His 24-Hour Wife. Rachel Bailey

plan.

      The door buzzed and opened, and he headed into the foyer and took the elevator to the sixth floor.

      Callie was waiting in the doorway to her apartment, giving him a nervous smile, and his shoulders relaxed a little. He was glad he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable about the situation.

      He held out the bags in offering. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got sushi, Chinese and pizza.”

      Summer popped her head around the corner. “Great. I call dibs on the sushi.” She grabbed the bags and headed back into the apartment, leaving him in the doorway with Callie.

      She’d changed into jeans and a sky-blue top, and her long, caramel hair was caught up in a sleek ponytail. She looked understated and utterly desirable.

      “Look,” she said, digging her hands into her pockets, “I just want to say how sorry I am that you’re caught up in this.”

      He frowned, not quite following her thinking. “I signed the marriage license right beside you.”

      “But no one would ever have known if it wasn’t for my job. And my slimy coworker.”

      “Still not your fault,” he said dismissively. “Besides, you never know what journalists would have found once they started digging for dirt when Liam and Jenna’s wedding drew closer.”

      If anyone was to take the lion’s share of the blame, it should be him. Among his brothers, he’d always been the one who could be relied upon to be the most responsible, a trend that had started when they were kids and his parents would leave him in charge of Liam and Dylan. It was one of the reasons they’d voted him CEO of the entire Hawke’s Blooms company.

      Whenever he’d relaxed his guard too much in the past, bad things had happened. Like when he was thirteen and making out with his first girlfriend behind the sheds after school, and a ten-year-old Dylan had wandered off and been missing for two hours. Adam had been frantic. He’d eventually found Dylan safe, but with cuts and bruises from a fall. Adam had been more careful to watch his brothers after that.

      Then there was the time he’d let himself get rolling drunk on a trip to Vegas and wound up married...

      He followed Callie into the spacious apartment and across to the kitchen. Summer had pulled out some plates and cutlery and she handed them to him to take to the table.

      As he watched the sisters work together, a thought occurred to him. “Have either of you had to do this with clients before?”

      Callie’s brows drew together. “Pretend to marry them?”

      “Ah, no,” he said as he put down the food. “I meant coach people to act like they were...”

      “In love?” Summer observed, and he gave a curt nod.

      Callie pulled out a chair and sat across from where he was standing. “No, this is a first for us.”

      He should have been disconcerted by their lack of specific experience, yet part of him was glad. If she’d been a professional at being able to fake adoration, while he was an amateur, the situation would have been too uneven. He hated feeling like he was in someone else’s hands.

      “Actually,” Summer said, “we should be starting now. You two sit beside each other.”

      His instinct was to keep more distance between Callie and him—to keep out of arm’s reach—but the suggestion was reasonable. A couple in love would take every opportunity to be close. He crossed around to the other side and sank into the chair beside Callie’s.

      This close he could smell her coconut shampoo. It immediately brought back memories of his fingers threaded through her glossy hair. Of it spilling across the pillow while he was above her. His skin heated and suddenly his tie was too tight around his throat. He loosened it and tried his best to appear impervious, which was easier said than done.

      He glanced casually at his wife as he spooned fried rice onto his plate. “I assume your plan is that we spend some time near each other so we become accustomed to the other’s presence.”

      “Pretty much,” Callie answered. “Though we should do some deliberate things, as well, not just passively sit beside each other.”

      He stilled. He was only just coping with sitting this close. “Define deliberate things.”

      Callie shrugged as she grabbed a sushi roll from the platter. “Occasional touches. Holding hands. Just so when we do it for the cameras, neither of us flinches. We need to seem used to it.”

      He relaxed again. That made sense and didn’t seem too intimate. As long as he had his reactions to her under control, it wouldn’t be a difficult task.

      Bracing himself, he reached over and threaded his fingers through hers. “Like this?”

      “Just like that,” she said, her expression professional. But there was a small catch in her voice. “And we should talk about our jobs, and things that married people would know about each other.”

      Talking. Far preferable to more touching. Holding hands and talking. He could do that.

      He rolled his shoulders back, trying to relieve some of the tension that had taken up residence there. “What do you want to know?”

      While they ate their meal, she asked questions about his company and he answered. The entire time, he was pretending to be a man unaffected by the woman he was pretending to be in love with. And it was so far from the truth it was laughable—pretending not to be affected was taking so much of his attention he was lucky he didn’t stab himself in the eye with his fork.

      “This is going well,” Summer said, taking another sushi roll. “Adam, how about you feed her something?”

      Erotic images of feeding his new wife strawberries in his Vegas hotel room flooded his mind, and he froze. He’d had so much to drink that day that he shouldn’t recall it clearly, but he did. He thumped his chest once with his fist to get his lungs working again.

      Suddenly, he realized he hadn’t replied, and his face probably had a weird expression. He coughed to try to cover it. Summer and Callie, however, had noticed, and each raised an eyebrow.

      “Sorry,” he said. “This is just awkward.”

      While Callie looked down at her plate, Summer regarded him with a quizzical expression. “You’ve never held hands with a woman or fed her food? That’s all this is.”

      “If I was involved with a woman,” he assured her, “these things would definitely happen, but organically.”

      Callie drew in a shallow breath and met his gaze, and he was certain she was remembering the same moments he was. When she’d laughed and flirted with him at the conference cocktail party. When he’d rested a hand on hers at the bar. When they’d kissed and his world had tilted. When they’d only just made it back to his room before tearing each other’s clothes off. When they’d shared more champagne in the bed and accidentally spilled some on their bodies...

      The air felt thick with the memories, and Callie’s eyes darkened. Most of the blood in his body headed south, but Adam refused to let himself get carried away. He flicked a glance at her sister, who was watching the interplay from across the table, and sighed. This situation wasn’t about what he wanted in this moment. It wasn’t about fun or entertainment—they were practicing so the world thought they were in love, and he had a responsibility to play his part. He would do that and do it well.

      He locked down every physical reaction to the woman beside him, every stray thought or memory. Then he found a fake smile and gave it all the enthusiasm he had, and fed Callie a spoonful of his rice.

      She gave him the same overly bright smile back and opened her mouth to receive the fork.

      “That’s better,” Summer said. “Though, Callie, can you put your fingers around his wrist to hold it steady?”

      Callie complied