The Wedding Pact Box Set - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,63

for him to give up his quest was impossible. What he was doing went beyond him personally. His employees were counting on him.

He would have to make the most of the time he had with her. If they survived this part, anyway.

Irritation was written across her face, and he braced himself. He needed to stop drooling over her and put out this fire.

She pointed to the door, anger darkening her eyes. “I don’t know who is down there in my mother’s kitchen, but you have some explaining to do.”

He lifted his hands in surrender. “Just give me a chance.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Is he even your brother?”

“Yes, that’s Noah, my brother who Blair talked to last night.”

“What is he doing here?”

Josh sighed and motioned to the bed. “Can we sit down while I explain it?”

She glanced at the bed, seemingly unsure, wrapping her arms tighter around her torso.

He sat tentatively on the edge. “I didn’t ask him to come.”

“Then why is he here?”

“He knew I was coming to Kansas City . . .” Dammit. He got to his feet and began pacing. Why had he been stupid enough to believe that Noah, who’d gotten him into this situation in the first place, could help? “He’s worried about me.”

She pointed her finger at him. “That’s a bullshit answer!”

“Megan, I’m sorry! I didn’t ask him to come.” When she didn’t interrupt him, he continued. “He knew I was coming to Kansas City, and when we spoke last night, he asked me where I was staying.”

“And you told him?”

He ran a hand through his hair. Shit. This whole trip had been one ill-thought-out decision after another, which was the exact opposite of the precedent that Josh liked to set for himself. No wonder he was floundering. “He didn’t want me to come to Kansas City this weekend. Like I said, he was worried about me.”

“Let’s go back to the part where you told him you were here!”

Josh sat back down and leaned his elbows on his knees. He looked up at her, pleading. “I told him that I was helping you. He wanted to know how exactly I was helping you—”

“I bet he did,” she said sarcastically.

“—so I told him you were in a desperate situation.”

“You told him that you were posing as my fiancé?”

He nodded, unable to look her in the eye. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t he want to know why you were helping me?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

He took a deep breath, then looked up at her. He needed to tell her the truth. Or at least the part of it that directly impacted her. “Look, I wasn’t lying when I said I never meant for this to happen. Your mother heard me say I was your fiancé. I wasn’t myself . . . you saw me on the plane when I boarded. So when your mother assumed I was Jay, she swept me along in her cloud of . . . Knickers-ness . . . Well, the next thing I knew, I was still carrying you and we had wandered to baggage claim. How could I correct her at that point? I was in dire straits with my business, and like I told you, I’d decided to hand it all to fate, so I figured if I did a good deed, the cosmos would do one for me in return. Stupid, I know.”

She turned to the side, and he could feel that he was losing her. “Megan, this isn’t coming out right.” He groaned in frustration, then stood and moved in front of her. “When I decided to go through with this, I admit I did it for selfish reasons, but then I got to know you.” He slowly lifted his hands and placed them gently on her upper arms. “As stupid as this sounds, I like you. Like really like you. I’ve never fallen for someone this quickly, and while it kind of freaks me out, I’m not ready to end this yet. At least not like this.”

She looked up at him, still defensive. “You’re doing all of this because you like me?” She took a step back, her arms dropping to her sides. “That’s not a reason.”

He stopped in front of her, lifting a hand to the side of her face. “It’s the oldest reason under the sun.”

Her body relaxed and she pressed her cheek into his palm.

Encouraged, he lowered his head, his lips hovering over hers. His tongue ran along her lower lip, and her breath was hot