Chapter 8

8

He’s here.

If Georgia could wish for anything right now, it would be for everyone to leave. Go home. Let her be.

With Banks.

His hand wrapped in hers felt big and safe, its warmth vital and life-affirming. Vaguely she heard Oliver calling her name, asking if she was okay. Did she need his help? No, she never had despite their joking about a marriage pact. She could handle Banks, even if the last time she’d gone down that mental ditch, she’d woken up married.

He took her toward the back of the apartment, still holding her hand, as if he knew the layout. Maybe he did. Maybe he had visited her neighbor Dex at some point over the last couple of months. He might have been mere feet away from her all this time.

He found the restroom, pushed open the door, and pulled her inside. With the door closed and locked, leaving the din of the party behind, he released her.

And stared.

Likely trying to puzzle out who she was and how they got here.

If you find out, let me know.

He cast his gaze over the small space with her kooky shower curtain of a cat riding a shark, the wall of cosmetics (Amazon’s “subscribe and save” was her friend), and today’s mantra in lipstick on the mirror: Choose joy .

Banks didn’t seem like a mantra kind of guy. If anything, he was probably anti-mantra.

The quiet drew taut as a wire, and as she had never been good with silences, she filled the void.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Your big mouth got us in the papers.”

“ My big mouth? You’re the one who pitched a fit in a crowded bar because I gave you some bad news.” Embarrassed to be associated with her, she’d venture. “Your teammates probably blabbed.”

“Not if they value their balls. No, the leak is from your side.”

She threw up her hands. “Who cares? It’s out there and now we need to fix it. I already texted you my lawyer’s number, so why are you here?”

A muscle ticced in his jaw. His eyes, that deep golden-brown, dipped to her mouth, flashed, then looked over her head in the direction of the mirror. Choosing joy, perhaps?

“Circumstances have … changed.” Each word exited his mouth like precious cargo. She was supposed to savor it, apparently, because he immediately clammed up.

“Circumstances?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

Two could play at the cagey word reveal game. The silence was becoming more familiar, almost cozy, like hygge with a side of who’s-gonna-crack-first.

Finally, he broke it. “The staying married option? I can do that.”

Her heart jumped so hard she had to hold a hand to her chest. Play it cool.

“And what makes you think my circumstances are the same?”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it? To get your money.” As if her reasons for staying married were distasteful while his were what? Altruistic?

“I’m going to need more information.”

He loomed over her. This bathroom was suddenly as small as her building’s elevator car. “Why?”

“Because I’d like to know if your goals align with mine.”

“Assume they don’t, but at the base level, we need the same thing.”

“Which is?”

“To make this fake marriage look real.”

The answer to her prayers. All she had to do was agree, yet something in her balked at being treated like a puppet on a string. She had enough of that from her parents.

The doorknob turned and a knock sounded, bringing with it a renewed urgency. She just had to say yes .

“Who’s going to believe it when we haven’t even been together since it happened?”

“We don’t need to explain shit.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Because I need an explanation for your complete three-sixty.”

“One-eighty.”

“What?”

His deep rumble reverberated against the bathroom’s subway-styled tile. “It’s a one-eighty. If it was a three-sixty, we’d be back where we started. Both wanting a divorce.”

He was here, agreeing to her request, but still she pushed because Georgia Goodwin never knew what was good for her. “I need to know why you changed your mind.”

“Isn’t it enough that I have? You get what you want. I get what I want.”

What I want. The way he said that … as if he did want this.

He wasn’t going to spill the tea. Could she live with that? Did it really matter that she didn’t know his motivation?

He didn’t know hers, at least, not her true one.

“But if you don’t need to get back into your parents’ good books, then I suppose we can just go back to the original plan. Get the lawyers on the case. Properly.” Pivoting away from her, he placed a hand on the doorknob and winced.

“What happened?” She jumped forward, blocking his exit. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Was it a fight?” Oliver’s words about the fists-first nature of hockey came back to her.

He sucked in a breath. “Just my job. Sometimes it gets physical.”

“Oh my God, sit.” She pushed him down, none too gently, on the closed toilet lid. Amazingly, he acquiesced.

