CHAPTER 12 Ainsley Riggs
I’m Going to Be His Wife
I must be seeing things.
The way his eyes widened as they fell onto the towel wrapped around my body.
The way he stared at me, especially after I called him Daddy Dex…
He was just panicked after his son was choking—which, honestly and only in the hindsight of everything being okay…maybe it happened so he can see that he’s perfectly capable of doing the things he is so scared of.
He’s starting to warm up to the idea of having his son around, and that makes me so happy. Jack is just a baby, and every baby deserves to be loved. It’s why I’ve done everything I can to make sure he feels love after his mother was forced to leave him and while his father starts to come around.
And his father is starting to come around. He knew what to do to save the baby when he was choking. I ran to my room to put clothes on once we were sure everything was fine, and he managed to settle the baby down all on his own after that scary event.
I don’t bother with my hair or makeup as I head back to the family room to clean up the dice and the little dish on the floor.
I set all of it up high on the kitchen counter while Dex sits on the couch and holds Jack as he feeds him the bottle, and when I walk by the counter again later, the dish and the dice are gone.
I see them in the garbage can when I’m throwing something else away, and I can’t help a little smile at the way he’s already starting to adjust his life around having a baby in the penthouse. It’s these little things now paving the way for the big things later.
Once the baby is down for the night, I find Dex in his usual spot brooding over by the window with a glass in his hand, though tonight it appears to just be water and not his usual whiskey.
“When do you want to do this marriage thing?” he grunts at me.
So it’s not exactly the way I thought someone would propose to me, but we both get something out of this, I guess.
Besides, I was proposed to with the romance and the flowers and all the things a couple of weeks ago in front of cameras, and we all know how that turned out. Maybe the dream proposal is overrated.
“How quickly do you need to work on your image?” I ask.
“Before word gets out that I have a kid with a woman who’s now in prison.”
I bite my bottom lip for a second. “I’m game whenever. I literally have nothing else going on.” I laugh a little maniacally at that, but maybe I’m also a little nuts. I did agree to this, after all.
He chuckles and glances over at me. “Training camp starts in sixteen days.”
“Do you want to do it before or after?” I ask.
“Before would be better for me.”
I flinch. “So I need to pull a wedding together and babyproof this penthouse in sixteen days?”
“Less than that since it starts in sixteen days. You know, if you still want to go through with it.” He looks over at me. “And what do you mean by babyproof?”
“You know, make it safe for a baby that will soon be mobile. Are we telling anyone about it or keeping it under wraps?” I ask.
“I’ll probably admit the truth to my brother Madden. And you can tell my sister and anyone you want that you can trust. I’ll have my lawyer draw up an NDA for friends and family to sign, plus our prenup and contract.”
“Contract?” I ask.
“Yeah. You’ll be paid for your time, of course.” He returns his gaze out the window and takes a sip from the glass.
“Stop.” I roll my eyes. “It’s not like I’m not benefitting from it.”
“Fine. Then I’ll increase your pay for your work with Jack,” he says, and his words have a finality to them like I shouldn’t argue.
“Can you really pay a stepmother for being a nanny?”
“I can pay my wife for whatever I want to pay her for,” he snaps, and whoa, hearing those words—my wife—out of his mouth does something to me.
Something dark and deep down low.
I can’t help my little gasp, not at the words or the fact that he snapped at me, but at my body’s visceral reaction to it all. An ache throbs tightly between my legs, and I have this sudden need pulsing through me.
I tear my gaze away from his profile as I think through his statement. I’m going to be his wife.
I didn’t think in terms of that when I agreed to this. I didn’t really think about those words when I signed up for Speed to the Altar either. But for some reason, they’re really affecting me today.
Maybe because they’re out of Dex’s mouth, and it was unexpected.
“Okay. I’ll get started on plans,” I say.
“Or we just…I don’t know. We can just get our license and get it done. No plans.” He shrugs. “Just a contract.”
Again, that’s not exactly what I imagined for my wedding.
But I also didn’t imagine the groom saying I don’t when it came time to make our vows. I didn’t imagine the princess dress and the tiara in my hair and the jewels ending in heartbreak as I ran from the groom.
So maybe this is the way to go about things with Dex. It’s fake anyway, right? What difference does it make how we get there?
I finally nod. “Okay. Fine. Just a contract.”
He presses his lips together and takes another sip from his glass. “Great. I’ll have my lawyer draw it up, and as soon as it’s done, we get married.”
I press my lips together and nod as I feel a bit of sadness pull over me.
Because when I imagined my future, I never thought I’d agree to marry my best friend’s hot older brother, and I really never thought I’d be agreeing to a fake marriage.