Chapter 4

4

Banks considered himself a reasonable man.

He had three sisters after all. A man living with all that estrogen learned to be reasonable. He wasn’t like his teammate Dex O’Malley, a disaster-dick on two legs, constantly getting into trouble with women, the org, and the law. So much trouble that he had to have his reputation rehabilitated with fake engagements and shelter volunteer gigs.

No, Banks wasn’t like O’Malley at all.

He was worse.

And the reason was standing before him, looking like a cupcake in human form. Banks’s life was one of work and ambition, but then he met Georgia Goodwin and all that fell to the wayside.

Her elbow felt soft.

It should be rough or bony. In fact, he shouldn’t be able to feel bare skin at all because it was early April in Chicago, which was basically mid-fucking-winter, and this tiny Tinkerbell should be bundled up in a puffer jacket or a heavy coat or a trench. Maybe one of those sexy ones with a simple tie-off that you just unfurl to reveal?—

Nope. He dropped her elbow.

The alcove on the other side of the bar should give them some privacy. Damage control would be needed after Georgia blabbed in front of O’Malley and Grey, but first he had to deal with the rubble in front of him.

“Go on.”

Her raised eyebrow was like a smirk on her forehead. “Go on what?”

“Provide an explanation for why this—” He waved between them. “Is still a thing?”

“Some t wasn’t crossed, an i wasn’t dotted. Like I said, a paperwork flub.”

The blasé attitude was really pissing him off. “So I need to talk to my lawyer because apparently yours screwed up.”

“That’s an option.”

His Spidey senses went nuts. Or maybe he should call them Georgia senses.

“What else is there to happen here? We got drunk, tied the knot, and then you skipped out like Cinderella at midnight.” Instead of a glass slipper, she had left the ring. As clear a message as any. “And when I tracked you down with a DM on Instagram , you refused to speak to me. Just sent the divorce papers over with a fucking courier. Which I signed, as fast as I could.”

She flinched. Why the hell should that recitation of the facts bother her? Barely had he time to analyze that and she was on her tiptoes, her finger jammed into his chest.

“Poor little Banks. Were you sad because I didn’t show up with the papers in person? Did you feel ignored?”

“Just seems like common decency to talk to your big mistake, but then I’m getting that’s the way people like you do business. You delegate.”

In searching for his runaway bride after Vegas, he had discovered plenty about the woman he married. Most civilians had little to no Internet footprint beyond social media. Not Georgia. She was well-known in the Chicago society pages with a reputation as a wild child. Parties, premieres, nightclubs, all the hot places were her stomping grounds, and Georgia’s “activities” kept the paps and Page Six busy.

Gorgeous Georgia hangs with friends at Viper Chicago opening.

Society princess Georgia Goodwin unveils new bikini at Cabo resort.

Bison guitarist Keaton Biles breaks up with narcissist Georgia. Calls her a “nightmare.”

In all his research, he hadn’t learned that she was his teammate’s neighbor. That would have been good information to have.

This media darling version didn’t square with the woman he’d met in Vegas. That girl was fun and fearless, sure, but she had also been sweet and considerate. That night, he hadn’t gone too deep into his career woes, but he’d shared a little about how his life was changing. She was going through something as well—which he now suspected was related to her sister, who had died from a heart condition a couple of years ago—and while she hadn’t divulged, he was there for her. They had connected in a way he hadn’t with anyone before or since.

But now she was here, waltzing in like some society diva, shouting to the rooftops about the big mistake she’d made. Nothing like the Georgia he thought he knew.

“It seemed easier to let the suits take over,” she said. “It’s not like you wanted to ever see me again.”

Mind reader, was she? She didn’t have the decency to ask.

He got them back on track. “So now we fix it. Properly.”

“Right.”

Neither of them had a comeback for that. Something about the finality of it, separate from words on paper, left them silent and stewing. Until he recalled something she said earlier.

“Hold up,” Banks started. “You said talking to my lawyer was an option. As if there were other options. What did that mean?”

“Well …” Before she could explain, someone pushed her from behind and she fell against his body. All soft, absurd-in-pink curves that burned through his T-shirt.

“Hey,” he yelled at the asshole behind her with no sense of spatial awareness. “Watch where you’re standing.”

The offender turned, an insult ready on his lips that vanished at what he saw: Dylan Bankowski, center for the Chicago Rebels, rearing up like the beast you do not want to fuck with.

“Banksy! Man, I’m sorry.” He turned to Georgia and had the nerve to put a hand on her bare shoulder. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“She’s fine,” Banks said, moving in between them. “Just be careful.”

“Sure, Banksy. Great game last night!”

Banks turned his back on the guy, though the only way he could truly do that was to fold Georgia into the shelter of his body. They stood tightly-packed against the bar while he tried to ignore her scent—something light and floral—and make sure no one else could lay a finger on her.

Peering up at him, she smirked. “Banksy? Hate to break it to you but that’s already taken.”

