Thirty Days to Win His Wife

by Andrea Laurence

  For once in her life, maybe she just needed to relax and let things happen. Something wonderful could come from it if she allowed the universe to unfold as it should. That was a tall order for Amelia, but she’d think on it. The alternative, as Natalie had pointed out, was unacceptable. She couldn’t lose her friendship with Tyler over this.

  Once she stepped from the shower and dried off, she had to let that line of thought go and get ready for work. It took a little longer than usual, but she was still adjusting to the new house and trying to figure out where everything was. Since she now lived so much closer to From This Moment, she would still get there well before eight, even when it took five minutes to find her blow-dryer.

  Tyler had still been asleep when she got up. When she finished in the bathroom, she moved quickly through the bedroom to the kitchen so she wouldn’t disturb him. She wanted to get out the door before he noticed. Yes, she was being a chicken, avoiding an awkward conversation, but she had a good reason to leave.

  As she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she realized it was a pointless exercise. Tyler was sitting at the counter hunched over his tablet, reading, with a mug of coffee in his hand. He still had on the rumpled clothes he’d slept in, his dark blond hair wildly standing up in several different directions. Instead of looking messy, the look was charming. An intimate portrait of the man behind the suit. It made her want to come up behind him and wrap her arms around his neck, plant a kiss on his rough cheek and tousle his hair.

  Even though they’d had sex, that somehow seemed too intimate. Instead she turned her attention to a tall glass beside him with something greenish brown in it. She was certain it would look unappetizing even if she wasn’t having her daily battle with morning sickness.

  Amelia knew there was no avoiding a discussion before she left. Maybe he would want to ignore last night’s encounter, as well. That seemed like a topic for after noon, at least. With a deep breath, she continued on into the kitchen.

  “Morning,” she said as cheerfully as she could without sounding suspicious. She opened the door to the pantry and started nosing around for something quick and easy she could take with her for breakfast. Eating was not high on her priority list at the moment, but when the nausea faded, she’d be starving and up to her elbows in twice-baked potatoes for the reception. She picked up a high-protein granola bar with chocolate chips. A bundle of bananas was sitting on the counter. One of those would slip easily into her purse for later.

  “Good morning,” Tyler replied, his voice low and gruff from sleep. He looked up from his screen. “I already made your breakfast. I hope you don’t mind. I know you’re the chef, but I thought you might be in a hurry this morning.”

  Amelia turned around and noticed he’d slid the tall glass of green sludge closer to her. “Thanks,” she said, although she didn’t feel very grateful. Her stomach rolled unpleasantly as she neared it. “What is it?”

  “It’s a pregnancy smoothie. I found the recipe online. It’s got cocoa and peanut butter, which you like, plus bananas to soothe a queasy stomach, milk for calcium and spinach for the iron and folic acid needed for healthy fetal development.”

  She eyed the glass with suspicion. It sounded like a good idea. Maybe it tasted better than it looked. Even if it didn’t, Tyler was looking at her with such a pleased and hopeful expression, she’d have to drink it anyway. Lifting the glass to her nose, she sniffed it. It smelled like peanut butter and bananas, mostly. Nothing to make her recoil. Bringing the straw to her lips, she found it tasted the same. The spinach seemed to disappear, adding nutrition while letting the other flavors shine.

  “Mmm,” she said, swallowing a large sip. “This is pretty good. You can feel free to make me one of these every day.”

  “Absolutely,” he said with a smile. “Taking good care of our child means taking good care of you. I’m glad to do it.”

  Amelia fought a small twinge in the back of her mind as he spoke. She recognized the feeling as the pang of jealousy, but that didn’t make any sense. Who was she jealous of? Their baby? That seemed silly. She should be happy that Tyler wanted them to have a happy, healthy child. And he most likely wanted her to be happy and healthy, too. Amelia was just being oversensitive. She would blame the hormones.

  “And after what I experienced yesterday,” Tyler continued, “you’re going to need all the good nutrition you can get. Are all of your days like that?”

  She swallowed another sip and set down the glass on the shiny granite countertop. “Just Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Saturdays are the worst. I have no idea when I’ll get home tonight. I probably won’t get back until one or two a.m., so don’t wait up. What are you doing today?”

  Tyler set down his tablet. “I’m going to the estate auction of a country-music singer. She died last year, but her lawyers have finally gotten her estate settled. Her heirs just want to liquidate for cash.”

  “Who is it?” Amelia asked. There were a lot of country-music stars in Nashville to choose from.

  “Patty Travis. That woman was the country-music equivalent of Liberace. She spent almost every dime she earned on jewelry, and her famous roster of lovers over the years bought her even more. It’s almost as good as the Elizabeth Taylor auction a few years back. I’m hoping to snap up a few nice pieces.”

  Amelia frowned at Tyler. “That’s why you really came to Nashville!” she accused at last.

  He opened his mouth to argue but must have decided against it. “I came to Nashville,” he said, seeming to choose his words very carefully, “to see you and work out the details of the divorce we’re not getting. It was my first opportunity to come, and I was able to make the time because, yes, I was planning on coming to this auction and I could do it all in one trip. You’ll notice I arrived a full five days ahead of the auction so I could devote the time to you. I didn’t intend to spend those days renting a house and moving here.”

