Chapter 13 #2
Her gaze flickers—first to my mouth, then back to my eyes—and it’s quick enough that she might think I didn’t catch it. But I do. Heat coils low in my gut, sharp and insistent.
If she were any other woman, I’d be leaning in. I’d be testing the waters and claiming my prize.
But this is different. She isn’t just someone I’m picking up at a bar. I’m not taking her home for the night and seeing whether or not she’d be a good fit for the next few months. She’s been a constant in my life for the past year—she’s EJ’s sister.
For the first time in a long time, I know that crossing a line would ruin everything.
She swallows, her voice a fraction quieter when she repeats, “Who gets the lie, Declan?”
My palms are still braced on either side of her. Taking a deep breath, I step away from her. Running a hand through my hair I try to gain back some balance. Stepping away from her makes me feel like I’m leaving a fight mid-swing.
I’m definitely attracted to her. Great.
“Everyone,” I say finally, folding my arms and leaning against the chair instead. “For this to work we’d have to lie to everyone. Is that something you’d be able to do?”
She looks at me for a minute, her mind clearly working behind those blue eyes.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Declan,” she says, her voice softer this time, painted with slight hesitation. She turns away from me and something akin to panic grips me.
“Listen, the fact that you’re considering this tells me that there’s some real reason you don’t want to go back to Sweden and just reapply for a new visa. I mean it would take six months out of your life, maybe a year…tops.”
I study her as she looks at me over her shoulder. “That’s presumptuous.”
“Tell me I’m lying,” I say with a smirk. “I dare you.”
She huffs, turning back to face me. “Fine, there is a real reason I don’t want to go back but it doesn’t mean I’m going to share it with you.”
I put up my hands in mock surrender. “Never said you needed to share your deepest darkest secrets with me. I’m just here offering a real solution.
I need someone who looks like she’s in my life for the long haul.
Someone who’s proper wife-material. And you need to stay in the States.
” I shrug. “I’d call this a win-win situation.
Especially since we both know what this would be, going in. ”
She exhales sharply, her hands going up to hide her face as she groans in frustration.
“I guess we wouldn’t be the first people who enter into marriage for reasons other than love,” she mutters through her fingers. “People have married strangers before to keep countries from going to war.”
For a second I just watch her. The way she says it, half-resigned, half-jokingly…like she’s trying to convince herself this could work.
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t call this marriage that noble, but if that’s what you have to compare it with to make it okay in your mind, then I’m happy to go along with it.”
She drops her hands, her blue eyes flashing. “You really are an idiot.”
“I aim to please.” I give her a smile.
She sighs, her gaze flicking to my mouth again.
“If we do this then we need to set rules,” she says suddenly, firmly drawing a boundary line.
“Snowflake wants rules,” I mock moving closer to the counter again where she’s already tearing out a piece of paper from her family recipe book and grabbing a pen.
“Don’t pretend your other seasonal relationships weren’t arrangements with rules either.” She doesn’t look at me while she starts to compile a makeshift contract between Declan Murphy and Avah Johansson.
She underlines the word ‘rules’ three times.
“True,” I say, with a smirk. “First rule was non-exclusivity.”
“Which is basically cheating. Only with fancier words and rose-colored glasses.”
It’s the same argument she’s been hammering on for as long as I’ve known her.
“It’s not cheating if both people agree to it,” I say, sticking to my guns. It might not be pretty, but when everyone involved knows what’s going on, it’s not behind anyone’s back.
“Call it whatever you like,” she says, her icy gaze finding mine. “That rule will not apply here.”
I give that notion real consideration. I’ve always wanted non-exclusivity, because I didn’t want the woman I was with to think we’re more than we weren’t.
I didn’t want her to get attached to me or the idea of a real relationship.
It’s not that I actively went out to seek out other women because I couldn’t help myself.
I’m good with self-control…commitment is the problem.
“I can live with that,” I say, holding her gaze.
“I’m serious, Declan. I can’t…” she trails off, her eyes suddenly filling with tears before she swallows them down. “Even if this is fake, there can be no cheating, no infidelity.”
I eye her carefully as she writes slowly, the pen scratching across the paper. Exclusive. No cheating. No infidelity. Her hand stills. Then she adds two words: No intimacy.
I cock my head. “Define intimacy,” I say, keeping my tone light even if the weight of the words sits heavy in the air between us.
Her cheeks flush, though her eyes stay on mine. “Exactly what you think it means, Murphy. This isn’t…that. Not now, not in two months when you’re bored. No intimacy. Period.”
I should laugh, toss out a quip, but something tells me she’s being serious. Maybe it rattles me a bit more than I’d like to admit.
I’d have to go without sex. For however long this lasts.
Without the fallback I’ve always used to numb everything else.
My first instinct is to push back, to tell her she’s asking too much…but the look in her eyes tells me exactly that this is a make or break for her.
