I start my morning as I usually do, with one main difference: I slide out of bed and try not to sneak a guilty look at Liam’s shirtless form sprawled beside me. I invited him to sleep beside me the night before last because I was honestly spooked, but when he took it upon himself to get into bed beside me again last night, I didn’t quite have the willpower to stop him. I did, however, manage to make it through the night without humping him in my sleep. At least as far as I know.

My cheeks burn hot just at the memory. At least he’ll never know I was dreaming about sleeping with him. I slip into the bathroom, closing the door quietly to avoid waking him, smirking at the need to be quiet. I’ve never lived with a guy before, and all the little things make our fake engagement feel so much more real, like seeing his toothbrush beside mine on the sink. Having to put the toilet seat down after him, having him straighten things up behind me like the endless hair ties I leave lying around.

Sharing my bed might be the best of all, though. I don’t care what we call this thing between us, I’ve never slept so well in my entire life. Just feeling the weight of him beside me in the bed, and the faint aura of warmth that comes from his body is enough to make me feel invincible. I feel like nothing can hurt me, and I’ve slept more soundly than I ever have before. Apparently I was even sleeping soundly enough to basically give Liam a handjob and get myself off on his leg.

I lean over the sink, wincing and marveling at how the level of complete and total embarrassment the memory brings doesn’t seem to dull at all, no matter how often I think of it. Not thinking of it would be a hell of a lot easier if I hadn’t touched his… thing. I bite my lip. My hand couldn’t even wrap all the way around it. I don’t know how long it was either, because I yanked my hand back as soon as I realized what I was doing, but I think it was very big, and that particular fact is equal parts exciting and terrifying.

Not that it’s ever going to be in me or anything, but if it was, I don’t know how it’d fit.

I shake my head, looking at myself in the mirror. Listen to me. I’ve felt like a basket case ever since Liam came back. At first I never thought there was even the remotest of chances that we would ever be together. Then I thought he might be interested and I realized I couldn’t let anything happen. And then I somehow decided getting fake engaged to him was a good idea. I guess I can blame that on a combination of my fear of Jake and my weak-willed desire to get to be with him in a way that can end without the disaster of a real break-up.

Now?

Now I want this to work. I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it was in one of the small moments I saw between him and Sophie. Maybe it was in the way he protected me from Jake. Or maybe it’s just my desperate, twenty-four-year-old virgin brain telling me to do whatever gives me the greatest chance of being with him. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know I want us to work. I want to be Roxanne’s daughter-in-law, even if someone might think that’s betraying the memory of my mom, I’d know it isn’t. It’d be a way to keep feeling like she is in my life, no matter how small a way that is. And I want Sophie to be my step-daughter. She’s such a sweet and unique little girl, but I also can see the emptiness that the lack of a mother has left inside her. Liam is a great father, but he can’t fill that space all by himself.

They need me, and the realization settles in my chest with a resonating hum.

“Morning,” says Liam. He walks into the bathroom, shirtless and wearing only briefs, his normally perfect hair in disarray giving him an irresistibly sexy, just-out-of-bed look.

“Morning,” I say. Half of my brain is still trying to digest all this. I feel like an imposter. Virgin girls my age aren’t supposed to be allowed to have moments like this with guys like Liam. He deserves a woman with experience and far more confidence than I’ll ever have. Yet here I am, feasting my eyes on a man who could have stood in for any Greek master sculptor’s model.

“You owe me a date, remember? I’ve got work this afternoon but I’m cashing in tonight.”

“Oh?” I say. “Where are we going?”

“That’s a surprise,” he says, grabbing his toothbrush and squeezing out a neat line of toothpaste on the bristles.

“Is it something illegal again?”

He makes a face like he hadn’t considered that, but is now giving it the appropriate thought. “Well,” he says, after spitting some of the toothpaste from his mouth. “I think I need to treat you to a more normal outing. I can’t have you thinking I’m some kind of delinquent if I expect you to marry me, after all.”

I grin. “Is that the goal now?”

He smirks back at me. “That has always been the goal, sweetheart. Marry the wholesome caretaker and keep custody of my daughter.”

I force a quick smile, feeling as though I’ve just been slapped with a hefty dose of reality. Right. That’s still what this is all about to him. The rest is just flirtation and games. I’d be doing myself a favor if I remembered that, but it’s hard not to get confused when I’m wearing a beautiful engagement ring and sleeping in the man’s bed, after all.

