“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”
Tanner stared at the woman before him. His wife.
How the hell had he gotten himself roped into this?
“Tanner?” Juliet said his name so softly with a little curl up on the end to make it a question.
He didn’t know how to answer her.
“Uh, you may kiss the bride.” The Justice of the Peace coughed as he said it.
Yeah, yeah, Tanner knew the drill. He just didn’t know why he was standing here having to do it.
But he leaned in anyway, intending to make it nice and quick.
Juliet made it more than nice and definitely not quick.
Damn her.
She knew just how to kiss him. Knew just how to get the heat started in his groin. Knew how to wrap her sexy-as-hell body around his and send all the blood rushing south.
Damn her.
Tanner speared his hands into her hair as he thrust his tongue into her mouth. She wanted to make him hot and horny as hell? Fine. Then she better be ready to deal with the consequences because, as his wife, she’d be dealing with a lot of consequences.
No she wouldn’t.
Tanner wrenched his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged, and he looked into those blue eyes he’d lost himself in before. Back when he’d believed in love and happily-ever-afters between them.
God, he was such a schmuck.
“May I be the first to offer my congratulations?” The damn Justice just wouldn’t get off the married-for-love kick. Of course, that’d been Tanner’s stipulation. Bad enough he had to do this; he didn’t want people knowing the real reason he was doing it.
So long as Juliet did.
He pulled his fingers from her hair and grabbed the marriage certificate from the clerk. There. Done. Next.
Luckily, he also remembered to grab his wife’s hand before striding out of the courthouse office with a brief—very brief—wave to their respective families.
He dropped her hand the minute they were outside.
He had to, for his own well-being.
Because every time he touched Juliet, his heart ended up getting ripped to shreds.
Juliet had to run to keep up with Tanner. Not that that was anything new; she’d always been trying to keep up with him. From the first moment she’d laid eyes on him—okay, maybe not then given that she’d been two weeks old, but ever since she’d been old enough to notice him—she’d been running after him.
It’d started with hide-n-seek, and had progressed to skateboarding and bike-riding and swimming. She’d had to keep up with him her entire childhood because he’d been her best friend. Their parents had been best friends, their ranches butted up against each other, and Tanner had been larger than life.
‘Course, that body was big enough as it was. Tanner had the build of a linebacker, the abs of a swimmer, and the face of a Greek god. He’d been beautiful to her since puberty and the feeling had only grown with age.
They’d been the golden couple. Homecoming king and queen. Best-looking. Most likely to succeed. The yearbook staff had even added his last name after hers under her senior picture because of course they would get married.
“Tanner, wait.”
He didn’t even break his stride. “We’re on a schedule.”
No, he was on a schedule. He was always moving these days, always busy. It was to avoid spending any alone-time with her, she knew that. He thought so little of her that they never had a chance to catch a breath together lately.
Tonight would change that. This next week would change it. She’d used the only thing she could think of to get some alone-time with him and she wasn’t proud of it. But dammit, they needed to be alone. To have time to talk and sort out what had happened—the scene she’d set up for when her father would walk in…
It’d gotten them to the courthouse and on the plane to Fiji where Daddy had shelled out a fortune for the honeymoon hut on the water. If she had to take her husband to the ends of the earth to get some time alone with him, then that’s what she’d do.
“Tanner, please. I can’t run in these heels.”
“So take them off. They don’t look like they were designed for walking anyway.”
She choked back the angry retort. She didn’t want to start their honeymoon with a fight. There’d been too many harsh words between them already.
She took a few extra seconds out of their “schedule” to remove the shoes, then ran after him, wishing she’d trained for that half marathon Tricia had tried talking her into.
She made it to the limo a few seconds after he’d opened the door for her, barely enough time for the frown to form.
“The plane’s not going to wait, Juliet.”
Actually, it would. Her father’s money said it would, but she wasn’t going to argue with him.
He pulled the door shut behind him then took out his phone the minute the driver pulled away from the curb.
He was on the thing the whole damn way to the airport, through security, and right onto the tarmac. He even had it on when the flight attendant handed them the champagne.
“Mr. Wentworth, we’ll be departing shortly,” she said when he waved for her to put the flute on the table between them.
Tanner punched another couple of letters into his text or email or, hell, maybe he was just playing some stupid game so he wouldn’t have to talk to her, but then he turned off his phone.
Finally. Juliet couldn’t hold back her smile. Their honeymoon could finally start and the healing could begin.
But then Tanner stood up.
“Tanner? What are you doing?”
“Hang on, Juliet.” He stuck his phone in his pants pocket and headed toward the cockpit.
Juliet stared after his broad back that tapered so incredibly nicely down to a narrow waist. Tanner’s looks and physique were just icing on the cake of the man she’d fallen in love with so long ago—
The same man who was getting off the plane.