Read Online Married By Mistake by Abby Gaines - Free Book Online Page A

planned to fake a marriage to someone, he would have chosen someone tougher than Casey. Someone who could plow past other people’s feelings in pursuit of her goal.
    Not a woman who bought into the sob story of a hotel maid she’d never met before and then didn’t hesitate to drag him into it, as well.
    He wouldn’t let her distract him from what he wanted to achieve in their month together, he told himself as he folded his clothes and packed his bag in preparation for their return to real life. He approached Casey, who had been packed and ready to go for ten minutes—he liked a woman who didn’t keep him waiting—and said, “We need to set some ground rules.”
    “Hmm?” She looked up from her cross-stitching.
    She’d taken a cross-stitch on her honeymoon. Adam wasn’t sure if he admired her practicality or pitied her. Had she been sleeping with Joe so long that she wasn’t anticipating any excitement?
    He scowled at the thought of the intimacy she might have shared with her fiancé. “Ground rules,” he said. “If we’re living together for a month, we need some rules.”
    “You mean who gets to go first in the bathroom?” She smiled sunnily. “You go first. I don’t have to get to work in the—”
    “I have more than one bathroom,” he interrupted, still trying to erase the idea of Casey in bed with that jerk. “I want to make sure we’re in agreement about what’s involved in this pretense. And what’s not involved.”
    As if they didn’t both know what was not involved. Casey kept her face blank, trying to appear undisturbed by what had hung heavy in the air between them all weekend. For goodness sake, they were virtually imprisoned in a honeymoon suite, with congratulatory cards and letters from complete strangers being delivered every half hour. Cards and letters addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael.
    “For example,” Adam said, “we’re both free to spend our time as we wish. We don’t owe each other any company.”
    “Sure,” she agreed. “The last thing we’ll want is to spend time together after we’ve been cooped up here so long.” If that was true, how come she’d felt more alive this weekend than she had in years?
    “But to convince our families our marriage is genuine, at times we’ll have to exchange caresses and endearments.” He sounded as if he was proposing some extreme form of torture.
    “We seem to do okay on the caresses,” she said, trying to be more positive than he was.
    His brows drew together. “I like you, Casey, and I think we’ll get along fine. But as soon as the annulment comes through, it’s over. I wouldn’t want you to think there’s any chance of a permanent relationship between us.”
    Good grief, the guy had an ego. Just because she’d responded to his kisses like a heat-seeking missile locking on its target... Kisses that had sizzled in a way she’d never experienced with Joe...
    “Ouch.” She’d pierced her thumb with her needle. She sucked at the tiny hole, saw his eyes following her movement. She put down her needlework. “Adam,” she said, “you’re a good kisser, I’ll grant you. But from what I’ve seen, you’re single-minded about your work, you’re resistant to change and you’re emotionally unavailable. So don’t you go getting any ideas, either.” That was telling him.
    “If emotionally unavailable means I don’t want to adore anyone,” he said, “you’re damn right.”
    She wished she’d never mentioned “adoring” to him. It made her sound like a loser. She picked up her cross-stitching, squinted at the green thread she needed to knot. “I don’t know why we’re even talking about this,” she said. “Sure, we’ll be living in the same house for a month, but it’s no big deal. You won’t even know I’m there.”
    Adam watched her as she made some complicated maneuver with her needle. Watched his wife. Through the glass tabletop he observed that her red skirt had ridden up to bare more thigh