30. Elise

30

ELISE

I head to the soccer field on a professional cloud nine, ready to root for my husband from the sidelines. I’m going to be the loudest wife there is. Wife. I didn’t think I’d slap that designation on myself ever again.

But being Christian’s wife has been more than fun. It’s been exactly what I needed in some unexpected way. Even though it’s only been a few weeks, I’ve learned that the institution of marriage, in and of itself, isn’t a farce.

Marriage can be a place for honesty, and openness, and communication. I rewind to the way we tease each other, how we talk frankly about nearly everything. I never had that with Eduardo. He was all wine and roses and romantic escapades. He was a master at seduction and he Casanova’d me.

It all felt so thrilling at the time, but as I reach the field and spot the silhouette of a tall, strapping man whose ring matches mine, I’m keenly aware that this marriage of convenience feels infinitely more real. My heart kicks faster when I see Christian, beats harder. Something powerful, something hopeful is brewing inside me. Come to think of it, the brewing is done. It feels more like my heart is brimming. Christian Ellison has done so much more for me than my first husband ever did, and I can’t wait to share my work news, to throw my arms around him, and to holler his name from the sidelines.

When I reach the field, I furrow my brow. He’s talking to a woman, and while that doesn’t bother me, something about her feels eerily familiar.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s in the way she stands, arms crossed at her chest, jaw tight.

In an instant I know who she is, and I burn. I want to tell that con woman she never deserved Christian’s brother. I want to tell her for him, for me, and for anyone who’s ever been tricked in that sort of nefarious, underhanded way.

Righteous indignation sparks in me as I stride over and wrap an arm around my husband. Possessively. Letting her know we’re together. We’re a team.

She stares at Christian. “Can we please talk?”

“What do you need to say that can’t be discussed in a boardroom?”

Jandy gestures to me. “Is this the new Mrs. Ellison?”

He smacks his forehead. “Oh, wherever are my manners? Jandy, please let me introduce you to Elise Ellison.”

I didn’t take his name when we married, but I don’t mind that he calls me by it now. In fact, I like the sound of it. I wrap my arm tighter around his shoulder as he turns to me.

“Elise, this is Jandy. The woman who broke my brother’s heart.”

Jandy sighs heavily, as if it’s so exhausting to have to hear such a description. She extends her hand to shake. Her skin is cold. “Lovely to meet you,” she says, clearly lying.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Christian stares at her point-blank then taps his watch. “Why are you here? I have a match, and I know you disturbed Erik during lunch, which pisses me right the fuck off. Can’t you at least let the man have a sandwich in peace?”

I recoil when I hear what she did, and I jump in instinctively. “That’s the least you can do. Let my brother-in-law be.”

Jandy ignores me and speaks to Christian again, her voice shaky. “Can we talk? Can we work something out? I really need to help my sister. Surely, you can understand helping a sibling.”

“I can also understand when someone is full of shit,” he says calmly, and I squeeze his arm, proud of him for giving this woman hell. She deserves hell. “You never said a word about your sister being sick, and all of a sudden you pull this notion out of thin air to prey on Erik’s sympathies. Well, I’ve got none for you. Zero. Zilch. You can’t prey on mine. I checked her Facebook page, and she went tubing down a hill yesterday.”

“That picture was from earlier in the year,” Jandy protests, then seems to shift gears, softening her tone. “Please. Let’s work together.”

He rubs his ear. “What’s that you said? Work something out? How on earth could we work something out?”

“I thought we could strike some sort of deal.” She gestures from him to me. “Like you two clearly have.”

My jaw drops. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, come now. You’ve been married a couple of weeks.” She turns to Christian. “That’s when her picture showed up on your Facebook page. Do you think I’m stupid?”

I laugh then cover my mouth.

Jandy glares at me. “Is something funny?”

I raise my chin. “It’s funny that you would ask that because I don’t think ‘stupid’ is the word anyone would use to describe you.”

She parks a hand on her waist, her elbow akimbo. “What word would you use?”

Oh, she’s walking into this one. “Cold.”

Christian raises a hand. “Callow.”

“Cruel.”

I flash Christian a wicked grin. “Classless.”

Jandy holds up a hand, but my husband gets in the last dig. “Cutting.”

“I second that. You’re totally cutting,” I add.

“You don’t know me,” she says, raising her chin. “You don’t understand what I’ve been through.”

Christian shakes his head, sneering. “Enough of the whole daddy talk. I don’t know what your issues are, and I don’t want to know. But this isn’t how you treat someone who treated you like the world. You were everything to my brother. He gave you his heart, and you stomped on it like it was rubbish.”

