.” He swirled an index finger near his nose, unbelievably grateful that she had instantly realized the problem. “Viv, I’m sorry. I had no idea he was going to do this.”

The logistics alone... How could he tell his mom to give them separate bedrooms when they were essentially still supposed to be in the honeymoon phase? He couldn’t. It was ludicrous to even think in that direction when what he should be doing was making a list of all the ways this whole plan was about to fall apart. So he could mitigate each and every one.

“Hey.”

Jonas glanced up as Viv laced her fingers with his as if she’d done it many times, when in fact she hadn’t. She shouldn’t. He liked it too much.

“I’m here,” she said, an echo of her sentiment at the wedding ceremony. “I’m not going anywhere. My comment wasn’t supposed to be taken as a ‘holy cow how are we going to do this.’ It was an ‘oh, so we’ve got two days to figure this out.’ We will.”

There was literally no way to express how crappy that made him feel. Viv was such a trouper, diving into this marriage without any thought to herself and her own sense of comfort and propriety. He already owed her so much. He couldn’t ask her to fake intimacy on top of everything else.

Neither did he like the instant heat that crowded into his belly at the thought of potential intimate details. He couldn’t fake intimacy either. It would feel too much like lying.

The only way he could fathom acting like he and Viv were lovers would be if they were.

“You don’t know my grandfather. He’s probably already suspicious. This house party is intended to sniff out the truth.”

“So?” She shrugged that off far too easily. “Let him sniff. What’s he going to find out, that we’re really legally married?”

“That the marriage is in name only.”

To drive the point home, he reached out to cup Viv’s jaw and brought her head up until her gaze clashed with his, her mouth mere centimeters away from his in an almost-kiss that would be a real one with the slightest movement. She nearly jumped out of her skin and stumbled back a good foot until she hit the counter. And then she tried to keep going, eyes wide with...something.

“See?” he said. “I can’t even touch you without all sorts of alarms going off. How are we going to survive a whole weekend?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t—” She swallowed. “I wasn’t expecting you to do that. So clearly the answer is that we need to practice.”

“Practice what?” And then her meaning sank in. “Touching?”

“Kissing, too.” Her chest rose and fell unevenly as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “You said we would best get through the adjustment period by spending time together. Maybe we should do that the old-fashioned way. Take me on a date, Jonas.”

Speechless, he stared at her, looking for the punch line, but her warm brown eyes held nothing but sincerity. The idea unwound in his gut with a long, liquid pull of anticipation that he didn’t need any help interpreting.

A date with his wife. No, with Viv. And the whole goal would be to get her comfortable with his hands on her, to kiss her at random intervals until it was so natural, neither of them thought anything of it.

Crazy. And brilliant. Not to mention impossible.

“Will you wear a new dress?” That should not have been the next thing out of his mouth. No would be more advisable when he’d already identified a great big zone of danger surrounding his wife. But yes was the only answer if he wanted to pull off this plan.

She nodded, a smile stealing over her face. “The only caveat is no work. For either of us. Which means I get dessert that’s not cupcakes.”

Oddly, a date with Viv where kissing was expected felt like enough of a reward that he didn’t mind that addendum so much, though giving up cupcakes seemed like a pretty big sacrifice. But as her brown eyes seared him thoroughly, the real sacrifice was going to be his sanity. Because he could get her comfortable with his hands on her, but there was no way to get him there.

The date would be nothing but torture—and an opportunity to practice making sure no one else realized that, an opportunity he could not pass up. Having an overdeveloped sense of ethics was very inconvenient sometimes.

“It’s a deal. Pick you up at eight?”

That made her laugh for some reason. “My bedroom is next door to yours, silly. Are we going to have a secret knock?”

“Maybe.” The vibe between them had loosened gradually to where they were almost back to normal, at least as far as she was concerned. Strange that the concept of taking Viv on a date should be the thing to do it. “What should it be?”

Rapping out a short-short-pause-short pattern, she raised her brows. “That means we’re leaving in five minutes so get your butt in gear.”

“And then that’s my cue to hang out in the living room with a sporting event on TV because you’re going to take an extra twenty?”

Tossing her head, she grinned. “You catch on fast. Now, I have to go get ready, which means you get to unload the rest of these boxes.”

Though he groaned good-naturedly as she scampered out of the kitchen, he didn’t mind taking over the chore. Actually, she should be sitting on the couch with a drink and a book while he slaved for hours to get the house exactly the way she liked it. He would have, too, simply because he owed her for this, but she’d insisted that she wanted to do it in order to learn where everything was. Looked like a date was enough to trump that concept.

As the faint sound of running water drifted through the walls, he found spots in his cavernous kitchen for the various pieces Viv had brought with her to this new, temporary life. Unpacking her boxes ended up being a more intimate task than he’d anticipated. She had an odd collection of things. He couldn’t fathom the purpose of many of them, but they told him fascinating things about the woman he’d married. She made cupcakes for her business but she didn’t have so much as one cupcake pan in her personal stash. Not only that, each item had a well-used sheen, random scrapes, dents, bent handles.

Either she’d spent hours in her kitchen trying to figure out what she liked to bake the most or she’d cleaned out an estate sale in one fell swoop. He couldn’t wait to find out, because what better topic to broach on a date with a woman he needed to know inside and out before Friday night?

As he worked, he couldn’t help but think of Viv on the other side of the walls, taking a shower. The ensuing images that slammed through his mind were not conducive to the task at hand and it got a little hard to breathe. He should not be picturing her “getting ready” when, in all honesty, he had no idea what that entailed. Odds were good she didn’t lather herself up and spend extra time stroking the foam over her body like his brain seemed bent on imagining.

What was his problem? He never sat around and fantasized about a woman. He’d never felt strongly enough about one to do so. When was the last time he’d even gone on a date? He might stick Warren with the workaholic label but that could easily be turned back on Jonas. Running the entire American arm of a global company wasn’t for wimps, and he had something to prove on top of that. Didn’t leave a lot of room for dating, especially when the pact was first and foremost in his mind.