The Marriage Contract, Natasha Black [thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

I know Jordan and Matt are brothers, but you will be safe with me no matter what, okay?”

“Got it,” I said. “But it won’t be necessary. I think I found my one, Hannah,” I said. As the words came out of my mouth, they felt awfully true. I had to squeeze that thought out of my brain. This was an arrangement.

Nothing more.

17

Matt

Dinner at Mom’s went extremely well. By the time I piled Chloe into the car, she had made fast friends with Mom and my brothers’ wives and had enough wine in her that the ride home was going to be quiet and calm. Sure enough, she was asleep before I even got us out of Astoria, and I turned the radio low so I didn’t disturb her. At the last stop before the highway, I reached behind me and grabbed the blanket I always kept in the car and put it over her. She smiled in her sleep and curled up in the seat.

When I got us back to Portland, I pulled into my apartment and helped her inside. Rather than take her back to Hannah and Jordan’s late and with her in her current sleepy-tipsy state, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and make sure she got some rest. Bringing her inside, I laid her down in the bed in the guest room and tucked her in. Then, a smile on my face, I went to bed and passed out, falling asleep in minutes and having a deep, restful, and dreamless sleep.

Technically I woke up in the morning, but just barely. The alarm was going off at noon, and I hit the snooze button in my grogginess. I had been awake for a few minutes but wasn’t fully there yet. A note was left on my bed, and my eyes rolled over it a few times as I tried to wake up.

Thanks for keeping me safe. Might as well move today. Meet me at Jordan and Hannah’s and we can start. – Chloe

Placing the sticky note on the nightstand, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Lots of things were about to change, and I didn’t know for sure how long. It was possible she would only be here for a few weeks, maybe a month or two before we figured out we were incompatible. Or, perhaps, we would be living together for years, happily continuing a sham marriage to keep our respective families quiet until one of us found someone they liked.

It would have to be her. I knew that already. I liked Chloe more than I should, and the idea that I would be spending as much time with her as I was planning and that I would even be able to look at another woman was a thought that just didn’t settle correctly. She was too beautiful, too funny, too perfect.

Suddenly, I realized that meant she was going to be in my apartment for the foreseeable future, and that it began when I helped her get her things over. With a dose of excitement from the idea of more time with Chloe, I made my way out of the bed, started the coffee maker, and grabbed a quick shower.

A still-damp towel hung from the shower curtain rod, and I realized she must have gotten up early enough to get a shower herself before leaving. My body reacted to the thought of her standing where I stood, the hot water running over her naked body, and I had to stop myself. I didn’t want to take any longer before I had her there, in the flesh.

Out of the shower, I got dressed and downed the cup of coffee in record time before throwing on my shoes and heading over to Hannah and Jordan’s. Apparently, Chloe didn’t have a whole lot to move, and when I got there, her car was full of stuff, as was Jordan’s truck, and there were only a handful of things left. I stuffed them into the car and took my load over. When I got there, an idea flashed through my head, and I pulled out my phone.

The door opened a half-hour later, and Jordan came in carrying a few boxes first. Chloe was right behind him with Hannah behind her. They all stopped in the hallway, looking into the dining area just off the kitchen.

“Ahh, well, that explains where you went,” Jordan said.

“You got me flowers?” Chloe asked, dropping her bags and coming over to the table.

“Purple pansies, your favorite,” I said. She fell into my arms, and we kissed. I held myself there in that moment a bit longer than I intended, and when we broke the embrace, our eyes lingered on one another.

I remembered the flowers from our talk in the car on the way to Mom’s. She’d mentioned they were her favorite flower when she saw them used as ground cover at a house we passed by. Thankfully, there was a flower shop just a block from the apartment, and on-call delivery folks were pretty open at stopping there.

“You got Chinese food, too?” she asked, looking in the cardboard box on the table. “You got me egg foo young!”

Another notch in the memory bank for me.

“I got enough for everybody,” I said. “Once we have everything in, we can stop and have dinner before you guys head into work.”

“Oh, that’s right, I gave both of you tonight off, too,” Jordan said, coming back from dropping a couple of boxes off in the guest bedroom.

“Yup,” I said. “You didn’t put that together yesterday when I said she was moving in?”

“Never even crossed my mind,” he said, walking away and back out the door.

An hour or so later, everything was in, and I was microwaving the food to get it warm again. Covering the table with the spread of food and handing everyone plates, we went at it buffet-style. After filling our plates and then stomachs with food, Jordan looked at his phone