Chapter 7 #2
He turns to me, and since I’m sitting so close, our noses nearly brush. I stiffen and don’t move back because our nearness shouldn’t bother me. Nor should the slight mint of his breath and the pine scent lingering on him. I should not be concerned about nose-brushing with my future husband.
“Do you want to own a hockey team?” Jordan asks.
He is, somehow, completely unbothered by the nose-brushing.
It’s like he nose-brushes with women every day.
And he might. I focused most of my research on Jordan on hockey.
Of course I did a background check and obviously had the private detective do a social media dive to make sure there were no red flags, but is that really enough to know a guy?
What was the question? Right, the hockey team. “Yes,” I say.
“Do you want to star in your own reality TV show on your terms and set the world straight on who Libby Bennet is?” he asks. He has not pulled his face away, not even a centimeter.
“Yes,” I reply. I do want that. And I have to marry Jordan to get all of it. Unfortunately.
“We’re not making a mistake.” His voice is calm and reassuring. “Marrying me is not that big of a deal. Your very thorough contracts assure us both that we can get divorced in a year. It’s simply a unique type of business partnership. It’s fine, Libby. Totally fine.”
“Right.” I nod, and our noses brush some more. “Totally fine.”
“But we can always back out if you want to.” He says this with a tiny smirk.
I’ve questioned this decision multiple times in the last week.
Jordan has stayed unflappable. And he’s absolutely right.
It’s nothing more than a role we’re playing, like this is a movie.
Our marriage doesn’t mean anything, so I have to stop making it a big deal.
“I’m good.” I nod again to reassure him. Another meltdown averted.
Another reason this man is so dangerous. He has a way of talking sense into me and making me feel taken care of.
“Light kiss coming—that okay?” he murmurs.
“Yep.” Of course. Totally fine. Means nothing.
He tilts his head and drops the barest of kisses on my lips.
His lips are soft and my inclination is to lean into it, hold him closer for longer.
Kissing him doesn’t feel safe at all, but it feels addicting.
He’s smiling when he pulls back. He settles into his seat with a content sigh, still tangling my fingers in his.
I can’t help staring at him. What would it be like to trust someone so easily? To be completely comfortable with whatever happens? To not spend so much time questioning his every move and motive?
I make sure my smile is in place as I settle back in my seat. If someone happened to take a picture of any of that, I wouldn’t know how to explain looking bewildered after kissing a man I’m so madly in love with that we’re eloping.
Jordan leans over again, lips brushing the shell of my ear as he whispers, “You should get some sleep, babe—”
“Babe?” I question with a tilt of my head, my expression saying, Seriously? “You think someone can hear us right now? You’re whispering.”
“You don’t like babe?” he asks, lips tilting in a tiny, sexy smile.
I don’t not like it. Usually I think it’s kind of a weird term of endearment, but it rolled off Jordan’s tongue so easily, so naturally. When he says it, it’s not weird. It’s … sweet. It makes butterflies take off in my stomach. It makes me want to stare at him.
It makes me want all of this to be real. To have a safe, loving connection with someone as kind as Jordan seems.
I shrug. “Babe is fine. Just don’t try one of those stupid ones, like snookums or pookie.”
He chuckles, and his warm breath on my neck makes me shiver. Shouldn’t that be annoying? My mom is always telling my dad to stop breathing on her on purpose.
I guess I wouldn’t know about any of that. I’ve had boyfriends the last ten years, but not very many. And no matter how long some of them lasted, I couldn’t ever picture a future with them. It’s hard to get there when I can’t trust if they mean any of the things they’re saying to me.
Maybe I like what I have with Jordan right now because I know for a fact it’s not real, that he’s acting. There won’t be some big reveal in a few months when I find out he doesn’t love me at all and it was all to get something from me.
Because I already know that’s exactly what this is—only I’m the one using him.
“I was saying, babe,” Jordan says in a low voice, “that you should get some rest. You’ll want those bridal portraits tomorrow to look fresh-faced.”
I huff out a laugh. “Okay,” I agree.
He leans his chair back the miniscule amount it will go, even for first class. This is when I really miss the jet. The eight-hour flight would be almost luxurious. He grabs the blanket I brought on board, since the ones the airlines supply are always too small, and pats his chest.
I should refuse. Falling asleep on Jordan is a bad idea.
It’s practically snuggling. But we are in public.
It could look bad to insist on sleeping in my own seat.
I can see the comments on some grainy picture about how Jordan’s not taking care of me like I deserve.
I definitely don’t want to make him look bad.
So I give in and rest my head on his chest.
Abort, abort, abort. Not only is the hoodie material even softer against my cheek, but it smells amazing—of course. Like detergent, his sporty deodorant, and a faint whiff of something fruity. This is the danger zone.
Pull yourself together, Libby Bennet, I tell myself sternly. Nobody falls helplessly in love over a soft hoodie and a good-smelling guy.
Someone needs to get that message to Dream Libby, who does not stop herself from making out with Jordan right there in first class, in the middle of the night when the rest of the plane is asleep.
Oi.
It’s two a.m. in Maui when we land, and well past three by the time we get our luggage.
We’re both dead on our feet, so instead of driving the forty-five minutes to the beach house we’re staying in, we nab a hotel room near the airport to get a few hours of sleep.
