Never Say Yes To Your Fake Husband (I said Yes #4)

7. Weland

Chapter seven

Weland

H allucinations aren’t a thing for me. Auditory hallucinations included.

Normally.

I must have eaten something wild before bed, and this is all a dream. Maybe the one odd hour of sleep I had just isn’t cutting it. Whatever was going on, whatever I promised myself that I would roll out of bed and manifest the shit out of, nothing could have prepared me for this. In short, if it’s not a dream and it’s not real, then it has to be a hallucination. There is no Sterling, and he’s not incredibly hot, so hot that it’s a little bit unfair because no one on earth should get to be that good-looking, plus tall, dreamy, swoony, and good-smelling. He’s not here in my kitchen, and I didn’t just threaten to dice his arse ten ways to Sunday with a carrot peeler. He, for sure, didn’t just tell me he wanted to give this marriage a good old-fashioned shot. He did not just tell me he wanted to have babies with me.

Alright, so he didn’t say that last bit.

It’s just that making this marriage work, doing life together, finding out that it does work, and then eventually falling in love and being there for each other would probably one day entail us having a family. Becoming a family.

Holy banana and Beans’ farts, I need to sit down.

I stumble over to the super tiny round glass table and chair set I have in the corner. Pulling one chair out, I barely catch myself in it before my legs go into jelly mode. Across the room, Beans lifts his head and makes a sudden noise, growling low in his throat.

“I’m okay, boy. It’s all good,” I assure him.

But honestly, I don’t know if it’s all good, and I’m definitely not okay. How can this be happening? I can see how the dots can be easily connected, but it’s still just so crazy.

Sterling doesn’t walk over, but he’s still so close because the kitchen is so small. This whole condo is so tiny. It feels like he’s sucked all the air out of the room with his incredibly good-looking vortex and the huge bomb he just dropped on me.

And then…

We both smell it at the same time.

I slam my hand over my face and drag my sweater up at the same time to try and block out a bit of the choking fumes.

Sterling isn’t so lucky. His button-up shirt isn’t easy to drag up, and yes, even though he slept in it, the thing is still perfectly wrinkle-free. And so are his slacks. It makes sense now that he has tons of money. Obviously, because he’s paying me a total of half a million to be his on-paper wife so, he probably has millions or billions socked away. I’d bet billions. Five hundred thousand would be a drop in the bucket then. It makes sense why I got the vibes that he just flew in and wasn’t from here and why I also got the weird, earth-shaking sensation that he knew me. I thought it was some cosmic connection, but no, he really does know me because he pays Smitty to spy on me. Or something like that. Report back, whatever. I knew all about that. I’m not holding that against him. Just the rest. The rest I can definitely hold against him.

As soon as this dog fart clears out.

“Good heavens,” Sterling chokes out. He lunges for the tea towel I keep hanging from the oven door and uses it to block his nose and mouth. He still makes a coughing and gagging sound because he must have gotten more than a small dose of fumes before the tea towel was in place. “I think that beast needs to go to the vet.”

“I took him there. The day before yesterday. When I got him.” My tone is defensive, said from under my sweater. “Do you think I would just get a dog from a shelter and not get him care? They do their best, but clearly, he needed a checkup. The vet said he was fine.”

“Probiotics then. Doggy probiotics. Are those a thing?”

“I imagine they make them,” I respond.

“Well, then he needs them. Something needs to be balanced out in there. Those smells aren’t just unnatural. They’re ungodly.”

I smirk. “Ungodly, hmm?”

“Alright, don’t go there. I used the wrong word. Anyway, those smells are just…wrong. Something is off. Something that could be fixed with some healthy gut culture.”

“Fine, maybe I agree with that.” Then, I pause, still trying not to breathe through my nose. The smell is starting to permeate through my sweater, so I should shut up since I don’t want any of it getting into my mouth. “The rest, not so much. I’ll have to talk to my family first, and you’ll have to meet them. I won’t do anything they aren’t on board with.” I say it fast to get it out and get my mouth shut again, so it comes out sounding like a bunch of garbled nonsense. I think the only thing Sterling catches is family, but he clearly gets the gist.

“Family? You want me to meet them?”

“Obviously. I want to see what they think about all this,” I say.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Sterling replies, shaking his head.

