For the second night in a row, Carolina couldn’t sle ep. Last night, she’d been k ept awake by that kiss on r epeat. It had fizzled her brain to the point of mush. You’d think a mushy brain would be enough to get a girl to nod off. Nope. And tonight, same bat channel, and she did mean bat, as in batty as all get out. If only she could retain even a modicum of her wits, she might think of a loophole to let her out of this marriage. Instead, she couldn’t even be in the same room with Charlie and ke ep her thoughts off his perfectly sculpted mouth. A man that pretty shouldn’t be allowed to exist. It should be an abomination that nature fought to correct by wiping him from the earth. And now he was her husband. Again. Then he’d shredded her plan to stay away from him by spouting all of that nonsense to his viewers. Not that she’d believed a word of it. But her viewers would demand answers, the same as Charlie’s had. This wasn’t her first rodeo. They’d beg her for details on what she’d said to him off air, desperate for some guidance on how to tell off a man who deserved a kick. Wasn’t it funny how she’d ended up almost kissing him again? To be fair, he’d been standing there looking all delicious and impossible to ruffle and she’d had half a mind to rough him up, fingers in his hair, twisting around the fabric of his shirt as she hauled him closer... Yeah, no sle ep would be happening anytime soon. She flopped onto her back and flung off the covers. Gah, it was hot in here. Charlie must have messed with the thermostat or something, but she couldn’t check it. It was all the way out in the hall and she hadn’t so much as poked an eyelash out of her bedroom since earlier. Too risky. Too much Charlie in the house. The door cracked open. From the other side. She sat up in a hurry as the man himself appeared. In her bedroom. At night. She snapped on the light, regretting it immediately. That was Charlie disheveled, and it was mouthwatering indeed. He wore low-slung jogging pants and a white T-shirt so old it looked like it would fall apart at a mere touch, and holy cow did she want to test that. “What do you want?” she asked him crossly. “You’re interrupting my beauty sle ep.” “You don’t need beauty sle ep,” he informed her. “Now if it was personality sle ep, I’d leave in a heartbeat.” “Har, har. Save some of that for your show, sport.” She crossed her arms over her tank top, wishing her robe wasn’t all the way across the room, uselessly draped over a chair. “I r epeat, what is the purpose of your unwanted visit?” “You were breathing so loud, I couldn’t sle ep.” “That’s not even a thing. These walls are fully insulated.” He shrugged. “I missed the pleasure of your company, then.” “Try again.” “Scrabble.” He held up the box in his hands, which she’d missed because she’d been too busy drooling over the way his arms looked in a T- shirt. “You’ve had almost a year to get good enough to beat me. But I doubt
you used your time wisely, so I’m pretty sure I’ll win by at least a hundred.” “Points? You’re out of your mind.” Charlie plunked down onto the mattress, easily shoving her legs out of the way, not that he’d asked permission to invade her territory, but she couldn’t seem to find the wherewithal to demand that he leave. He spread out the game board and nodded once at the velvet bag full of letter tiles. “Draw. Let’s see what you’ve got upstairs this evening, Ms. Kline.” Oh she had plenty upstairs, and she refused to be distracted by the fact that he’d deliberately called her Ms. Kline like he’d figured out that she’d never answer to Mrs. Wilson while the earth still orbited the sun. With a smirk, she stuck her hand into the bag and fingered out seven letters, set them up on her tile stand. Dang it. How had she drawn both the Q and the X on the first shot? And no U in sight, so she had less than zero chance of using the Q anyway. “I have a word,” Charlie announced, which came as no shock. He always had the first word, which was why he’d long established his own house rules. Whoever had at least a five-letter word or longer got to go first, which he’d argued allowed the game to go faster, but in reality, gave him a leg up in the points since the first person to play got double word score points. “Lay it down, champ,” she told him. No point in being petty about it since she’d have to dump her letters and lose her turn otherwise. It was better to let him go, then try to build off of his word. Exc ept he spelled out the word adore, which gave her nothing to play with. “As in how I feel about you,” he said with a wink as he wrote down his score on the piece of scratch paper he’d pulled from the box. “Sure. I’m an adorable person. You drew those letters?” she asked, instantly suspicious. “Are you accusing me of cheating?” Eyes wide, he clutched his chest in mock dismay. “How would I have done that? I can’t have spare tiles up my sleeves or anything.” No, he definitely couldn’t, but she didn’t mind taking a moment to let her gaze travel up his bare arm, just to check it out. Nor did she have a problem admitting that she was just shallow enough to enjoy it. “My eyes are up here,” Charlie teased and stabbed at his face with two V-ed fingers. Because it pleased her, she took her time letting her gaze wander up his torso, which the old T-shirt fit perfectly, as if all of its many wearings had molded his shape into the fabric’s memory. “I wasn’t interested in looking at your eyes.” Probably it was a mistake to give him even that much to work with, but it was a far sight better to ke ep him distracted by checking out his finely formed upper half than it was to let him guess that she wasn’t nearly as unhappy about his presence here as she should be. Though she was a little disturbed that he’d figured out the only way she’d conceivably allow him into her sanctuary. This was where she’d come to avoid him. And yet, here he was, sprawled out on her bed. What did it say about the man she’d married that he could read her so well?
