The thing I always loved about Sophie was her single-mindedness. I was busy ordering breakfast—one of almost everything on the menu—while she sipped coffee with her hurry-up-so-we-can-hash-this-out look etching brand new lines around her tight mouth and in her forehead.

As soon as the waitress walked away, Sophie started. “Okay. So when we get back, I’ll file for the annulment. It shouldn’t take long. I have a friend in the clerk’s office who can push it through for us. All you’ll have to do is show up and tell them we never…consummated.”

I blinked once, then again. “You want me to perjure myself?” I knew she would. Bring on those Academy awards.

“Well…”

“You’re an officer of the court, Soph.” I faked shame with half-closed eyes and chewed the inside of my cheek to hide a smile.

She glanced down into her mug as her finger circled the rim. “I know, but…is it really a lie if we don’t remember it?” She almost looked up. “I mean, I don’t remember, and you’ve already said you don’t remember, so how can we say that anything happened?”

This was where it turned tricky. I hated misleading her, but I had to. “I remember.” I remembered a lot of things. So…the specific things she thought we did hadn’t happened yet, but if I had anything to say about it, they would.

And okay. I was an asshole, but I was an asshole with good intentions. I couldn’t let her marry a guy who was probably out banging his secretary as we spoke, who’d probably called Sophie from his other girlfriend’s bed this morning.

“What do you remember?” Suspicion or maybe disbelief stretched the lines in her forehead.

“A lot of things, Soph, and that’s not the point. The point is, I can’t go into court and lie. I’m a lawman.”

She actually chuckled. “Well, aren’t you just the reincarnation of Wyatt Earp this morning, Mr. Lawman?” I expected her to back away, to use her great legal mind to badger me to her way of thinking, but instead, she reached across the table to lay her hand over mine. Apparently, she’d resorted to wooing me into it instead. “Harley, in another life, I would love to be married to you.” She leaned in closer, and I got a big whiff of her perfume. Along with her heady words, it was a potent combination, and if she asked me to walk through a glass window right then or throw myself in front a speeding tour bus, I would have done it without a backwards glance. “But I have Andrew now.”

I pulled my hand back to my side of the table and fiddled with my mug. “I’m well aware of that.”

“Then you know why we have to do this quickly and quietly.” One head tilt was all it took; well, that and some desperation in her eyes, and I was about to agree until it occurred to me that her motives had nothing to do with undying love and devotion. If she’d stuck with love of any variety, I would have told her the truth, but she didn’t. She latched onto something less emotion-based and more monetary. And I couldn’t possibly have cared any less about rich boy's expenditures on a wedding that shouldn’t happen. “The invitations have gone out and the deposits have all been paid.”

This wasn’t the newsflash she made it out to be. I’d been with her through it all—from registering for gifts to picking out centerpieces and ordering invitations. That was what the Man of Honor did. He stood by his bride. But shouldn’t he also do whatever it takes to show her that she deserves better than a groom who’s skirting around behind her back? And if she happened to choose the Man of Honor in place of the piece of shit whose name was on the envelopes alongside hers, then the ending would have made fairy tale writers around the globe shine with pride. That was just my opinion, though. Even as in tune to her life as I was, I didn’t know how Sophie was going to feel about it.

If I’d really thought marrying Andrew was what she truly wanted, I would have sat back, shut up, walked into that church to stand beside her, and lied my face off. To be honest, I’d never asked that specific question. I didn’t need to.

And I was a liar. Even if my life came to depend on it, I couldn’t let her marry him, not knowing she was in for a lifetime of heartache. “Sophie.” As I was about to tell her, had the words organized in my head, the waitress dropped off my food and spent a couple extra seconds lingering by the table, smiling at me.

Sophie laid her hand—yeah, the one with the ring on it—over mine again. “Thanks. We’re good now.”

The waitress nodded and walked away as Sophie slid her palm along the table, keeping contact for about three extra seconds then picked up her fork. The lingering touch…I didn’t know if I was reading so much into it because it was what I wanted it to be or because maybe she was jealous. Either way, I was going to play this out. To the end.

“Some people.” She huffed the steam away from her coffee as she took a sip then shook her head. “You were saying?”

I shoveled in a bite of eggs and chewed as if I was putting a lot of thought into my words, but in truth, I wasn’t. The simple facts were easy. Fact: Andrew, left unchecked, would hurt her. I would never do anything to break her heart. Fact: Andrew didn’t care if she was happy. I would have sold my soul to make sure she smiled every minute of every day. Fact: he wasn’t getting her. And if I lost her for my lies, at least I would know I saved her from him.

“Soph, I can’t go into court and say something that isn’t true.”

She nodded and added a shrug. “Okay. It felt sketchy to me, too. I’ll just have to work out something else.”