“Are you seriously going to do this for me?”
“I guess I am.” He pulled the cheap department-store diamond he’d picked up that morning out of his pocket and held it out to her.
“Wait.” There was a faint thread of panic in her voice. “What are you doing?”
“There’s hedging and then there’s outright lying. I’d like to keep the latter to a minimum, so I’m going to propose to you and you’re going to accept.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“So how about it? Wanna be my fiancée?”
When she blushed and nodded, he slid the ring on her finger. He had to wiggle it a bit to get it over her knuckle, but it fit better than he’d expected. It got a little awkward, then, because it seemed like something should follow a marriage proposal. A kiss. A hug. Hell, even a handshake.
Then she shoved her hands, ring and all, in the front pockets of her jeans. “Thank you. For doing this, I mean. And for the ring. I can pay you for it.”
“Don’t worry about it.” False intentions or not, no woman of his—more or less—would pay for her own jewelry. “So, do we share a bedroom in this fairy tale of yours?”
He liked the way a slow blush burned her cheeks and had an urge to brush his thumb over the spot, to see if her skin felt as heated as it looked. “She knows we live together. Theoretically, of course. So she probably assumes we’re sleeping together, yes.”
Now that was a plan he could get behind. “And how would you propose to handle that?”
“I put a sofa in the bedroom. For reading and watching TV…and for me to sleep on. You can have the bed.”
They could discuss that later. “So what now? When does she get home?”
“In three days.”
“Wow. Short notice.”
“Maybe we should have dinner or something so we can talk and get to know a little about each other. I’ve got a full day tomorrow, but I could grab a pizza on the way home if you want to come over.”
A first date with his fiancée, Sean mused. Life after the army wasn’t turning out to be quite as boring as he’d feared it may be. “Sounds good. I like anything on my pizza that’s not classified as a vegetable. What time?”
“About six? I’ll be knee-deep in fertilizer tomorrow, so I’ll need to shower first.”
Since that was a visual he didn’t need any more detail on, Sean nodded, then turned toward the door. “I’ll see you at six, then.”
He was almost free when she called his name. “You won’t change your mind, will you?”
“Like I said, if I think you’re scamming her for anything but her emotional welfare, I’m gone. Otherwise, I gave you my word and I’ll see it through.”
He could almost see the tension easing from her body. “Thank you.”
“Before I go, you need any help putting this furniture back?”
“No, but thanks. I’m not done scrubbing the baseboard trim yet.”
He lifted a hand in farewell and let himself out. They had three days to become intimately enough acquainted to pass themselves off as a cohabitating engaged couple.
Mentally, he backspaced out the word intimately. There wouldn’t be anything intimate about their relationship, despite the close quarters. They’d be playing a role, with stage kisses and fake affection. Once the curtain dropped—or the bedroom door closed, as the case may be—so would the act.
“You’re going to what?”
It wasn’t anything Sean hadn’t asked himself every five minutes or so since getting sucked into Emma’s plan, but it sounded different when his cousin said it. Or maybe it was Kevin’s subsequent pointing and laughing his ass off that changed the tone.
“It’s only a month,” Sean shot back, maybe a little defensively. The shorter, dark-haired waitress—Darcy, he thought her name was—put a beer in front of him and he took a long pull. He’d been looking forward to it all day.
“A month of living with a total stranger, pretending you’re so madly in love with her you’re going to marry her? For real?”
“No, not for real, moron. For pretend. That’s the point.”
His cousin laughed some more, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Sean craned his neck, but couldn’t see the screen.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Kevin chuckled. “Telling my wife.”
“You could have waited until I went upstairs.”
“No, I really couldn’t.”
Kevin shut his phone, but it was only a few seconds before it chimed. He looked at the screen, chuckled, then was texting again.
Sean pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Kevin. I’m still here, asshole. Send.
A couple minutes later, Kevin grinned and slid his phone back into his pocket. “Beth wants to know the sleeping arrangements since there’s no way even a grandmother will buy a separate bedrooms story.”
“Beth wants to know, huh?”