  “That’s true,” she said, carrying her mostly empty smoothie glass over to the sink. She took one last sip and rinsed it out. “Do we need to schedule an auction here in Nashville the week of the baby’s birth so I’ll be certain you’re in town?”

  “Very funny,” Tyler said without laughing.

  “I’m not entirely kidding.” Amelia walked back to the counter and planted her palms on the cool stone. “It took over a month to nail you down about our elopement. If Patty Travis’s estate wasn’t having an auction this week, it might have taken even longer. I know you’ve reorganized what you can to make the thirty-day arrangement work out, and I appreciate it. But what are we going to do after that? Even if we stay together, I’m going to spend most of my time in this huge house, alone, while you trot around the world chasing flawless gemstones.”

  “You could come with me, you know.”

  Amelia snorted. As alluring as the idea might sound, it would never work. “I have a job, too, you know.”

  “Do you not get vacation time?”

  “It’s not a question of benefits, Ty. I am part owner of the company. If I’m not there to do my share, everyone else has to scramble to fill my space. We were lucky when I went to the reunion that the wedding that day was light appetizers and we were able to bring in a contractor. My maternity leave is going to be a huge impact to the business. Traveling with you is impossible.”

  Tyler frowned. She could tell he wasn’t used to someone shooting down his great ideas. He needed to understand that From This Moment wasn’t just some job she was keen to cast aside once she had a rich man to take care of her. It was her career. Her passion. A rich husband only seemed to be complicating the issue.

  “What if I could arrange the trip to depart on a Sunday night and come back on Thursday or Friday?”

  “That would still be pushing it. It would have to be really important. And somewhere I’d like to go. I’m not getting a bunch of shots with weird side effects so
you can haul me to India when I’m four months pregnant.”

  “What about London?” he asked with an optimistic tone.

  Damn it if he didn’t pick the perfect location right out the gate. Amelia had always wanted to go to London. “Yes, I would like to see London, but timing is key. And,” she added, “that wasn’t really my point, Ty. In a few more months, I’m not going to be able to travel anywhere. After that, I’ll have an infant. More than stamps in my passport, I need you to be here.”

  She looked down at the clock on her phone. “Just think about it. We can talk later. I’ve got to get to the chapel. Good luck at your auction.”

  Tyler nodded thoughtfully and waved a hand at her. “Okay. Hope the wedding goes well. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Amelia picked up her purse and went out the door. Tyler could be aggravating at times, but when it came down to it, he knew her better than anyone else. He could use that against her to get his way. Dangling a trip to London was just cruel because he knew how badly she wanted to go. But if she agreed to one trip, he’d find a reason she had to take another. And another. Then after the baby was born, they might as well just bring in a full-time caterer to replace her.

  She might be softening on compromising for their relationship, but her job was her dream and she wouldn’t lose that. Even so, the whole drive to work she was taunted by thoughts of a proper English tea with fresh scones and the potential to lick clotted cream and strawberry jam from Tyler’s bare chest.

  * * *

  “I told you not to wait up for me.”

  Amelia stumbled in the door around two-thirty in the morning, her eyes glazed with fatigue and her purse weighing so heavily on her shoulder it could’ve been filled with concrete.

  Tyler frowned and got up from his laptop, where he’d been working. He hadn’t intended to stay up, but work had beckoned and the later it got, the more he worried about her. He knew her job was important to her, but she worked too hard. He had seen that same expression on his mother’s face when she’d come home from a double shift at the manufacturing plant—bone tired. Too tired to sleep, sometimes. He would make her a cup of tea and sit up talking with his mother until she finally relaxed enough to go to bed.

  “You should’ve called me to pick you up,” he chastised gently. “You look exhausted enough to wrap your car around a light pole. Who will cater for them then?”

  She shrugged and dropped her purse on a stool in the kitchen. “It’s not a long drive home now. I’m fine.”

  Tyler came up behind her to help her slip out of her jacket. “I thought you had help on Saturday nights.”

  “I do. There’s the waitstaff and a couple people that help cook, like Stella. She was a godsend tonight. Normally it’s not a problem. I thrive on the adrenaline rush of the kitchen chaos.” She climbed onto the next stool and slumped against the counter. “But lately, I just don’t have it in me. A couple hours in and I have to sit down and take a break.”

  “You’re pregnant, Ames.”

  “So? The baby is the size of a blueberry at best. It shouldn’t be giving me this much grief so soon.”

  “That’s not how it works. My sisters complained about the exhaustion far more than anything else. It starts earlier than you’d think.”

  “I need to get a baby book—The Moron’s Guide to Procreation or one of those What to Expect When Your Body Is Taken Over by a Tiny Alien books.”

  “I think we can manage that,” he said with a smile. Amelia was really tired if she was getting this crotchety. “Would you like some chamomile tea?”