Now what? He was staring at her, waiting for her next move. She hadn’t really thought this through. Visions of wrapping bandages around his bruised, banging body floated through her brain. They would be standing close enough for her breasts to be level with his mouth and he’d be acting like a big, brave idiot while she played at sexy nurse.

There was that costume she’d worn one Halloween hanging in her closet. But this man needed real medical assistance, not the slutty nurse kind. She opened the doors below the sink and started to search.

This was a terrible idea in a playoff series of terrible ideas.

Coming here instead of going home to ice his shoulder;

Agreeing to Georgia’s request to stay married, but most of all,

Sitting in this tiny space while temptation herself bent over and wiggled her ass in his face.

She was looking for something, a completely innocent task, but that didn’t stop his imagination from running wild about that peach-perfect ass inches away from him. His cock twitched. His fingers tingled.

He sat on his hands. “Georgia?—”

“Oh, here it is!” She placed a Barbie lunch box on top of the vanity and opened it. First, out came Nurse Barbie, who was placed near a tap, for moral support, he supposed. Next emerged an assortment of tiny Band-Aids, mostly of the Hello Kitty and Disney princess variety. His nieces had taught him well.

Georgia assessed the meager options and blinked a few times before meeting his gaze. “Any cuts? The smaller the better.”

He repressed a smile. “It’s more of an ache.” And not just his shoulder.

“Well, I have hydrocortisone, a sewing kit, and, hmm, one latex glove.”

“Could have ourselves a real party.”

She laughed, and God, that brought it flooding back. Georgia skipping down the Strip, her eyes bright as blue suns, reflecting the lights and energy of the city. “We need to see the fountains!”

His heart rate soared. This was why it happened.

This was why he was letting it happen all over again.

Someone tried the doorknob.

“Busy in here!” Georgia called out. “Try the other bathroom!” She rummaged again and took out a single pack of aspirin. “Would this help?”

Christ, she was so sweet with her pathetic medical supplies and her nervous energy that was somehow sexy at the same time.

“Probably.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, good!” She rinsed out a glass and handed him the pill, which he downed with a gulp.

“I feel better already.”

“Banks,” she murmured with a head shake, and just the soft way she said his name made him warm. “How did you get hurt?”

“Some asshole D-man from the Motors shoulder-checked me against the boards.”

“I understood about one in three words there.”

He shrugged, which sent a stab of pain through his shoulder. “Occupational hazard.”

“Will you get to rest before the next match?”

“It’s game. And yeah, a few days.” He stood, anxious to get out of this small space before he did or said something truly stupid. “So have your circumstances changed, Georgia?”

“About needing to stay married?”

He nodded, while his pulse rate picked up. Say no. Say no.

“No, they haven’t changed.”

Fuck, yeah.

Tonight, he walked into this party with every intention of having an adult conversation with Georgia, one that would lay out a clear path to marriage dissolution. Offer her the courtesy she hadn’t bothered giving to him.

Seeing her alone in the crowd, something tripped in his chest. She had looked so exposed, in need of someone to shelter her from this crazy world she’d built around herself.

For a few wild seconds, he thought: I could be that someone.

Everyone, from his family to his teammates to Georgia’s parents, assumed it was the age-old equation of Vegas plus alcohol equals a sham.

That he was a fool.

Well, he wasn’t a fool. He didn’t make impetuous, life-changing decisions. Marry in haste, repent at leisure, was how the saying went. He might have the first part of that down, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be spending long repenting.

It wouldn’t hurt to give this time. Give Georgia the space to fix things with her parents and assure the world he wasn’t an idiot who married a pretty young thing because she made his old, decrepit heart feel shit. Besides, his mother had the right of it: he needed to see it through. Figure out what led them down that aisle. It might be about money for Georgia now, but it wasn’t then.

“So, we doing this?”

Her eyes flew wide, all that ocean-blue, and for a second he thought he saw a spark of relief. Maybe even a flash of power.

“Sure, I’ll stay married to you, Big Guy.” Like she was doing him a solid. Georgia Goodwin was back in the saddle, and man, he liked that look on her. “But I need a favor.”

“Another one?”

There was that sinful curve to her mouth. It was going to be the death of him.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”