“Being divorced with benefits seems to be working out for your parents.”
“See now? That was exactly the wrong thing to say.” She didn’t want to follow in her parents’ footsteps in anything involving their romantic relationships.
Their quick divorce was going to be too difficult to explain as things were. She was already dreading Chris finding out that it wasn’t true love and forever the way she’d implied it was. And her mother’s insinuation that she couldn’t make a marriage work amped up all of Bridget’s competitive drives. She ached to show her mother that not only could she make a marriage work; she could be the best wife on the planet, because she was nothing like Molly Simpson.
She was going to have to chow down on all her petty desire and shame when word got out that she and Matt had gotten divorced. The last thing she needed was having to explain that she and Matt weren’t married but they were still seeing each other. Or talking. Or hanging out. Whatever the kids called it these days.
She turned in her seat, ready to tell him all of that, and that was a mistake. He had his head back on the seat, his eyes almost closed. His perfectly pressed white button-down was slightly open at the collar and she could see every tiny shift in the tendons of his neck as he breathed.
How had she not noticed how really perfect he looked during the months they worked together? Sure, there had been sexual tension that she hadn’t wanted to deal with, but it felt like something had unfurled in her over the weekend. This deep, achy need to touch him, to curl into his body and keep him next to her always. The way he looked and smelled and just was made her greedy for him, and that greed felt dangerous. Right now, until they filed divorce papers and got a final decree, which would take at least a month, he belonged to her. She had a claim on him.
That idea curled through her, and she kind of understood why people got married, outside of it just being easier than breaking up. Having someone like Matt be tied to her—forever—was more appealing than she wanted to admit to herself. But she was admitting her pettiness in wanting to prove to Chris that she wasn’t cold and broken, prove to her mother that she was better than her, and prove to herself that she wasn’t destined to be alone.
Shame over her pettiness and the greed she felt for more of Matt—not his money, but the man himself—tinged everything, but an idea began to form.
Maybe, if they had a month, she could prove to herself, her ex, and her mother that she could be a wife. But it would require Matt’s cooperation; it would require him to lie for her.
He looked at her then with a quirk to his lips, as though he knew she was thinking about doing something foolhardy and petty and he might just be on board. “What are you thinking?”
“Our divorce is going to take like a month, right?”
Matt nodded slowly, as though he was afraid of what she would say next. “Well, the quickie annulment is out of the question. Since we consummated the marriage pretty hard, and it’s our only option.”
Bridget hated offering plea bargains. It was part of her job, but if she was sure someone was guilty, she wanted to take them to trial and make sure they weren’t able to harm anyone else for a good long time. And she hated having to sell opposing counsel on a plea deal. But she did it superlatively, just the way she did everything. And she had to put her selling hat on right now, make Matt see that this was the best option for them.
“We’ll still be married at my brother’s wedding, then.”
“Yeah . . .” Matt still sounded hesitant.
“And you kind of like how this is messing with your parents, don’t you?”
He squinted. She was losing him. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with—”
“I think we should not tell anyone that we’re getting a divorce.” He opened his mouth, but she plowed right through. “After all, it’s going to be super simple. We’ll each go in with what we came out with.” She’d probably lose out on the fellowship no matter what happened if his parents were truly furious, but she’d have to worry about that later. At this point, her needing to prove that she wasn’t a defective woman because she couldn’t stay married overrode her worries about her financial future.
“You want to help me mess with my parents for a month?” He looked away as though he was actually mulling over the idea.
“And it will mess with Chris, and with my mom.” She was willing to give him that much honesty.
“It will also keep Naomi at bay so that I can concentrate on school.” A sliver of victory twinkled at her from the distance when he said that. She could taste it.
That’s when she went in and dangled what he really wanted. They could have their no-strings fling but—to the world—they’d be newlyweds. “And no one will ask questions about why we’re hanging out if we’re married.”
“So, we can hang out”—he waggled his brows—“until the wedding.”
“I’ll file papers tomorrow, so we’ll technically be married.” The gate agent called for the first-class cabin to board. She took a deep breath and picked up her bag. “Until the wedding.”
“How are you going to explain the divorce?” That was the rub. No matter how she explained it, she was going to look bad having the divorce. It would have to be her initiative. She could tell everyone that he was too immature to be married. Maybe he wanted to travel for a year after law school, and she couldn’t very well do that. Maybe they would prove to be too different to make it work. But as long as it was amicable, she would be able to prove her point—that she could be married but didn’t want to be.
She felt like telling Matt all that would be a bridge too far. He might think she’d lost it and find a way to push the divorce through fast or embarrass her with it. She didn’t think he would, had no reason to think he would. But she’d never thought that Chris would set out to publicly humiliate her, either.