We both crash the second our heads hit the pillows of our separate beds—thank heavens for double queen rooms—and neither of us stir until my alarm goes off at six a.m. Our wedding is at ten a.m. at the beach of the house I rented, and I have hair and makeup to get done.
“Remember how we talked about planning our PDAs?” Jordan says with a yawn as he puts his toothbrush back in his backpack. Our luggage was taken straight to the house last night, so we just have our carry-ons.
What he’s leading up to hits me as I rummage in my own bag, replacing the earbuds and eye mask I used last night. I freeze. “The wedding kiss.” I sigh and sit back down on the bed.
“I think we should probably make a plan and…” He clears his throat. “Practice.”
I look up at him. “Practice,” I repeat. My voice sounds strangled, and my brain goes right to my dream on the plane last night. I swallow.
He nods. “There’s going to be cameras, right? Someone taking photos and someone filming it to give to the network for your show?”
My turn to nod. He’s right. This kiss needs to look good. “Yeah,” I say quietly.
“So if we practice, it will feel—and look—more natural.”
My nod picks up with nerves. He’s right, even if I’m freaking out right now.
The video will be used in the show. Erin didn’t even tell Victoria about what she heard in my office, so when I called the regular director, Tessie, about the wedding, she was surprised.
Erin is definitely on my good side now for keeping her mouth shut.
I told Tessie I would handle filming, because outsiders were not invited, and I would give her footage to use in the show.
She and Victoria agreed when I promised everything would be exclusive to them.
“You’re right,” I say to Jordan, trying to make my voice firm and confident. I can’t look at him right now. I stand back up. “I’m going to go brush my teeth, and then we’ll … practice.”
He gives me a thumbs-up.
I use those few minutes in the bathroom by myself to take some deep breaths. This is totally fine. It’s just kissing. I have kissed guys before, and even if Jordan is sweet and hot, it doesn’t have to mean anything.
I definitely don’t want it to mean anything.
I cannot fall for someone like Jordan, even if I’m going to marry him. This isn’t a movie where things all work out in the end. I’m not like those heroines.
I’m calmer when I leave the bathroom, but my stomach is a mess of twisting. “Okay,” I say brightly. “Let’s practice.” I move to stand in front of the TV.
Jordan steps up to face me. It’s times like these that I remember how large he is.
I’m used to big guys. I grew up around pro football players, and my brothers-in-law are both well over six feet tall and large, like Jordan.
Still, he’s so tall and so broad and so muscled.
He dwarfs me. Maybe it’s the safety I always feel with my brothers-in-law that extends to Jordan because he’s sweet, like them. If he took me in his arms—
I stop the thought abruptly.
This is practice, like a rehearsal for a movie. I call back to mind the moments we did similar things when we were filming Being the Bennets. Sometimes we’d run through a conversation or blocking first and Victoria would give us direction for how to amp up the drama in the scene.
Jordan takes my hands in his. They’re warm, and they make heat travel up my arms. “So they’ll pronounce us man and wife and the whole ‘you may kiss the bride’ thing.” He draws in a breath.
“And we’ll kiss,” I say.
“Should we…” He grimaces. “I don’t know, are there, like, specific moves we should make?”
When I told him we would plan out our affection, this wasn’t what I had in mind. “Um? Just … kissing?”
“Right. Okay.” He rolls his shoulders, like he’s getting ready to jump over the little wall between the bench and the ice in a hockey game. “So we’ll just kiss.”
“Yup.”
We go in for the kiss, but there’s no natural coordination to it.
We’re both too nervous. It’s nothing like in my dream.
Our noses bump, and we both apologize, pull back, and try again.
This time we do manage to make our lips meet, but I try to cup his cheeks the same time he tries to put a hand to the back of my neck to draw me close.
Our lips meet only a second before we both rear away from each other.
Jordan sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. “Maybe one of us should take the lead.”
“Right. Yeah. Probably should be you.”
“Okay.” He claps his hands together, and I half expect a pep talk.
We move toward each other again. I tilt my head to avoid nose-bumping and press my face toward his. The problem is that he leans his face the same way and we end up headbutting each other.
“Ohhh,” I murmur softly, pulling back to rub my head.
“Sorry.” He lets out a breath.
A laugh bursts from me at how bad we are at this. How can we be bad at it? On the plane, everything was fine. And I don’t mean that dream. We moved in for that light kiss like we did it all the time. At least Jordan did. I was overthinking everything, as usual. Am I the problem?
He chuckles with me. “I don’t know how well the practice is working,” he says ruefully. “If you let me take the lead at the ceremony, we can trust our natural chemistry.”
“I did let you take the lead!” I cry defensively.
“Um, okay.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “But at the wedding, if you stood still and let me make all the moves, I think it would be better.”
I chew on my lip. I was making moves and it didn’t turn out well. “Yeah, maybe that will work. Natural chemistry.” I can’t help the sarcasm when I say that, given how the last few minutes have gone.
“We are running on very little sleep,” he excuses.
I smirk. “True.”
He reaches over to the bed and grabs my bag for me. “Ready?” he asks.
Not really, but I nod anyway. I don’t like admitting that Jordan is right, that we do have natural chemistry. I’ve felt it almost since the first moment I met him.
That’s what scares me so much about the fact that I’m about to marry this charming, good-looking man that I’ve only known for a month.