“If you want to date me for real, you’ll have to meet them first. And there’s nothing saying I want to date you for real. Or be your real wife. It seems like there would be a lot of complications to iron out. Aren’t you busy? You have a life somewhere else. Probably a huge company you’re some hotshot CEO of. And a vast fortune to defend from your cousins. You were wary about men and trails and stuff leading back to me and back to you, so maybe you shouldn’t even be here. You can’t just say fuck what everyone thinks and call it a day. Why do you now, all of a sudden, want to do this anyway? Why after four years?”

I don’t taste anything in my mouth after all that long-windedness, so maybe it’s safe to lower my sweater a fraction. I do, but then quickly tug it back up. Nope. My sweater was filtering out more than I thought.

“Meet your family?” he gag-gasps. “That’s…insane.”

“And this whole thing isn’t?” Something stirs low in my belly. Something that feels a lot like want. And not just physical want. It’s not just my hormones or nipples acting out again. Although, thank goodness for this sweater because my nipples are totally free right now under this tank I have on underneath, and they’ve definitely perked up a good inch since descending the stairs and finding that Sterling was still in my house and in my kitchen and that he’d made coffee.

Never underestimate the allure of a man who makes strong java first thing in the morning. I haven’t had anyone do something like that for me since I lived at home, and it’s been years.

That’s what has the want stirring. That flickering, shining, lonely arsehole that lives inside me raises her head and gives me two hard fist bumps to the center of my chest. What Sterling is proposing might be crazy, but so was seeing someone’s video of them singing a song online and then contacting them to ask if they want to be a fake wife…so was entering into this marriage in the first place. He did that, though, and now we’re both used to the idea. We’ve been living like this for four years.

I’ve been lonely for four years.

Has he?

Has it been longer than that?

I shouldn’t care. I should be able to stay mad. But the beast inside me has been beasting for some time…and this man . I know there’s something about him that I won’t be able to expunge from my life ever again. Even if he were still Sterling from the night before, I wouldn’t have been able to forget last night. And now I couldn’t even if I wanted to because this morning just happened.

“I’m not…I’m not in danger from your cousins, am I?” The thought suddenly connects with me, slamming into my brain. “You said something about them tracking your trail.”

“I was just…” He waves his hand in front of his face and slowly lowers the towel. Then, he tests the air before putting the towel down on the counter. I drop my sweater too. I guess the danger has passed for now. “I was…I don’t know. I don’t want to scare you. They would never hurt you in any way. They just like to make trouble for me.”

“Care to expand on that?”

“Not at the moment. But maybe I should stay here with you, just in case one of them shows up. They essentially want to prove the marriage is fake. If I were here, then it would be much harder for them to prove that than if I were staying in a hotel.”

“Oh no. No way. My parents will…they will…” I don’t know what they will do. Once they meet Sterling and assure themselves he is an okay dude as far as most people go—and I really don’t know if that’s the case, but the na?ve and hopeful version of myself thought so last night when I let him sleep on my couch, and I have no lock on my bedroom door, and even if I did, it would have done very little to protect me if I needed it—once they satisfy themselves that this man is alright, and they will because he oozes charm out the wazoo, they’ll be fully on board with him staying with me.

They’ll be shocked at the whole paper marriage becoming a real thing and also shocked beyond belief because they didn’t even know my paper marriage to Sterling existed. But when they know everything? They’ll be on board with me giving this a legit shot, won’t they?

“We meet my family first and tell them everything. They won’t say anything, I promise. If you want to keep going on with this, then those are my terms. They are my only terms. Otherwise, there’s no deal.”

“Hmm.” He runs a hand over his chin and contemplates that for all of a few seconds, then gives me the most charming, quick-thinking grin I’ve ever seen. Despite everything, my ovaries light up. He’s still absurdly hot, even if he did trick me. Even if he’s my nameless, faceless husband who isn’t so nameless or faceless anymore.

“Is Sterling even your real name?” I shouldn’t even be considering this. This seems like a whole lot more trouble than any paper marriage would have been, loneliness be damned.

Except it is damned. I feel damned along with it, and I’m so tired of feeling that way. Like I have no one at all in the world, and I’m just stuck, stuck, stuck while life keeps going on without me.

He frowns. It looks extra good on him, right along with the fine shadow of stubble on his square jawline. “I could have given you a fake one. I should have. But I didn’t. So, yes, it’s my real name.” Those frown lines get frownier, and his hotness gets hotter. “Alright. We’ll go and meet your family. But I have one stipulation of my own.”

I prepare for the worst and most absurd suggestion. “What’s that?”

“We stop for dog probiotics along the way to your parents’ house. Some really good, the best money can buy, proven to fix any kind of intestinal problems, miracle-working dog probiotics.”