Instead, she just told Matt what he wanted to hear. “The bottom line is that we’ll keep getting to consummate the marriage, and you’ll get a no-muss divorce with your whole-ass trust fund intact. Plus, you’ll get to annoy your parents for a month and keep Naomi off your back.”
“And you’ll get to stick it to Chris?”
“Exactly.” She showed her ticket to the gate agent and walked down the Jetway. “And we’ll be friends with benefits.”
He trailed after her. “But—to the rest of the world—we’re married until then?”
“Look at it this way—it will be good for both of us,” she said.
Her offer hung over them as they made their way to their seats. He stowed both of their bags and waited for her to sit down. Her nerves were frayed by the time he looked at her and smiled. “You really are kind of an evil genius. Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WHILE SHE WAS STILL with Chris, Bridget had read in a women’s magazine that happily married couples had sex an average of seven times a month. She’d had a good laugh, because she and Chris had dropped off that particular cliff sometime during law school. It was one of the most ironic and unfair things about her ending up pregnant. The nuns hadn’t been kidding when they’d said it only takes one time.
In that same issue of the magazine—it must have been a June wedding issue—they’d also reprinted a bunch of old advice from a 1950s home economics textbook. At the time, it had reminded her of her mother before she’d left them—when she’d let almost everyone believe that everything in the Nolan house was perfectly smooth sailing. The old textbook had basically advised young women—because of course all domestic peace and tranquility and their opposites emanated from the wives—to make sure that everything was perfect when their husbands got home from work. They were to make sure the house was clean, dinner was ready, the children were seen and not heard, and that they also looked perfect. Most important, young wives were admonished never to complain if their husband was late or surly.
Basically, wives we
re told that they needed to be hot, their house needed to be perfectly clean, their children needed to shut the fuck up, and good wives never nagged.
Bridget hadn’t been able to keep this outdated advice out of her head. It came to mind whenever she thought about getting married. Part of the reason she and Chris would never have worked was that she could totally see herself becoming some sort of 1950s home economics textbook of a person. Not even a person. Just a shell.
She could recognize it as the patriarchy, but something in her psyche couldn’t grasp that she didn’t have to be that in order to be a partner with a man.
As she drove over to Matt’s condo after work, she kept thinking about all the ways she’d already failed to meet that standard with him. From the first day of his internship, she’d bossed him around. That probably made her a nag.
They didn’t have children, but she couldn’t even get her ex-boyfriend to shut up around Matt. Chris was essentially a child, so she’d already failed on that count.
And Matt had already seen her at her worst—in her father’s immortal phrasing, she’d looked “rode hard and put up wet” the morning after her wedding.
So, she wasn’t going to be the kind of wife that her mother had tried to be. She was already a failure at that. But she wondered what kind of woman she would need to be to keep someone like Matt married to her. She racked her brain for anything she could come up with to make him hesitate to sign the divorce decree.
Everything about their situation was strange. She had filed their petition for divorce in family court that afternoon.
Irreconcilable differences.
And she was carrying around her father’s wedding ring in her pocket, so he could wear it and they could lie to the rest of the world for the next month or so. If their differences were so irreconcilable, then why did everything feel so right when they kissed? How could she forget everything but the feel of his hands on her body when they’d been in bed together?
She’d never felt that way about someone before, never craved them like a drug. In that moment, she could kick herself for choosing Chris at such a young age. Would she be so mixed up by Matt if she’d dated other people?
Probably not.
But just because she probably wouldn’t feel this way about Matt but for her bad choices, it didn’t feel any less imperative for him to want to stay married to her. Maybe it all came down to the fact that she hated losing.
She could already feel the hot bands of humiliation squeezing her chest, thinking about the look on Chris’s face when he found out that she didn’t stay married to Matt. He would feel like he’d been right about her—that she was a coldhearted bitch who deserved to be alone.
It didn’t make sense that she wanted Matt to want to keep her. But, in that moment, she felt like she was in the midst of a very long temper tantrum. Whereas before, she’d come to her senses not long after the kitty litter dust settled in the driveway, a part of her wanted Matt to want to stay married to her. It was odd.
But she couldn’t be the perfect wife, and they hadn’t dated in a normal way before getting married. And the only things she really knew about dating were admonishments from Sasha to “always make them hungry for more,” which usually got eye rolls and vulgar gestures from Hannah.
As she pulled up to the valet stand outside Matt’s apartment, part of a really dumb idea occurred to her. The only time he’d ever seemed to be out of control was when they were having sex. Although, to be fair, she’d been pretty out of control then, too.
And the only way she’d ever been able to manipulate Chris was through his dick. Matt seemed to be more complex, but he was also ostensibly just as susceptible to her feminine wiles.
Feminine wiles born out of more than a decade of sexual frustration held more power than she’d thought.
She gave her name to the doorman at the desk, and he directed her to go up. Of course Matt lived in the penthouse.
The long elevator ride gave her time to come up with another truly terrible idea.
