She sagged against a wall alongside framed portraits of generations of baby Landises. “Don’t worry.” She gasped through a final laugh. “There’s not a chance in hell I’ll fall in love with you, but thanks for helping to lighten the mood for me.”
What he’d meant as sarcastically funny suddenly didn’t seem quite so humorous. “You’re quite a buster there.”
“I feel certain your, uh, man parts and ego will survive any potential busting.”
“You seem mighty confident,” he pressed, not even sure why, since she appeared so damned confident in her ability to keep her distance. “We’ve barely met. What have I done to make you dislike me so much? Not to sound egotistical, but I happen to have a lot of money. I’ve been told I have a pretty decent sense of humor, and I haven’t noticed my face scaring off small children or animals.”
“Other than the money part, the same could be said of me,” she pointed out logically. “So since you already have plenty of money and don’t need more from a wife, should I worry about you falling in love with me?”
Damn. She was good.
He couldn’t stop a begrudging smile of respect at how she’d taken him down a notch. “Touché.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“It’s nothing personal. You’re a beautiful, smart woman.” A hot, sharp woman, a distinction that was even more pulse throbbing.
“Of course. Just as it wasn’t personal when I laughed at you.”
“Point well taken. I’m years away from being ready to settle down.” He had his hands full launching his new life and career outside the military. “What about you?”
“I was married before.”
He knew that already, of course, but letting on would make it clear he was already having her investigated. “Nasty divorce, huh?”
Her face went devoid of emotion, completely. He’d seen the look before on shell-shocked soldiers, numbing themselves for fear even the smallest emotion would shatter them to bits.
“He died,” she said simply. “There’s no room in my heart to love anyone else, not when he still fills every corner.”
He exhaled hard. He knew that kind of love existed. He’d seen it with his parents, and again when his widowed mom remarried. He’d also seen how torn up his dad was over having to divide himself between career ambition and family. “Wow, that’s hefty stuff there. I’m really sorry. How did he die?”
And why did he need to know more about it?
She looked down, staying silent.
Damn it, he needed to know everything about her. He had a short time to make an important choice, a majorly life-altering choice. He was used to making snap decisions in war, but he did so with as much intel as possible at his disposal. This shouldn’t be any different. It wasn’t personal.
“Phoebe, if we’re going to get married, I should know. It will seem strange if someone thinks to ask and I don’t have the right answer. For Nina’s sake, we would need to make it look real.”
“He drowned.” A flash of undiluted grief bolted through her brown eyes like a lethal lightning strike. Then her face went blank again. She pushed away from the wall, away from him. “I should get back to Nina.”
She spun on her heel, giving Kyle her back. She couldn’t have been any clearer. Discussion over. Stand down. But he had his answer. That flash of grief in her eyes, followed by her abrupt shutdown left him with no doubts about where she stood on the subject of her ex-husband.
She was completely committed to another man.
That should have made the possibility of a paper marriage easier to contemplate, but damn, what a tangled mess. The door clicked closed behind her, and he reminded himself to take things one step at a time. First, he had to give a blood sample later today and wait for the paternity test results.
Although his instincts now shouted loud and clear that Phoebe Slater was telling the truth.
Four
“Marry me.”Kyle’s demand—not request—bounced around inside Phoebe’s head hot on the heels of the preliminary paternity results. Overwhelmed, she sagged in the front seat of his Mercedes, Nina asleep in the back after the exhausting day at the doctor’s.
Butter-soft leather cradled her in luxury but offered little comfort for the stress knotting her neck. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Now’s not the time to lose courage.” He turned on the engine and adjusted the climate control for the muggy fall afternoon, all efficiency with a calm she envied. “I’ve talked it over with Sebastian and you were right about this being the fastest, most efficient way to secure Nina’s future.”
She stared through the windshield at the busy hospital complex parking lot. Her eyes were magnetically drawn to mothers with their children.
Mothers and fathers, too. “How long?”
“We’ll get married on Monday—tomorrow.” His jaw flexed with the first signs of stress.
A closer look revealed the pale hint under his tan.
She fisted her hands to keep from touching him, comforting him. She understood well how overwhelming this could all be, becoming a parent out of the blue. “No, I mean, how long would we keep up this charade? Who will we tell?”
“My family already knows what’s going on. But beyond them, we would need to keep up appearances for Nina’s sake.”
“Appearances?” Holy crap, she’d meant fake marriage. Not pretend-to-be-real fake marriage.