  Amelia sighed, shaking her head and then stopping. She looked up at him with hope beaming in her big doe eyes. “Do we have any hot chocolate?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll look.” Tyler went into the pantry, scanning for the tiny packets of instant mix, but came up empty-handed. He spied a bar of milk chocolate on the shelf and decided to improvise. It had been a long time since he’d made hot chocolate for his little brothers after school. Once his older sisters had gotten part-time jobs, Tyler had been the one at the apartment when the school bus dropped off the little ones. He’d been the one who had made sure they’d done their homework and given them snacks. Hot chocolate had been one of their favorites. Back then he’d made it with bottled syrup, but this would work.

  “From scratch?” she asked as she watched him put a small pot of milk on to boil.

  “Only the best for you,” he said with a grin. He broke up small pieces of the chocolate and dropped them into the heating mixture of milk, vanilla and cinnamon. A few minutes later, it had come together into a frothy brew that he poured into a mug for her. “Here you go. Be careful, it’s hot.”

  “Looks yummy. Thank you.”

  Tyler rested his hands on the granite countertop and watched her sip the cocoa with a blissful expression on her face. In that moment, he realized just how much he enjoyed making her happy. Over the years, he’d always liked sending her pretty gifts for her birthday or Christmas. That was fun because he knew she would never buy anything like that for herself, and jewels were his business. Seeing her wearing something sparkly and decadent seemed like the perfect treat.

  But lately, even before the reunion, their relationship had started to feel different. With their hectic schedules, they rarely saw each other in person, but as life had started encroaching on their technological interchanges, he’d found the idea of it was bothering him more than it used to. He missed talking to Amelia on the phone. Finding emails and texts from her. When he’d arrived in Vegas for the reunion, he couldn’t believe how much he’d missed the sight of her. He hadn’t even wanted to go to the party. Tyler would’ve been just as happy ordering room service and spending hours talking in his hotel room.

  Now that they were spending almost all their time together, he certainly couldn’t miss her. But he still found himself feeling the same little thrill every time she walked into the room. Doing little things like making her breakfast and helping her cut up beef tenderloin gave him a warm feeling in the center of his chest that was more satisfying than giving her some expensive bauble.

  She looked at it as being fawned over or taken care of, but that wasn’t how he thought about it. He wanted to do things for her because he...cared about her. She was his Amelia. Of course he wanted to do what he could to make her life better. If cocoa made her happy, he’d make it. If this kitchen and a private movie theater that seated eight made her smile, he’d rent this house at twice the price. If marrying her would make her feel better about being single at the reunion...apparently he’d do that, too.

  She was the most important person in his life. He’d never expected that she would also be his wife. But now that she was, and the clock was ticking, he was having a hard time envisioning his life without her. He didn’t want to go back to just seeing Amelia every now and then. The baby would bring them together more often, but somehow even that wasn’t enough. He wanted her here. With him. Every day. This was one challenge he couldn’t fail at.

  “This was very good,” Amelia said, draining the last of her cup. “You’re better in the kitchen than you give yourself credit for.”

  Tyler shrugged and rinsed her mug in the sink. “I am just painting by numbers when in the presence of Michelangelo.”

  At that, Amelia snorted and burst into exhausted giggles. “I’m more like Bob Ross painting happy little trees, but thank you.”

  “You should give yourself more credit, too.”

  “Maybe later,” she said with a yawn. “I’m about to fall out with all that warm, chocolaty milk in my tummy.”

  Tyler wrapped his arm around her shoulder and walked her toward the bedroom. “All right. Come on, let’s get you into bed before you collapse on the kitchen floor.”

  They walked down the hallway to the master suite. There, he sat Amelia down on the bed and knelt in front
of her to take off her shoes. He unlaced her little sneakers and slipped them off with her socks, revealing dainty, pink-painted toenails.

  “Thank you,” she said, pulling her shirt up over her head and throwing it to the floor beside him. “I’m so tired, my feet seem as if they’re a million miles away. In a few months, they might as well be. I’ll have to get some slip-on shoes.”

  “You don’t need them,” Tyler argued. “I’ll be here to help you.”

  “Tyler?”

  He sat back on his heels and looked up, catching a glimpse of her large ivory breasts held in the tight confines of her white satin bra. He swallowed hard at the sight of them and focused on her eyes, trying not to look at the temptation on display in front of him. Amelia wasn’t trying to tempt him—she was exhausted. “Yes?” he said, clearing his throat.

  Her brow furrowed in thought, her eyes glazing over slightly. Even this discussion was tiring her out. “What if thirty days come and go and we don’t fall in love?”

  That was a good question, and one he hadn’t really allowed himself to consider. Having a winning attitude in life had gotten him far. He’d accepted her challenge, never doubting he would be successful. But this was the first time he wasn’t fully in control of the variables. No matter what he did, it was possible that Amelia wouldn’t fall in love with him. Then what?

  That was too deep a conversation for three in the morning. “You mean you’re not mad for me already? After last night?”

  She shrugged coyly. “I’m getting there. Maybe we should try again tonight to see if it makes a difference.”

  Tyler chuckled. As much as he’d like to, he didn’t relish the idea of Amelia falling asleep in the middle of it. He stood up, planting a warm kiss on her forehead. “Tomorrow night,” he promised. “Tonight, all you need to do is slip out of these pants and get to bed.”