Chapter Eleven
Chelle
Chelle was gonna be a widow before Christmas.
Nash hadn’t stopped talking for the past two hours. He’d paced the living room while on a call with business associates in London, taken four calls from his mom to walk her through restarting her internet router, and had a long conversation with Sir Hiss about why the cat couldn’t walk across the counters in the kitchen.
Okay, the last one had been funny because the cat had spent the entire time purring and rubbing up against Nash who was—thankfully—fully dressed today.
Yeah, she’d peeked when refilling on coffee and Twizzlers. Sue her.
She’d written approximately one hundred words in her book (goal two thousand) if she didn’t count the number of Beckett Cosmetics–related sales calls she’d accidentally transcribed into dialogue for her formerly taciturn hero who couldn’t seem to shut up now. That had been bad enough, but Nash had DoorDashed what smelled like charbroiled heaven in food form and was right now having a conversation about the delivery guy’s killer sneakers and how he had customized them. Nash was just starting to offer unsolicited advice on color combinations and marketing focus groups when Chelle hurried out of her room before she got put on some DoorDash pain-in-the-ass blacklist.
By the time she got to her front door, with the pugs chasing her, yapping excitedly at whatever game was being played, the delivery guy had that pinched expression of someone who wanted to be somewhere—anywhere—else.
“Nash,” she said through a strained smile.
He turned, his smile going two-dimples deep when he spotted her. “Hey, ready for a lunch break?”
“Sure. Awesome. Yes.” Anything to rescue the delivery guy who didn’t even stick around long enough to say goodbye before he high-tailed it away from her apartment.
Chelle shut the door and leaned her back against it as she let out a long sigh.
For his part, Nash stayed where he was, standing in the middle of the little hall that made up her foyer. She shouldn’t notice that the blue of his sweater that spanned his broad chest matched the blue in his eyes, or the fact that his jeans were doing God’s work, highlighting the absolute, stone-cold solid thickness of his thighs. The man was just big and solid, like a giant stack of doorstopper books come to life—but one holding two delicious-smelling bags and grinning at her as if she was the cherry on the extra whipped cream topping of his Oreo shake.
A hot flash of tingly lust blasted up from the center of her black leggings, and her mouth went dry as he watched her.
Good Lord. This man discombobulated her. He had her all jittery and thinking inappropriate thoughts about her husband who wasn’t her husband but kinda was and—
My God, Chelle! Simmer down on the spiral before you just rip off your clothes right here and now.
Pulling back from the edge, she turned and flipped the locks on her front door, then put the chain on. “You can’t do that.”
“Do what?” He unrolled the top of one of the brown bags he was holding and took a deep inhale before closing his eyes and letting out a low groan of appreciation.
Her brain went offline for a second at the sound.
Really, it should be illegal to make that noise that had her wondering if that’s the sound he’d make while between her legs.
Clearing her throat, she tore her gaze away from him and rebooted her brain, digging for the just-go-with-the-flow version of herself that she was determined to find. Somewhere. Down deep. It had to be there. Right?
Focus, Michelle!
Letting out a sigh, she pulled herself back from the brink. “You shouldn’t give so much unasked-for advice.”
“But it’s good advice, and customized shoes are a growing market segment and—”
She silenced him with a glance that actually surprised her at her own boldness, then started down the hall toward the kitchen, because she needed some ice-cold water before she ignited from being that close to him. “Not everyone wants to turn something they love into a side hustle.”
“But he had something so great,” Nash said, keeping up with her in the narrow hall. “Just a little tweak here and there, and he’d be in the sweet spot.”
“Nash,” she said, putting all of the censure she could muster in her voice when 88 percent of her thoughts were taken up with fantasies involving him between her thighs.
He shot her a rueful grin. “This is makeover business, huh?”
Something in the rough sandpaper of his voice made her look at him as they walked through the arched entry into her kitchen with the bright canary-yellow walls she hated, and her breath caught. He was close—so close—but not touching her even though he was big enough that it had to have been an effort not to in the confined space. The fact that he had pulled back was somehow almost hotter than if he actually was touching her.
Oh my God, Chelle. You’ve been alone so long that you’re broken.
Hustling across the room, she got a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with ice from the fridge dispenser, fastidiously avoiding looking at him again, because that’s how the bad thoughts happened. “It’s the you-don’t-have-to-run-everyone’s-life business.”