What did it say about her that she grudgingly admired it? “Should I strip down?” Charlie offered casually. “Really give you something to look at?” “Strip Scrabble is not a thing,” she informed him as coolly as possible given that her pulse had just skyrocketed. “We’re not having that kind of honeymoon.” “I wasn’t planning on losing the game in order to start removing articles of clothing. I was just going to let you stare at me for free.” She made a face in his general direction. “Nice try. I’m not so easily distracted by your manliness. Ke ep your clothes on and your brains unscrambled because you’re going to need all of your gray matter to beat me at this game.” A small smile played at his lips, and it was of the variety that said he had a few more aces up his proverbial sleeve. She had to give herself the same message. No scrambled brains. She had the right letters to spell dodge off of his D, pleased that she hadn’t had to skip her turn. But he immediately set down tiles to spell gooey from her G. “The way you make my heart feel,” he said as he lined up the Y and calculated his score. “Are you going to ke ep up this kind of commentary the whole game?” she asked. “Because it’s nauseating.” “Some women like to be told how they make their husbands feel,” he shot back and drew more letters, but he scarcely glanced at his tile stand as he lined them up, choosing to eye her instead. His scrutiny made her flush for some reason. She’d never fetched the robe. And should have. He was entirely too close and his gaze was entirely too thermonuclear for this hour of night. Any hour of the day, honestly. “Some women aren’t married to men who drive them insane.” Her own tile stand had nothing on it that would work. Or rather she had very little chance of coming up with a word when her brains had ignored her very specific instructions to stay focused. “Am I making you crazy, Carolina?” His voice had drifted into the realm of smoky, the likes of which would have landed him a job doing commercial voice-overs for products that needed a shot of sensuality to sell. But then, Charlie could always sell her pretty much anything. It was maddening how good he was at it. “You should know,” she muttered and rearranged her tiles without looking at him. “You do it on purpose.” His soft laugh skittered over her skin, raising goosebumps. The robe wouldn’t do a lick of good when he’d long ago mastered the art of crawling inside her regardless of whatever barriers she erected against him. The part she couldn’t figure out was why she liked it so much. She should kick him out of her bedroom and refuse to engage in his Scrabble- slash-bait scene. But she had a perverse need to beat him at this game. Both games. “Now, why would I want to do that, sweetheart?” he murmured and nudged her leg with his toe. “I want you fully functional to play your next word.”
“Why, so you can lay down another argument for how we’re falling in love with each other?” His brow quirked up quizzically. “I’m just playing Scrabble. It’s not my fault that I ke ep getting letters that so accurately convey the things in my heart.” “Please. At best, you’re stacking the deck. Do you even know how to play any other way than dirty?” “Hey.” Said so sharply that she glanced up. His expression had melted into a slight scowl as he stared her down. “Do you honestly think I’d want to win like that? By cheating?” The odd glint in his gaze brought her up short. She’d upset him. Like really, truly offended him. Scrambling to make sense of how quickly the vibe had shifted, she muttered, “I don’t know.” “You don’t?” He sat up, his tiles forgotten in favor of coolly crossing his arms in a way that reminded her of her own tendency to put up physical blockers. The visual alone bothered her, as he’d likely intended. But what line had she crossed that required such a display? “I mean, you like to win,” she hedged as she tried to gauge how honest she should be. “I get that. I like to win too. It’s what makes us tick. We understand each other.” “So you’re saying that you like to win enough to cheat. So that automatically means I do too.” “That’s not what I’m saying at all, Charlie.” Exasperated, she dumped her letters into the bag and mixed up the tiles with her fingers, then drew out seven more. Why, she had no idea, when the letters had gone blurry all at once. What was wrong with her? “Aren’t you?” He let the silence drag out in hopes of getting her to backtrack. But what was she supposed to say? “You’ve always cared more about the challenge than anything else.” “Not more than I care about you.” She glanced at him sharply, convinced she’d see something in his expression that would negate the total sincerity she’d heard in his voice. But he was just looking at her, his face composed. Not taking it back. What was he trying to say? That she’d completely misjudged him? No. She had his number, always had. He didn’t care about her, or he would have fought the annulment instead of just signing the papers via registered mail without question. “Is this another one of your tricks designed to confuse me?” she asked. “Why does everything have to be about trickery? Can’t a guy just be honest about something?” “A guy can, sure.” But Charlie wasn’t like regular people. He had more angles than an architect’s drafting table. “The second people start to believe you, that’s when everything falls apart. That’s when people get hurt.” “There are no people here, Carolina.” His voice threaded through her, weaving a tapestry that weighed everything down inside. “Just us. Me and you. What have I done to hurt you?” “You’re you,” she spat out. “Always joking around. Always with the comeback, pushing me into things until I hardly know what way is up. I can’t put any faith in that.”
