to share. To make the marriage legit. Alan said these are the rules.”
He pulled out the envelope and shook it in the air.
She reached for it. “Mister Cwedwick has been oh-so-helpful. I’m definitely putting him on my Christmas card list.”
“Can we send him a letter bomb?”
She paused before sliding the envelope open. “I need to be sitting down before we open this.”
“Your idea is much smarter than mine. I was going to suggest tequila, but all things considered, that might not be wise. Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
Julia marched ahead of him, headed to the cabin he’d claimed for his own.
“Everything is simple, isn’t it?” She glared so hard he could have sworn his hair sizzled. “I could tell you I was betrothed to a vampire, and you’d wave it off and offer to be our third.”
A snort escaped. “Sorry, no. The fooling around with a guy thing doesn’t cut it for me. Unless your vampirical arranged marriage is with a lady. Then we can talk.”
Her glare broke from annoyance to amusement as she paused on his front porch. “It’s the grouping of the sexes in the ménage that makes you hesitate, not the actual threesome?”
“My biggest complaint is the whole sucking-blood thing, but yeah…whatever. When it comes to sex, I have zero beef with whatever turns a person’s crank. My engine is attuned to ladies, though, like sexy emergency rescue chicks with feisty attitudes.”
He opened the door, but she detoured instead to the hardback chairs he’d placed to one side of the porch—the ones with a great view over the panoramic scenery.
She stilled even as she took a seat. Her gaze met his, and she seemed to calm herself before ignoring his last comment and speaking with complete seriousness. “I get that this is important. I’m not about to run away or do something to hurt my new sisters. Or Finn.”
Zach ignored her complete failure to mention not hurting him.
Julia stared over the landscape. “This is uncomfortable for many reasons, so let’s say we agree to do this thing.”
“Stay married?”
“Stay pretend married,” she clarified. “If we’re going to be roomies, we need ground rules.”
Made perfect sense. Also, his gut told him to stop worrying about the wild situation and roll with it. Enjoy it, even. “What kind of ground rules?
She shook the envelope in the air. “We check what your meany-pants lawyer tossed at us and find out how close we have to live. Sharing a house, I can work with. Sharing a bed is out.”
Zach pulled himself upright even as he laughed at her assessment of Alan. “I am perfectly capable of sharing a bed without anything happening you don’t want to happen.”
“I like my space,” Julia drawled. “Sharing a bed is on the no list.”
“Fine, but may I point out that we’ve already sort of shared a bed a couple of times and nothing terrible happened.”
Her jaw swung open. “We. Got. Married.”
Oh. Right. The jury was still out on whether that was the most brilliant mistake he’d ever made or the worst.
“Fine. No shared beds.” He hid his sigh—she was far too fine to be living celibate for a year…
Wait.
He stiffened. “I have an item for this list.”
9
Julia tugged the stool beside her closer to use as a table as she pulled her ever-present notebook from her purse. “Go ahead. I’ll make notes. We can run them by Alan later to make sure they’re kosher.”
Brilliant idea as well, but he was too focused on the rule he wanted to emphasize to tell her that. “This year, if you want to fool around with anyone, it will be with me.”
Her expressions were priceless. This time it was a raised brow and an are you kidding me? look.
“Trust me, I am not interested in finding anyone to fool around with, and that includes you.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “You will not cheat on me during the year, though. Because if you’re off fooling around with someone else, people will think I might be cheating, and considering this entire mess started from trying to stop rumours involving my sex life—nope.”
Considering the only person he wanted to fool around with was sitting two feet away from him? “Agreed. Which brings me back to my point—you want to have some fun, let me know.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it covered,” she said dryly as she wrote RULES at the top of the page. “Number one. No cheating. Number two on the list, so it’s clear. No sex.”
He hesitated. “For