“Yep,” I say with artificial cheer. “That is definitely the goal. Number one priority.”

He rinses his toothbrush and strides back out of the bathroom, slapping my ass on his way.

I jump up, eyes widening in surprise. I just barely catch the hint of a smirk on his face as he leaves.

Roxanne moves her hands carefully, arranging the porcelain elephant figurines on the display in her room with the utmost care. She collects all things elephants, and takes a day every week to move through her collection and thoroughly dust off each elephant, big and small. The process of replacing them on the shelves is a long and laborious one, and for some reason, Roxanne insists that I be present every time she does this.

“Engaged to my son,” she muses.

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, watching as she maneuvers her wheelchair to reach the highest shelf of her display case.

“Yes,” I say awkwardly.

“You pregnant?” she asks.

“Pregnant?” I blurt. “Roxanne, I’m a--” I clear my throat. “No. Definitely not pregnant.” Unless you can get pregnant from some heavy humping and apocalyptic levels of embarrassment--in which case I’d be having sextuplets.

“Hm,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense to me, then. Why would my son, who has treated commitment like a disease he wants to avoid catching at all costs, suddenly propose to you so quickly?”

“Maybe he likes me,” I suggest.

Roxanne scoffs. “No man ever got married because he liked a woman. Marriage might as well be castration. Cut off his balls and hang them out to dry. You think he’s going to do that because of like? No. Either he feels something for you stronger than he should for how little you’ve known each other, or you’re blackmailing him. Are you blackmailing my boy, Aubrey? Don’t think I won’t cut you in your sleep,” she adds.

I laugh nervously. As usual with Roxanne, I’m only ninety-nine percent sure she’s joking. There’s always a glint of something dangerous in her eyes that makes me wonder if sometimes she really means her threats. Whether I like to admit it, part of me can picture her coming at me with a knife, and it’s not something I want to live out.

“Blackmail? Seriously?” I ask.

Roxanne shrugs, setting down an elephant and then making a minute adjustment until she’s pleased with the placement. “I’ve heard of stranger things. You know that Ted Bundy seemed normal to everyone who knew him. But once the truth got out…” she raises her eyebrows meaningfully at me.

“I’m not a serial killer,” I say.

“Don’t you think Mr. Bundy would’ve said the same thing if he was confronted?”

I sigh. “What can I do to prove to you I’m not a serial killer or a blackmailer, then?”

“You can go through with the marriage. Until this thing is final and the priest says the words, I’m not sure I can trust you.”

“Well,” I say, “Guess I’ll just have to make sure this thing happens, won’t I?”

Roxanne gives me a look over her shoulder that holds no humor. “Yes. You will. Or I will bleed you, honey.”

I make a confused face and something close to a whimper slips out of my throat. I love the old woman, but holy cow is she scary.

Liam looks dashingly handsome in his suit and tie as we enter the movie theater. It’s a classically styled building that looks straight out of a movie hobbyists imagination. The carpets are lush, velvety red and the walls are plastered with classic movie posters and advertisements, including a Coca-Cola ad that looks to be a hand-painted woman with 50s style hair and makeup, smiling while holding a case of glass Coke bottles. The hallways leading back to the theaters are lined with signed pictures of famous celebrities from the 50s and 60s as well.

I grin up at Liam, who smiles down at me. “What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s fantastic, but where are all the people?” I ask.

“They normally just run on the weekend, so I had to call in a favor to get the employees to come in and screen a movie for us.”

I would roll my eyes at the typical rich guy gesture, but somehow I don’t sense any of the puffed up need to impress I would expect to accompany something like this. Liam seems to have just genuinely wanted to take me here and he didn’t want to wait. His eagerness lights a spark of excitement in me, and I can’t stop myself from smiling as I take it all in, feeling like this is all for me.

No one asks for our tickets as we enter, which now doesn’t surprise me. They also don’t ask us to pay when Liam orders some candy and a soda for us at the counter. The teenage girl overfills our drinks because she can’t stop gawking at Liam, which makes me feel stupidly threatened, to the point that I actually wrap my arm around his back, as if to remind the girl that he’s mine. I even go as far as to plant my hand on the counter so she can get a clear view of the engagement ring. Except he’s not mine. Not really.