Her jaw is set hard, but her eyes are glossy. She seems to steel herself though, speaking through tight lips. “You don’t know me, and this isn’t about me.”

Christian holds up his hands. “Oh, it’s not about you? Then enlighten me. What is this about?”

“I came here because it’s clear this is some kind of sham marriage to trick the shareholders.”

Christian arches a brow. “Sham marriage?”

“Do you two really think they won’t be able to tell you married her simply to try to keep the company?”

“One, my grandfather’s trust outlined precisely how the firm would be handed over. Two, Elise and I are legally married, and three?—”

“How dare you suggest you know something about our marriage? You know nothing,” I say.

She snaps her gaze to me. “I know you married only a few weeks ago. And prior to that, I’d not heard you so much as existed.”

I step closer. “And do you know I met Christian more than a year ago? Do you know he asked me out on our first date last June on a boat tour in his hometown? Do you know we were on the same plane flying home? Do you know he courted me for a year?” I grab my phone, click on my handstand photos, and shove the screen in her face, covering his bottom half with my thumb. “Do you know I have pictures of him from that time because I was so utterly transfixed with him, and I believed fate had brought him into my life?”

Jandy stammers, her eyes welling again. “Umm.”

“Exactly. You know nothing.” I put my phone away, grab Christian’s arm, and plant a possessive kiss on his cheek. One that says he’s mine. I do it again. And God, I do it a third time, then I turn back to the woman who had inadvertently pushed me closer to him. “You know nothing because our relationship is private, and it has nothing to do with you that Christian is the most wonderful husband in the world. Before that he was a fantastic fiancé, and before that he was an incredible boyfriend. Even before all that, he pursued me and totally won me over. So yeah. Game over. He’s mine, and I’m his, and there’s nothing you can suggest to anyone in the whole wide world that’ll obviate the truth.”

I give her a checkmate look, and she huffs. I don’t care about her anymore. I care about the man by my side.

I grab his face in my hands and press a searing kiss to his lips that has nothing fake in it at all.

In fact, as I kiss him, the thought flashes like a neon sign turned on. There’s nothing fake between us.

Everything, all of it, from my mind to my heart, is genuine.

When we break the kiss, Christian glances at Jandy and makes a shooing gesture. “Off you go.”

She leaves, her tail between her legs.

I turn back to him.

“You were amazing.”

“I got the account,” I blurt out.

“I knew it. I bloody knew it.” He picks me up and spins me around. “So proud of you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

A game whistle sounds.

“I need to go,” he says, setting me down. “But we are going to celebrate the hell out of you winning the account.”

“Go, go.”

He runs to the field, and I spend the next hour watching the man I feel everything for play a game.

I came into this arrangement believing my walls were fortified. That my lessons learned would serve as armor for my heart.

But this time, I wasn’t the one fooled. I fooled myself into thinking I could keep from letting him into my heart. That’s where he is.

I’ve fallen in love with my temporary husband.

As he scores a goal and thrusts his arms in the air in victory, I cheer wildly for him. He looks over, a grin lighting his handsome face as he points to me. It’s exhilarating, this moment of connection. My heart somersaults, trying to kick its way free and gallop over to him.

I want that. I want that terribly, and more than I should.

But that’s the problem. Love isn’t supposed to be part of the terms for us, and it’s absolutely not permissible for me.

Love is a terrifying choice. That’s why I’ve built walls. He wasn’t supposed to tear them down. I wasn’t supposed to let him knock them to rubble with all his kisses, and his tender touches, and his sweet and dirty and thoughtful ways with me.

My shoulders tense and curl inward, and I want to simultaneously run to him and run the other way.

Most of all, I want a new road map, one that’ll lead me through this unknown terrain where I’ll have to fake my feelings for him for the next few months.

That night nothing is fake.

There’s nothing false about the way he looks at me as I undress. Or how he climbs over me and sinks inside.

There’s not a single fictional moment between us as I wrap my arms and legs around him and draw him in deep.

He swivels his hips and moves in languid, lingering strokes that drive me to the edge of pleasure, to the edge of the world.

“God. This ,” he whispers roughly in my ear.

“I know.”

We fall into silence again because it’s too hard to talk, too hard to give words to all these emotions whipping through me like a storm. But as he sweeps his lips against my neck, down my throat, I shudder. It feels like we’re making love. Like we’re saying new phrases with our bodies. Talking in a bold new language. One that says I love this , and you’re mine , and let’s not stop, let’s never stop .

Soon, I’m seeing stars and saying his name, and this feels like surrendering to love.

It’s terrifying and beautiful at the same time.