“You were saying?” He lowered his voice. “About the options to talking to my lawyer?”

“Yes. So the option would be to not talk to him.”

“Because your lawyer did such a bang-up job.”

She sucked in a breath that made those pretty tits rise and brush against his rib cage.

“Because I need us to stay married, Big Guy.”

“What?”

That he’d be horrified at the thought shouldn’t have surprised her. She considered how best to explain.

My parents think I’m a screw-up. They’ve bailed me out of so many little dramas. I can’t let them see me neck-deep in another mess of my own making.

“So, I have a trust?—”

“Money? Should’ve known.”

She bristled. “What does that mean? You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know you’re already rolling in cash and spend your life getting photographed at every social event in the city. You come from wealth and now you want me to help you acquire more of it.”

What a dick. He didn’t know the first thing about why she needed that money.

“It’s my inheritance but my parents can petition for a delay in the distribution if they think I might be liable to make risky decisions with the money.”

He looked skeptical. “And you think staying married is going to make you look more trustworthy? News flash: marrying a stranger in Vegas and then screwing up the divorce doesn’t scream stable.”

But the dirty details would be so much worse. “It would just be on paper. And we’re already two months in.”

He scoffed. “And how much longer would we have to do this?”

Not dismissing it out of hand. Promising.

“A couple more months?” She held up her palm to stall his protest. “We wouldn’t even have to do anything … couple-y.”

“You mean your trust-dispensing overlords would accept it at face value and we go about our lives as normal?”

“Not completely normal. Maybe move in together for a while?—”

He was already sliding past her because his previous gesture—that one of oddly-placed protectiveness from the guy who bumped her—had placed him squarely in a wraparound that kept her snugly trapped against the bar. Now he was leaving, exposing her to hell knew what.

“Banks, I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“I don’t need money.”

Said as if people who did were bloodsuckers and parasites. If only she’d drunkenly married any other guy instead of this judgmental jackass.

Yet she couldn’t give up. Not when she was so close.

“What do you need?”

Something flashed in his eyes—something carnal. She recalled that look the night they met, the night they thought this would be a fun release, no strings, no consequences. What babies they were.

The heated expression vanished, replaced with something harder. Colder. “Nothing from you.”

Her disappointment was a gut punch. Not because she cared for his opinion but because she needed the funds to be released sooner than later. She had plans for that money.

It was pointless trying to bargain with him. You shouldn’t bargain with terrorists.

“Should I have my lawyer call yours, then?”

His brows crashed together in surprise. This hockey-playing lug expected her to fall to her knees because she was so desperate. Well, think again, Big Guy.

A desultory sniff, then, “Got a number for this lawyer?”

“Not on speed dial, no.”

“Put yours in there.” He dropped his phone on the bar and shoved it a few inches toward her. He couldn’t even hand it to her like a normal person.

She refused to pick it up, lest her hands shook with the rage coursing through her. Like an angry jackdaw, she pecked away at the keypad and pressed the dial button. Once her phone rang, she pulled it from her Miu Miu clutch and held it aloft.

“Connected!” In her best faux cheer because that seemed to annoy him more than anything.

“Yay,” he muttered. “I’ll pass it on to my guy and we’ll get this squared away. Properly.”

“Good.”

He grunted.

“What?”

“Good? You’re as variable as a summer storm. One minute you want out, the next you want my ring, now you’re acting like you don’t care again.”

She folded her arms. “You’re annoyed because I’m not pleading for your cooperation? I asked. You answered. Rudely, I might add. But I didn’t really expect anything more. It’s not like you understand subtlety.”

She expected an explosion. Craved it. Because emotional men were easier to control.

But yet again, Dylan Bankowski refused to conform to her expectations. He leaned in, bending his six-foot-three frame to bring his mouth close to hers.

“Your mind games won’t work on me, princess. You think I don’t see what you’re up to? In my business, we call that a deke, and no one responds to a fake-out better than me.”

His breath was a hot, sultry puff of air against her lips. He didn’t scare her.

He was a bully. A bearded, beast of a bully.

Was that her heart going pitter-patter? Nope. That was a very different part of her anatomy, the one that had responded to his sheer physicality that night in Vegas.

“I’m not going to beg. You want out, so we can move forward to the dissolution of the ties that unfortunately bind us. Besides, I wouldn’t want to be married to a man who has to get a girl drunk to have his way with her.”

That shut him up. However, the thrill of seeing him momentarily speechless was quickly evicted by the unease that came over her at his new expression.

She had offended him.

“You weren’t that drunk,” he finally gutted out. “And nothing happened.”

“Except getting married!” As if it was a mere trifle. But what he really meant was—oh.

An accidental wedding should have been the Vegas-shaped dildo in the room, but apparently not. It was sex. The sex that neither of them had.

“Sure, you wanted to,” he said. “But I was a gentleman.”

Before she could get off a biting retort, he abandoned her—which seemed appropriate payback for her cowardly exit the morning after they became man and wife.