* * *
• • •
MATT DIDN’T REALLY KNOW what it took to be a good husband. Let alone a good fake husband. His father kind of had it down pat—let his mother do and have anything she wanted, and everything would turn out just fine. Matt figured that he would go with that model and let things unfold.
They’d agreed on Monday night to meet at Matt’s apartment to discuss their current predicament and how they’d go about pretending that this was a real marriage for the next month. Matt had no idea what to expect. He’d never been married to anyone he was only trying to date before. He’d never been trying to seduce a woman he was also divorcing.
And his nervousness was amplified by the fact that his mother was likely losing her mind over the fact that he’d done something this impulsive. He would be lucky if she didn’t have him kidnapped at this point.
When his doorman rang up to let him know that Bridget had arrived, he ran around his apartment to make sure that that there wasn’t any stray mess lying around that Bridget would judge him for. Her office was always pristine, and he assumed that her house was the same.
He didn’t really know why he was doing it. It wasn’t as though he needed to impress her as his soon-to-be ex-wife. Maybe he was just in the habit because of being her employee for three months.
Jesus, he’d never been this nervous. And now he felt as though he was going to pull his hair out over his wife.
His wife.
Even three days later, it felt weird. But oddly, even though they were most definitely still getting a divorce, not bad.
He let the weirdness soak him until he heard a knock at the door. He couldn’t help running to open it up. “Hi.” Hi? She was going to think he was daft. “Come in.”
She did seem as awkward and stilted as he was. After all, she’d married him having never been in his home. There was so much they didn’t know about each other. All he had was the fact that she was brutally competent and funny and had a complicated family.
One thing he absolutely knew about Bridget Nolan was that she wasn’t the kind of woman who would marry him for his family’s money and social status. She would have played being his boss totally different than she had. She would have flirted and simpered— or made his work life easier at the very least.
After spending the weekend with her, he knew that even more. Even when the messy aspects of her life came out at that dinner the first night, she hadn’t tried to hide who she was or how she lived.
Part of why he knew he needed to get the divorce was that he was afraid that she was the kind of woman he could really fall in love with.
She stared at him for a second too long, until he remembered his manners. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Something very alcoholic.”
“Wine?”
“Perfect.”
He moved to the kitchen but watched her taking in his space out of the corner of his eye. Sitting across from him at his kitchen island. He’d never felt embarrassed about his family’s money and what that meant before he met Bridget. Sure, he’d tried to downplay it in order to avoid freeloaders and gold diggers—not that it worked for Naomi—but spending time with Bridget and working with her all summer made him confront the very real privilege he took for granted.
Bridget didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at him like he was a shithead. Not the way she’d looked at him that first day in the office. She took her wine and took a long gulp.
“Thank you for doing this.” She sounded grateful, when he was the one getting a pretty good deal. He got to hang out with a gorgeous redhead, piss his parents off, and keep Naomi off his jock for a month.
“It’s not a big deal.” He took a drink of his own wine, but really wanted to taste her mouth. Ever since the day after their wedding, he’d been thinking about her mouth. Would never forget her tast
e. But it was the kind of memory that would make him an addict. He would never get enough of her, and he would be ruined. She was the end of him.
“It’s totally a big deal.” She put her hand over his across the marble island that took up entirely too much space between them. “You’re really covering my ass.”
“I like to be the only thing covering your ass.” He wasn’t going to tell her that he was getting as much out of this arrangement as she was. He had an ex to make jealous, and he and Bridget hadn’t gotten close to covering the sex territory that he wanted to cover with her. “It’s fine. Only a month.”
Which suddenly didn’t seem like enough time.
“Yeah, but there’s a rehearsal dinner. And, shit, Jack asked you to be in the wedding?” She stood up and turned around. He made the mistake of following her hands when she stuffed them in her back pockets. Shit. He was going to lose it if he couldn’t touch her again soon. It was as though having been with her just made everything worse. He’d never get the sound of her coming out of his brain, never be able to erase the sight of all that dark red hair messy and slipping through his fingers like water.
They should have met on neutral territory. Someplace he wouldn’t be tempted to boost her up on the kitchen island and just ruin her mouth until it was swollen and her silver-blue eyes went molten.
“I think we should set some ground rules.”
“There are ground rules for what we’re doing?” This probably wasn’t the time to be telling her that he was really turned on when she talked about ground rules.
Her expression was completely sincere—no hint of sarcasm. And that turned him on, too. “Yeah, like how many times a week are we going to have sex?”
His mouth twitched and he seriously wondered if he was going to be able to keep himself from bursting out laughing. She wanted to set a sex schedule with her friend with benefits. He kept it to a grin that he hoped she read as wry. “Is it going to be that much of a chore for you?”
Her face flushed, and he moved closer to her. She stepped back, and he stopped. “That’s not what I mean.”
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