I push that unpleasantness down, wanting to just enjoy tonight. Whether this all works out or not, Liam said himself this isn’t a date as part of our agreement. This is a real date because he enjoys my company. I guess the only question then is whether he’s bringing me here as a friend or as a potential lover, a question that is complicated by the fact that I’m sleeping in the same bed as him at night now.

“So, what do you want to see?” he asks, taking me down the hallway and leading me with a possessive hand splayed against my back. His hand is so large that it nearly spans my whole back and it feels so good there I never want him to move it.

I look down the hallway and see half a dozen signs with movie titles. Stephen King’s It, The Godfather, Casablanca, Grease, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even Wall-E.

“Wow,” I say, trying to decide. “Would you think I was a weirdo if I said I wanted to see It?”

“Hell no,” he says excitedly, already dragging me toward the theater where It is playing. “I’d think you were my soulmate.”

He says it lightly, but his words send butterflies fluttering through my insides and set my skin to tingling. I’m grateful when we step inside the theater because he can’t see my stupid smile in the dark.

Liam picks a seat for us near the middle of the theater and I squeeze in beside him. The projector running pre-movie commercials cuts straight into the feature presentation just moments after we sit.

I spend the first thirty minutes of the movie absorbed in the knowledge that Liam King is only inches from me. I can feel the hairs on his arm against mine on the armrest, but when I steal glances over at him, he looks completely absorbed in the movie. I didn’t take him for a movie buff, but I can clearly see he is from the way he’s watching. The personality quirk gives me a little more boldness, reminding me once again that he is just a human underneath all that gorgeous.

It takes me another twenty minutes, but I open my palm and slide it under his hand, clasping my fingers around his broad, calloused hand. It’s such a simple gesture, and when I consider the fact that we practically made out at the dinner party and the event that will not be mentioned, I know it’s silly to even think twice about holding his hand, but tonight is different.

Liam said this wasn’t about the fake engagement. He said this was just to spend time with me, and to me, that means tonight is real. It’s like a first date. So yeah, I’m nervous as hell about grabbing his hand, but I do it anyway.

He turns his head toward me and smirks down at our intertwined hands. “I was starting to think you would never make a move,” he says.

I laugh. “Me? Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”

“Well,” he says, just as the boys in the movie are having their makeshift dam kicked down by bullies. “Beautiful women make me nervous.”

“Bullshit,” I say, laughing. “Even if I believed you have the remotest idea of what it means to be nervous, I know you can’t think I’m beautiful.”

He leans closer, eyebrows pulling together. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“What?” I ask.

“You don’t know how badly these make me want to kiss you,” he says, brushing his thumb across my lips and sending hot waves of excitement through me. “And you don’t know how long I could stare into these, he says, running a finger beside my eye. And how fucking cute this is,” he says, leaning in to kiss the tip of my nose.

I bite back a smile, still feeling like he’s just saying these things.

“Aubrey,” he says, voice very serious. “You’re fucking beautiful. If I hear you say otherwise, you’re fired.”

“You’re really pulling the boss card right now?” I ask.

“You bet your ass I am. I’ll also fire you if you talk during the movie again.”

“You’re the one who--”

He silences me with a finger to his lips and a faint grin.

I watch the rest of the movie without letting go of his hand, even when he moves it from the armrest to his thigh, forcing my fingers to rest against the hard muscle of his leg. I’ve seen It before, so I don’t feel too bad for spending the entirety of the movie lost in thought or focused on how good my hand feels in his.

Just before the movie ends, Liam’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket enough to check it and winces. “Fuck,” he growls.

“What?” I ask.

“Child protective services are at the house. Sophie just texted.”

“Why is that bad?” I ask.

“Probably doesn’t matter to them that we have a babysitter. We will look like neglectful parents for not being there with her.”

“Right,” I say, trying not to let my disappointment show through in my voice. He’s probably right, even if it is a little paranoid, but I selfishly don’t want our date to end. Still, I let him help me up and rush me to the parking lot, where we get in his car and he drives us toward the mansion. Just like that, it’s over. The spell is broken and the moment we were sharing might as well have burst into a puff of smoke.

He doesn’t speak for most of the drive, choosing instead to just grind his hands on the steering wheel and clench his jaw. He’s angry. I can see it clearly, but don’t quite know at who. Is he angry at me for being the reason he was out of the house when they showed up at his house, or is he mad at Julianne, or just mad in general? Unsurprisingly, I still have no idea when we arrive at the house, where a little red Corolla is parked out front.

