piss him off. “And I get all the wedding presents.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to convince the powers that be that your marriage is for real if you don’t keep it secret?” Heath stood at my shoulder with the laden food tray. I had no idea how long he’d been there—long enough to hear me recite Lucas’s ridiculous rules, apparently.
I scooted over to give him room to sit, and he set the food tray down.
“Sorry it took a while. Had to send my burger back. The cashier didn’t put down that it was supposed to be animal-style.”
Heath bit into his hamburger—priorities, after all—before flicking a glance from me to Lucas and back, still waiting for the answer to his question.
“I’ve got my reasons for keeping it on the down low,” Lucas finally answered, his dark eyes avoiding my gaze. “Namely, I’m up for an important promotion and Kat is best friends with the CEO’s wife.”
Heath swallowed his massive bite of burger and snorted. “Wouldn’t that be a good reason not to keep it secret? Hell, I’d advertise it freely to anyone who’d listen.”
I already knew the answer to this, and I sensed Lucas was getting torqued, so I stepped in—magnanimously, I might add, because Lucas was equally annoying. But he was also doing me a huge favor. “Lucas doesn’t believe in nepotism. He wants the job for his own merits.”
Heath shrugged. “Okay, so keep it secret at work but—”
“The family angle is also complicated,” Lucas cut in before Heath could even ask. “Believe me, it’s just easier this way all around.”
I quirked a brow, curious, but resisted the urge to ask the obvious question. I actually knew nothing about Lucas’s family, but if not asking him meant he wouldn’t ask me about mine, then so much the better. Scooping up my double-double burger, I lifted the bun to make sure they hadn’t spread it with the “special sauce” that I didn’t care for.
“It’s easy enough to keep things on the down-low.” I said. “Especially when all I’m doing is sending in documentation and then we appear for an interview.” I guess we’d have to know the basics about each other’s families for that… but not for months.
One step at a time. A month ago Lucas and I were at a cabin in the mountains with co-workers right before Christmas. We’d had no idea of what the crazy future would bring.
Now, here we were. Husband and wife.
“I guess that means no wedding rings, then, which was on my list of questions,” Heath asked between bites.
Lucas shook his head decidedly. “No rings.”
Sure. No outward signs of being married for various reasons. It’s not like either of us had much free time for dating because of our hectic work schedule. Dating would make things messy and complicated, to say nothing of making this appear less real. And with his conditions on keeping things secret, we needed all the help we could get.
After we finished our “wedding feast,” he wasted no time slipping out of the booth and prompting us back to work. I took a moment to thank Heath for coming all the way to Irvine from Orange, where we lived, to do this for us on our lunch break.
Because it was going to be another long night at work tonight—and probably for the rest of the week.
Heath carefully wiped the grease off his hands before taking the paperwork and signing it. He tucked it away in an envelope that he assured us would be mailed to the county recorder as soon as possible.
And from where he stood, Lucas watched his every move as if he didn’t trust what Heath was doing. As if he’d just signed his own life away. Because in actuality, for the next year or so—come hell or my green card—he was.
“Keep me posted on any developments or appointments I need to make,” Lucas grunted as we left.
I fought the urge to give him a mock salute in reply.
Not even an hour later, back at the job, it was kind of weird trying to maintain the illusion that nothing had happened. It wasn’t actually an illusion, though. Since nothing really had, except on paper.
I studied our Mission Accomplished leaderboard. It displayed the ranks of a running tournament among my co-workers. These were gamers who, upon feeling overworked, under paid, and undervalued, took a break from debugging Dragon Epoch to play yet another game. Mission Accomplished was incredibly outdated now, but Lucas was a longtime fan of it. Plus, it was