Chapter Six

Nash

Because the key to his plan was shock and awe, he wasn’t going to tell his family about the wedding until tonight’s dinner at Le Hibou. That would get all of the Becketts talking to each other about him rather than focusing on him and why he should change his mind. He knew his people. They needed to be properly managed.

That’s why he’d ditched today’s usual takeout in the boardroom at Beckett Cosmetics with his cousins before their weekly company meeting. He’d told Dixon, the company CEO, and Griff, the former head of R&D, that he had to take a client out to lunch.

In reality, he was pacing the marble hall in front of the county clerk’s office at the Harbor City Town Hall and checking the time on his phone every third step, grinding his teeth as he wondered if she’d really show for the appointment to get their wedding license.

He’d texted directions to Chelle, including a link to the courthouse on Google Maps. He’d offered to send an Uber to pick her up, but she’d turned him down. He’d said he’d meet her at her place and they could go together. She’d told him he was being annoying and to stop it.

He’d kept texting but had deleted each message after that.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

Maybe he should have insisted on offering his help.

Fuck.

Grinding his teeth, he checked his phone for the millionth time as he headed for the front doors. He could be at her place in twenty minutes. He grasped the oversize brass handle and swung the door open. A gust of cold air blew in, along with the sound of an excited low bark. Chelle was halfway up the wide steps, headed in the direction of a bored-looking police K-9 standing with its handler at the base of the stairs.

Was he a total asshole for taking a moment to appreciate the view?

Yes. He was.

He looked anyway.

Chelle didn’t look like the frigid wind blasting down Fourth Avenue could send her flying. Her smile was wide and full. Her ass was high and round, the kind that a man would need both hands to hold onto—not that he would be doing that no matter how abso-fucking-lutely she checked off every one of his boxes on his thank-God-for-thick-women checklist.

This was a mutually beneficial marriage of convenience for a limited duration. Sex would only complicate things. He hated complications. He had enough to keep track of as it was when it came to running Beckett Cosmetics and his family’s lives.

Still, he took a second look.

Then a third.

And he was a good ten seconds into the fourth when her husky voice cut through the fantasies he was starting to run through his head.

“Oh, you’re not that scary at all, are you, you sweet little furball? Now give me your paw and you’ll get the treat,” Chelle said, her voice firm as she planted a hand on one of her generously round hips and held aloft in the other a Milk-Bone dangling from the tips of her fingers as she stared down at the police dog. “Paw, Georgette.”

The woman’s dog obsession was a menace. She was going to get eaten or arrested or arrested and then eaten. He couldn’t let that happen.

Nash hurried down the steps, getting to Chelle’s side prepped and ready to dive between her and the jaws of death just when the German Shepherd lifted its right paw.

“Oh, what a good girl you are,” Chelle praised the K-9 as she gave it a treat. “Darnell, your mom was right. Georgette really is the sweetest girl.”

Some of the confused shock Nash was trying to process must have shown on his face, because when Chelle looked up, she took pity on him. She chuckled, the sound full-bodied, like an aged whiskey with a complex flavor profile that knocked a guy back on his heels and said, You’ve never had anything like me before and you never will again.

“Darnell, meet my soon-to-be husband, Nash. And Nash”—she tucked a long section of salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear as the wind tugged at the rest of it—“meet Darnell, my best friend Karmel’s recently married son and his K-9 partner, the gorgeous and very brilliant Georgette.”

Nash warily eyeballed the dog who looked like she could easily take down Thor and stuck out his hand to the officer. “Good to meet you.”

“You, too.” The other man looked Nash over with the critical eye of a cop before turning back to Chelle. “Beware, my mom said she’s stopping by your place for all of the gossip this afternoon.”

“I’m surprised she stayed away this morning at all,” Chelle said with a laugh before saying her goodbyes and heading up the stairs to the courthouse door with Nash. She glanced down at his feet with concern. “How’s the ankle?”

Nash flexed the foot in question. “All better.”

“I’m glad,” she said, sounding as if she really had worried. Then, a second later, she grimaced as a buzz sounded from her coat. “Oh crap!” She unzipped her bright-blue puffer coat and pulled her phone out of an inside pocket. “Sorry, I have to respond to this text from the foundation board real quick.”

The move gave Nash the perfect view of the upper curve of her full, pillowy tits showing above the V of her sweater, and his mouth went dry and his brain went blank—for all of fifteen seconds. After that, it went straight into a million naked possibilities.

Maybe sex wouldn’t be such a complication. It could be a relief, an emergency relief valve, a—

Get a hold of yourself, Beckett. Chelle Finch is going to be your wife, but she’s off-limits. Just stock up on lotion and you’ll get through the next month just fine.

Seemingly oblivious to the gutter his thoughts were currently in, Chelle returned the phone to the inside pocket of her puffer coat and zipped it back up. “I know that was rude, I’m sorry. My uncle has the board all whipped up, and if I don’t jump high enough when they reach out, then he’ll use that as leverage and—” She stopped, pursed her lips together, and let out a huff of frustrated breath. “Not that any of that is important enough to air out. Again, I’m sorry.”

“If it bothers you, then it is important. You know, I deal with boards all the time. What you want to do is—”

“Not be mansplained,” she said, cutting him off. Grinning, she curled a finger at him, a nervous flush turning her cheeks pink. “Come on, Cucciolo, let’s go get our marriage license.”

There it was. She was calling him puppy again, this time in Italian. And what was he doing? Following her into the courthouse like it was the most natural thing to do to let someone else take care of things.

Nothing about this was going how he thought it would. As soon as they got the license, he’d get back in control of the situation.

How hard could that be? All of this was his idea. His plan. His solution. She needed his help.

And yet here he was following her.

The idea of not being the one controlling everything and maneuvering the people around him like pieces on a chessboard slowed his steps for a second, and she beat him to the courthouse door, pulling it open.

She held the door for him. “After you.”

“No,” he said, his feet rooted to the spot. “You first, I insist.”

“But I’m in charge, remember?” she asked, leaning in close, her soft breath tickling his ear and sending a shot of lust straight to his balls. “That’s part of the makeover. You have to do what I say.”

His dick thickened against his thigh, his pulse hit the gas, and a million dirty ideas ran through his head at the same time. Just how much he liked the idea of not being in charge hit him harder than a Mack truck going eighty on the interstate.

What the hell, Beckett? That is not how you roll. Who are you right now?

He had no answer to that, to any of it, really. He’d started all this, but for the first time in his life, he was already in over his head—and, fuck him, his cock liked the idea very, very much.