Nash stayed in the archway, leaning one shoulder against it, watching her, his gaze intense and his grip tight on the food bags. “You seem tense. Anything I can help with?”
She froze. Was that flirting? Was her fake husband flirting with her? He couldn’t be. There was just no way a hot billionaire like Nash Beckett would flirt with a woman eight years older than him, with enough gray in her hair that her stylist had gone from calling it nature’s glitter to saying Chelle had earned her stripes.
She was so discombobulated—again—by the possibility that her husband just maybe thought about her naked that she blurted out a truth, if not the truth. “It’s the color of the kitchen that makes me tense. I hate it, but when my aunt left me the apartment, her will stipulated I couldn’t repaint the kitchen.”
“Your family has a tradition of weirdly controlling wills,” Nash said.
“Yeah,” she said with a chuckle that was about 75 percent awkward nerves. “It’s definitely a quirk.”
“Well, does the paint color mean you don’t want lunch in here?”
“Depends,” she said, sounding way more calm than she felt at the moment. “What is it?”
One side of his mouth lifted in a smirk that promised he’d already won. “The best cheeseburger you’ve ever tasted in your life.”
Ugh. That wasn’t fair. Considering her totally crappy work progress for the day, it was definitely a cheeseburger day and ketchup delivered via crinkle-cut fries kind of day. “Are there fries?”
He opened one of the brown paper bags, this one with grease stains on the bottom corner—always a good sign—and revealed a large red-striped paper cup overflowing with golden-brown deep-fried potatoes begging to be dragged through a vast sea of ketchup.
She inhaled, and all of her happy responses kicked into gear. Oh, she knew that seasoning mix. There was only one place in Harbor City that got the ratio right. “From Vito’s Diner?”
Nash shrugged his broad shoulders. “It is the best in Harbor City.”
He wasn’t lying. Although they were best known for an item that wasn’t in Nash’s oversize hands.
“No shakes?” she teased.
“Nah.” He shook his head and made his way over to the little two-person table tucked into the corner of her kitchen. “You gotta get those in person so you get the overage in the silver mixing cup.”
Oh yes, the overage. It was an amazing bonus that made the divine shakes even better. “Good point.”
“What?” He kept his face down, but there was no missing his smug grin as he took out the foil-wrapped cheeseburgers and then ripped the paper bag holding the fries so that it unfolded and made the perfect basket for them. “That isn’t mansplaining?”
“Don’t ruin the moment, Nash.” Chelle tucked her water glass in the crook of her arm and took two plates out of the cabinet, then took them over to the table. “Just accept the win.”
He laughed. It was a good sound, the kind of friendly, happy sound of a man who did it often. “Does that mean I get to feed you french fries while you tell me all about what you’re doing in your room?”
She rolled her eyes and sat down. “It’s not that interesting.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said as he took the seat across from her.
Bracing herself for more questions, Chelle unwrapped her cheeseburger and took a bite before putting it down. Then she did her best to keep her gaze on her plate as she loaded it with fries and several large squirts of ketchup, because looking at Nash while he ate wasn’t an option. Whatever a poker face was for food, he didn’t have it. Instead, it was just raw appreciation for the deliciousness in his mouth. The bad ideas it gave her were delicious in a whole other way.
Fuck. They said your forties meant a whole new level of constant sexual awareness, but this was ridiculous. She was a grown-ass woman with a healthy self-care orgasm routine. The last thing she wanted was a hulk of a man disrupting her with things she couldn’t have.
Luckily for her, once they started eating, the deliciousness of Vito’s cheeseburgers and fries superseded conversation. If Nash thought about a more efficient way she could use her fries as edible scoops to deliver massive amounts of ketchup, he kept his mouth shut about it. They were both finishing up when his phone buzzed.
He picked it up off the table, and his face scrunched up when he looked at the screen. “Our first date is set.”
Ah yes, the reason for this whole farce for him—the Last Man Standing bet. Her pulse picked up in anticipation, which was really not what she needed right now. Couldn’t he just be completely unappealing? Wasn’t that what everyone wanted in a fake husband?
If only her body was on board with that plan. Right now, it was waaaaaay too focused on what that date would be and if it would involve touching him. Dancing? Tandem sky diving? Couples massage? Yeah, her body had much different priorities than the rest of her.