“We’ll need to live together, at least for a while.” A slight grin eased the deep lines around his mouth. “But since I live at the Landis compound, we’ll be surrounded by family to protect you from your lecherous husband.”
She tucked her tongue in the side of her mouth to keep from laughing, but she couldn’t keep from smiling…until she thought about the next hurdle she should have considered before moving forward with this half-baked plan of hers. “What will your family think?”
More importantly, how would they react to her and Nina in their lives full-time? Her smile faded.
“You’ll be welcomed as a Landis. And my mother will adore you simply because you love her…uh…granddaughter.”
“That’s a relief, at least.” Nina would never be alone and abandoned again. “I wouldn’t want things to be awkward when I bring Nina to visit.”
“Visit?” He cocked a dark eyebrow and put the car in Reverse. “You’ll need to stay at the house for at least a couple of months. At that point we could maintain two residences and claim work conflicts.”
“Months?” She pressed a hand to her forehead.
He nodded curtly. “Long enough to get official custody worked out. Or until Bianca returns.” His fist tightened on the gearshift. “If we don’t hear from her, we can start divorce proceedings after a year.”
“And about Nina?”
“I’ll want visitation for me and for my family.”
“Of course.” She went weak with relief as he backed the car out of the parking spot. It must have been hard for him to concede full custody. Even though he hadn’t known his daughter long, Phoebe had been around the Landises enough to recognize they took the notion of family loyalty to a whole new level.
Thank heavens, he wasn’t going to fight her over custody. Tears burned behind her eyes and she blinked fast to hold them back, along with the urge to throw her arms around him in gratitude.
He was far too foreboding at the moment for a hug, his normal grin and lightheartedness nowhere in sight. Maybe he needed some reassurance, too. “I want to sign a prenup that makes it clear I have no claim to any Landis assets. Can your brother draw one up right away?”
“Except I will provide for Nina.”
“Whatever you think is fair. I’m just so relieved you’re not going to take her away.”
“It’s obvious from everything I’ve seen and learned about you that you’ve got her best interests at heart.” He put the car in first gear, focusing his attention in front, his jaw flexing again, faster. “I’m in no position to be a full-time father with the travel load that comes with my job.”
“Of course, that’s totally understandable.” Although she would have given up any job for Nina, had in fact made major concessions in her own work world. But she wasn’t going to argue with him.
She did, however, want to ask him how he felt about all of this. Wasn’t he frustrated over marrying a woman he barely knew? How did he feel about having a daughter, for crying out loud?
His resolute face shut her out as he steered onto the road. He was doing what needed to be done, fulfilling obligations. She should have been relieved over his emotional detachment.
Instead, she just felt hollow inside. “I need it to be indisputably clear I’m only interested in Nina’s well-being.”
“Okay, then. I’ll let Sebastian know so he can draw up the papers.”
So cold and businesslike. Nothing in the arrangement resembled her emotional engagement to Roger. He’d proposed at the beach, no ring, no money, no complicated legal dealings to wade through. Just simple declarations of how much they loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.
Yet, tomorrow she would be married to the man next to her. She’d gotten her way. Nina would be as safe as she could possibly arrange.
So why did a year suddenly sound like forever?
“By the power vested in me by the State of South Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The jowly justice of the peace’s proclamation resonated hollowly in Phoebe’s ears, as if she was watching some kind of drama, far removed from her place beside Kyle. He wore a uniform again, a less formal version this time, but still with a jacket and tie for their courthouse wedding.
Everything had felt surreal since they’d rushed through the paternity test over the weekend, verifying what she’d known in her heart for certain since laying eyes on Kyle Landis. He was Nina’s biological father.
Once Kyle had heard the paternity test results confirming she was his, he hadn’t hesitated. Things had taken off at warp speed from there as he arranged for a Monday-afternoon wedding and an appointment with a family court judge shortly thereafter. The building complex made for one-stop shopping. This military man sure knew how to take command and move mountains.
Her fingers clutched around the bouquet of mango calla lilies with yellow roses. One of his sentimental sisters-in-law had thrust it into her hands—Ashley, the pregnant one married to the oldest politician brother. The other wife, Marianna, jostled her son on her hip, while Ginger stood beside her general husband and proudly held her new granddaughter, Nina.
Phoebe was a part of this family now, even if in name only.
The justice of the peace closed his folder containing the vows, a South Carolina flag and American flag behind him. “You may kiss the bride.”
Phoebe looked up sharply at Kyle, any feeling of being a distant observer gone in a snap. Surely nobody expected them to go through with that part of the ceremony. Except the magistrate.