My jaw tightens. “Fine,” I say, quieter than I mean to. “If we do this, it’s you and only you. No cheating. No infidelity. No…” My eyes dip to her lips before I can force them away. “…intimacy.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why are you agreeing so easily?” she asks. “You realize you’re agreeing to be faithful without the benefits.”
The fact that she can say that with only a slight blush creeping across her cheeks makes me laugh.
“That’s fine,” I agree.
She lifts her hand to my forehead. “Are you sick?”
“Stop it,” I swat her hand away, only slightly annoyed by the insinuation that I can’t control myself. “I don’t appreciate you calling me weak.”
“Weak?”
“Only weak men are unfaithful.”
“That’s a bold statement…” she says, underlining the words she just wrote twice for good measure.
“Coming from me?” I finish for her. “I’m not weak, Avah. And if proving that means coffee dates, contracts, separate bedrooms and fake smiles—all without touching you—then I’ll do it.”
She doesn’t look at me, but there’s no missing the way her face softens as she keeps underlining the word intimacy, now more in her own mind than anything else.
“Just give me that,” I say, taking the pen and paper from her. “At this rate it’s going to look like we’re signing the Declaration of Independence.”
“What’s the second rule?” she asks, propping her chin on her hand.
“In the interest of really selling this, we can’t tell anyone about our agreement. To everyone on the outside of this, we’re married.”
She searches my gaze for a second. “EJ has to know.”
“You haven’t even told him about your visa and now you want to add the whole fake marriage too?”
She shifts in her seat, guilt flooding her features. “He’s my brother. I might not like him right now, but I love him. I want to be honest with him when the time is right.”
I sigh thinking it might just work in our favor. He might be more accepting of this idea if he knows it’s fake and that there’s nothing going on between me and his sister. Otherwise his hostility might just ruin this whole thing.
“Fine,” I concede. “But if EJ knows, then so does my brother.”
“Your brother?” she asks.
“My agent. Brady.”
I write down the second part of our agreement down before she takes the pen and paper from me again.
“Number three…PDA,” she says while writing. “Hand holding, hugs and public dates.”
“Kissing?” I ask, my eyes dipping once again to her lips. I may have allowed myself to think about it for a second before, but now I allow myself to really think about it.
What it might feel like to kiss her. To taste her. Even if we came to terms on no intimacy, kissing would be something that happens occasionally.
“If it absolutely needs to happen,” she says, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “Like in life-or-death situations. You know…CPR.”
I let out a laugh. “Sure, because that’ll make this look real.”
I wouldn’t mind kissing Avah. And I’m pretty sure kissing her could never be confined to clinical situations only. Maybe if I keep it small, it won’t cross her lines. A kiss on her head, her cheek, her nose…my eyes trace all the places.
I swallow.
Before I can address my concerns, she writes the next part. The exit strategy.
“That’s easy,” I say. “Six months, then we part quietly. No mess. No public blow-up.”
She looks at me with a frown forming between her eyes.
“Now I know you’re not really serious about this,” she says, putting the pen down and getting up from her seat. She heads to the fridge and gets out a bottle of water, muttering under her breath. I can faintly hear the words ‘moron’ and ‘should’ve kicked him out when I had the chance.’
“What do you mean I’m not serious?” I ask, getting up, frustration bubbling up inside of me. “I might not be Mr. Commitment, but this is something I take seriously. This is my hockey career we’re talking about and I don’t take that lightly.”
She laughs, shaking her head while setting her water bottle down on the counter with force.
“You need to show them you’re committed and more stable. That means six months won’t be enough. That’s not a marriage—It’s barely a long-term relationship. As for me, I need this to last at least two years if immigration isn’t going to flag this and revoke my green card.”
“Two years?” I repeat, shock moving through me. I’ve never been in any kind of relationship, real or fake, for that long.
“Yes, two years,” she says firmly. “So unless you plan on tanking this before we’ve even started, six months is off the table.”
It hits me that she has thought about this, maybe more than I have.
Trying to imagine myself with Avah in my life for the next two years doesn’t stir up the urge to run like it did with Megan or Melissa.
Instead there’s this sense of calm knowing that she’d be the one who will be there watching me play, the one by my side at events and dinners and galas.
I wouldn’t have to pretend to enjoy her company.
Because as much as I hate to admit it—fighting with her is more fun than talking to anyone else.
“Two years it is,” I hear myself saying, grabbing the pen off the counter and writing it down myself before adding our names and the date at the bottom.
She watches me carefully as I sign my name before holding the pen out toward her.
“What’ll it be, Snowflake?”
Her gaze drops to the paper between us. The pen. My hand. She hesitates long enough for me to wonder if she’s about to walk away.
Then she takes it.
Her signature curves across the page, neat and deliberate, sealing something between us.
When she sets the pen down, I should feel victorious. Instead, I have the distinct, gnawing sense that I just started something I can’t control.