When we get inside I see Linda McCroy, the little bitchy woman with the clipboard from before. She’s wearing an itchy looking outfit of deep blue with a ridiculous hat to complete her “just heading to church with a stick up my butt” look. Sophie is standing in front of the doorway with her arms crossed while the poor babysitter is pleading with her to come into the kitchen.

“Oh, good,” says Linda with a roll of her eyes. “This little hellion of yours won’t let me any farther into the house.”

“Good job, Sophie,” says Liam. “It’s fine though. She can stick her nose where she wants. We don’t have anything to hide.”

“Not even the things you told me not to tell anyone about?” asks Sophie, clearly confused.

Liam scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. Except those. But she’ll never find them,” he whispers loudly enough for Linda to hear.

Linda’s eyes widen slightly at the mention of some hidden, dirty secret, and she practically doubles her turtle’s pace as she scuttles into the house, clipboard raised.

“What is the secret?” I ask Liam.

Roxanne rolls her wheelchair close enough that only we can hear. The babysitter and Linda are now deep into the kitchen.

“The secret,” says Roxanne, “Is that your husband-to-be is a fanatical Arnold Schwarzenegger fan and has every movie he’s ever been in, both in Blu-ray and VHS.

I frown. “I don’t get it. Yeah, that’s weird, but why is it so secret?”

Sophie leans in conspiratorially close. “Daddy says everyone is actually a Schwarzenegger fan, but it’s just that not everyone knows it yet. If they find his collection, they’ll steal it.”

“Right,” I say, frowning. “So you’re worried Linda McCroy is going to steal your movie collection.”

“No,” says Liam. “Because she’s never going to find it.”

“What’s this?” asks Linda, who is holding up an empty bottle of cough syrup.

“Well,” says Liam. “That appears to be an empty bottle of cough syrup. You caught me. I have medication in the house for common illnesses.”

“Mhm,” says Linda. “Cough syrup is also used to make meth. Didn’t think I’d know that, did you?”

“Sorry,” I say, butting in. “Is it a crime now to have cough syrup in the house? You’re also welcome to do a thorough search for a meth lab.”

“No,” says Linda. “Not a crime. But I don’t deal in absolutes. I’m here to determine if this household is a fit place for a child, and ultimately, what matters is my opinion on that fact. And I’d say evidence of drug use is a very good reason to take this man’s child away.”

“Listen here, you poorly dressed little bitch,” snaps Roxanne.

“Mom--” says Liam.

“No, I’m old enough to speak my mind when I want to. It’s part of the deal, so get used to it. As I was saying,” she continues, wheeling closer to Linda, who looks like she’s trying to retract her face into her neck and bulge her eyes out of their sockets. “I see what you’re doing. You’re here to make sure this house is ruled unfit for a child no matter what you find. You’re bought and paid for. Well, you know what I know, little missy?”

“What,” asks Linda in an uppity, affronted voice. “Do you know?”

“I know that a documentary I watched said you can pay to have someone murdered for as little as a hundred grand. By a professional. Do you know how much money my son has?”

Linda’s eyebrows shoot up, and then her face darkens. “You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you?”

“Threaten you?” asks Roxanne. “No. I’m making a few observations and letting your pea-sized brain do the work of putting them together. Good luck, honey.”

“I’ve never--In all my life--I can’t even,” begins Linda, interrupting herself until she finally clamps her mouth shut, tucks the clipboard under her arm, and leaves.

“Daddy,” says Sophie after the door shuts. “Is that woman really trying to make me live with mommy?”

“She can try all she wants,” says Liam, through gritted teeth. “But no one is taking you from me, Soph. Do you understand me?”

She smiles up at him. “Yes, Daddy. You’re going to kick their asses.”

He chuckles. “In this case, it would do more harm than good to kick someone’s ass, but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe and to keep you here, where you’re happy. Whatever it takes.”

Roxanne clears her throat. “I don’t want to see that woman again, Liam. If I have to look at that stupid face of hers tomorrow, I’ll have a heart attack just to spite you.”

Sophie and I laugh a little as the babysitter awkwardly shuffles past us and leaves, but Liam just looks thoughtful.

“Fine. You won’t. We’re going on a trip tomorrow. Family cruise for three days to the Florida Keys.”

“What?” I ask.

“What?” asks Sophie.

“It’s about time!!” cries Roxanne as she does the old lady version of a doughnut in her chair.