The Temporary Wife - By Jeannie Moon Page 0,33
there was no reason to make the arrangement harder than it had to be. And now, Harper was here on their wedding night.
Fucking perfect.
Looking back at Meg, who was obviously furious, there wasn’t much he could say. “I am so sorry. I don’t know why she thought to come here.”
“Are you kidding? You’ve set the precedent, Jason. We may never be alone, and do you know what that means?”
“We may never have sex?”
“Bingo! Put me down. Now.”
He lowered her to her feet, and Meg wobbled a little on her heels before gathering her skirt and making her way up the gangway. She didn’t stop to accept the glass of champagne Harper held out for her. Instead, she turned at Jason.
“I’m assuming you’ve arranged for me to have everything I need?”
God, he’d never seen her so pissed off, and he didn’t think that was possible after the scene at her house last week and Harper’s stripper comment. He wanted her even more now, he wanted her to channel all that magnificent fury in the bedroom. But that dream had died the minute Harper stepped on his boat. Meg was giving Harper a death stare, so he didn’t hold up the answer any longer, figuring they needed to be separated. “Clothes and toiletries are in your cabin. The steward can show you there.”
Meg spun, literally, and her gown whipped around. She caught sight of the steward and followed him into the living quarters, while Jason turned to Harper. His assistant’s eyes were trained toward the passageway that led to the cabins, and her body language told Jason she knew she’d fucked up.
“Oh, God. I didn’t think.”
“Thanks.”
“You keep saying this is a marriage in name only. I just figured we’d make it a working cruise and Meg could relax and get used to the idea. I had some outings planned. I thought we could all be friends.”
A few weeks ago, when his lawyer had the prenup paperwork delivered to Jason’s office, Harper had been there to accept the package. She had done the same thing with those papers that she did with everything else that came to Jason from an attorney: She read them. It was her job. But in doing her job, she had found out the truth about the marriage.
He wasn’t worried she would tell anyone; she would take the information to her grave. But the arrangement was even more of a reason for her to dislike Meg and cause problems as a result.
“Friends? Really? Seems more like you’re running interference. Wait.” Jason put his hands on his hips. “What are you trying to do here?”
“Do?”
“No, Harper. No. Stop this now and tell me the truth.”
Her mouth dropped open and then closed, and then Harper became Harper. The woman with a spine of steel and determination to match. “I was trying to keep you from making a mistake.”
“I think we’re old enough to make our own decisions.”
“I’ve been watching the two of you for the last week, and you behave like a couple of oversexed fifteen-year-olds! I can smell the hormones cooking.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Trust me,” she said. “It is.”
“You don’t have any right to butt into this. We’re both adults.”
“You need to get a grip, Jason.” Harper stood and paced in a circle. “If you get involved sexually, everything changes. Emotions get involved. It gets messy. And she gets attached. That makes the divorce messy.”
“I think we can handle it. It’s just sex.”
“Is it? With me it was just sex.”
“Shhhh.” The last thing he needed was Meg hearing about his and Harper’s sexual history. The way everything had blown up in his face last week with Harper’s stripper comment, he didn’t need her to know she was the last person he’d had sex with.
“She doesn’t know?”
“No, and she isn’t going to.”
“Jason, for such a smart man, you really are a dumbass sometimes.”
Jason looked away and thought about how Meg would react to finding out he and Harper burned up the sheets. She’d fucking flip is what she’d do. Meg was many things, but for all of Harper’s calm reasoning, Meg was a ball of fire. She was stubborn, difficult, and exasperating.
“Jason, keep your hands off of her, or walking away from this marriage will not be an option.”
“Why do you say that? She’s not stupid. She knows the score.”
“She’ll get attached. She’s all about emotion and she won’t be able to separate the emotion from the sex.”
Was that true? Would Meg get too invested in the marriage? He didn’t think