half my makeup before I’d heard him letting himself into the apartment.
“That’s your fault,” I said, reaching under the sink for a new packet of wipes. “You’re the one who let yourself into my apartment on your alpha male tirade when I was cleaning my face. And you could have mentioned this before.”
“Why would I do that?” he said around an orange toothbrush that I assumed was now his.
There was nothing like having your ninety-nine cent toothbrushes stolen.
I finished removing my makeup and threw the wipe in the trashcan that desperately needed emptying and huffed on my way into the shower. Kai’s muffled chuckle followed me in, but I closed the door and that blocked him out completely.
Thank God.
I let the hot water run over me, soaking me from head to toe. It was a pain in the ass to keep the spray from beating my nipples, so I covered my boobs with my arm and reached for my shampoo as soon as I was soaked through.
Cold air slammed into my back, and I squealed.
“Sorry.” Kai pressed his front against my back and shuffled me over.
“What the hell? First you steal a toothbrush, now you steal my shower?”
“I borrowed your toothbrush, and now I’m sharing your shower,” he said. “Semantics.”
“Semantics my ass.”
“Shh. I need a shower. You came all over me.”
“You’re the one who barged in here like Fred Flintstone. That’s your fault, not mine.” I lathered shampoo into my hair. “If you think sharing a shower is going to be a regular thing, you’re deluded.”
“Here I was, planning our future of endless showers with some shower sex thrown in.”
I snorted and rinsed off my hands. “Still deluded.”
He grabbed my left hand and took my ring finger between his finger and thumb. “Still wearing a fake wedding ring, I see.”
I pursed my lips. I’d forgotten I was wearing that. I had gotten into a habit of removing it when I got home from work, but I hadn’t done it today because of Kai’s birthday.
“I forgot to take it off,” I said, muscling in under the water to rinse my hair.
He stepped back and grabbed my soap, using it to wash both his body and his hair. “Don’t bother. I bought it because it suited you.”
“You bought it? You said it was a family ring.”
He shoved his head under the water, unperturbed that I was put out. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t tell you I’d bought it, could I?”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew you’d freak out about it.”
“Yeah, you can’t take it back now!” I rinsed the last of the shampoo from my hair and nearly took his eye out with my elbow. “Damn it, Kai.”
“I don’t want to take it back.” He opened the shower door and stepped out, apparently done with his shower in less than three minutes, and trapped me and the steam back inside.
What did he mean, he didn’t want to take it back?
Why had he bought it?
Why the hell was this day such a rollercoaster? Was it Friday the fucking thirteenth or something?
I still had to finish my shower so I raced through conditioning my hair and washing my body in record time. I apologized to the stubble under my arms that really needed a trim and told myself shaving could wait until tomorrow.
I’d been telling my legs that for a week, mind you.
I turned off the shower and froze.
I didn’t have clean towels.
I’d jumped straight in without thinking.
Ah, shit.
I braced myself for the rush of freezing air that would come at me when I stepped out of the shower cubicle. A shudder wracked my body when it came, and I twisted my hair around my finger so it didn’t drip all over my body, but I didn’t need to worry.
There were two towels sitting on top of the closed toilet seat.
A smile crept over my face despite my best efforts, and I gratefully wrapped myself in the fluffy towels before I left the bathroom.
Noises came from the direction of the kitchen, and I padded across the floor while adjusting my towel, careful not to slip on the wet floor.
“I know what you did with the towels. We’re still talking about the ring.”
“Nothing to talk about,” he said, scooping ice cream into two bowls at the island. “Yes, I cleaned it before you ask.”
I bit back a giggle. “Of course there’s something to talk about.”
“There really isn’t, Ivy. It’s quite simple.”
“Explain it, then.”
“If we don’t make this fake marriage real—which, for the record, I am wholeheartedly against—then it’s