“Hey.” This time, he said it gently enough that her eyelids pricked with unshed tears, and that was almost the worst thing he’d ever done to her. But then he took her hand, enfolding it inside his, and that was much, much worse. Because she wanted the comfort to be real, to feel safe enough to latch onto the sudden sense of rightness that bloomed inside her as she and Charlie connected on a visceral level. “Tell me what’s going on inside you, sweetheart.” What if she did? Maybe he could explain the huge knot in her heart that never eased. Or explain why she felt compelled to fall asle ep to the sound of his voice. Explain why she’d never found another man who could hold a candle to Charles Wilson. But she’d fallen for his sorcery once already. She couldn’t afford to put anything emotional on the line, not when there was already so much at stake. “A very strong desire to lay down a thirty-point word,” she informed him saucily. Charlie didn’t even blink. “Don’t do that. If there was ever a time to be real with me, this is it.” “That wasn’t in our agreement.” “Neither did I sign up to get this constant stonewall, Carolina.” All at once, his heat faded from her skin as he shoved both of his hands through his hair, frustration rolling from him in waves. “Geez. Did I screw up in a former life or something?” Stricken mute, she stared at him as he fixated on the ceiling, refusing to look at her, which gave her the biggest inkling that she’d not only crossed a line, but stomped all over it. “Are you mad at me?” She’d never seen Charlie mad. “No. Not really.” “What are you, then?” “Regretting the day I came up with this whole remarriage-wager idea.” He blew out a breath, and when he glanced at her, something that looked an awful lot like pain was shining in the d epths of his eyes. Had to be a trick of the light. But it didn’t fade. Her heart panged, softening against her will. “You had to know it was going to be like aiming a blowtorch at a puddle of gasoline.” His brief smile did a lot to ease the sudden tension. “I was looking forward to that part, honestly.” “Yeah. Me too.” It was far more of a concession than she’d have given him otherwise, but something had shifted in the last few moments and she wasn’t so eager to fall back into combat mode. Why, she refused to examine. “You’re the only person I know who can take the full brunt of my personality and manage to ke ep your skin intact.” “Same goes.” He lifted his chin, that ghost of a smile still flitting around his mouth, an odd juxtaposition to the hurt he’d almost but not quite buried behind it. “That’s why I’m here, you know. Because we’re good together. Don’t bother to deny it.” She let her lashes flutter closed. For fortification. To mask whatever might have leaped into her own eyes at his very valid point. To ke ep her from agreeing. All of the above. “Good isn’t enough to base a marriage on.” “But at least you’re not arguing that there’s something between us.
Something more than a bet. More than two people who can’t stand to lose.” He had her there, and it teased a smile out of her despite the very loud voice inside insisting that she shouldn’t be encouraging him. But she was so tired of pretending. It was midnight and she’d married him to win a stupid bet because it was easier than admitting she’d missed him. “I can’t argue with that. You’d just figure out a way to twist my words around until you proved your own case.” “Don’t have to prove it. You just did,” he said, his grin widening as he regained a good bit of his typical charm and arrogance. Figured. She’d given him an inch, so of course he’d take a mile. He’d all but voiced the kachow, that obnoxious sound he made on his broadcasts. But for the first time, she was keenly aware that he’d hidden emotional d epths behind his personality. Why? Was he protecting himself from being hurt the same as she was? She burned to find out, to uncover more of the man she’d married. Because what if he did have the capacity to be her one true love, to be that man she could put her absolute faith and trust into, and she’d bailed before giving him a chance? “By the way,” he said casually. “I’ve got the letters to spell zebra on a triple word score, so you might as well just concede the game now.”