Page 10 of Hard Deal
“You wish.” She grinned. “Seriously though, I needed to escape for a minute. I swear, if my mother drags me over to one more ‘suitor’—”
“Suitor?”
“Yeah.” Karolina snorted. “She actually said that. Pretty sure she thinks we’re living in a Jane Austen novel.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see what the big rush is.”
“Well, I’ll be thirty next year, Caleb,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Apparently that means my uterus is about to shrivel up and die. I told her I didn’t need to get married in order to have a baby.”
Caleb stifled a laugh. “How did that go down?”
“Uh, not well.” She bobbed her head. “Not well at all. I don’t suppose you want to marry me?”
He raised a brow and Karolina burst into a laugh a second later. “Can you not even keep a straight face through your phony marriage proposal?”
“Sorry.” She pressed a hand to her stomach and shook her head. “The thought of it... We’d drive each other crazy.”
“We certainly would.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Besides, one sham marriage is enough for my family.”
Karolina made a tutting sound. “Stop that. Your parents are not in a sham marriage.”
“Okay, a one-sided marriage.”
“Not even that.” She placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. “Look, I know what they have isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t make it fake. Jase was telling me things have been tense between you and Gerald. You’re projecting. I bet he’s different when it’s the two of them.”
He made a noncommittal noise. “You sound like Jase.”
“That’s because he’s the smart one,” she said with a wink. She was winding him up now, the little minx.
“I’m not going to bite.”
“Damn, you’re getting too good for me.” She grinned. “I used to be able to tug on your strings a lot easier than that.”
“Not anymore, I’m afraid.” He slung an arm around her shoulder. “I’m awake to your tricks.”
“I guess we should go, huh? God, these things are such a drag.” Grinning, she turned her face up to his and planted a kiss on his jaw below his mask. She looked at him as if waiting for something, then she pressed her lips together. “Nope, nothing. Not even a little zing.”
He chuckled and wiped at his face where there was no doubt an imprint of Karolina’s bright pink lipstick. “Some people are meant to be friends, Karo.”
She sighed. “It would be easier if that wasn’t the case. Then we could get married and everyone would leave us alone.”
“No way,” he said. “You deserve the real deal. Hearts and flowers and all that shit.”
“And all that shit, huh?” She rested her head against his shoulder. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t object to having the perfect person land in my lap so I could skip the whole dating thing.”
At that moment there was a loud thud outside the stables followed by a high-pitched squeak. What the hell? Was someone spying on them?
CHAPTER FIVE
“JUST FREAKING GREAT.” Imogen planted a hand on the ground and tried to stand. She could already tell there’d be a grapefruit-size bruise on her butt.
But bruises were the least of her problems. Her dress was stuck on a bush and her shaking hands couldn’t free it.
Everything had been going along smoothly, too. She’d found a window to peer through that was clear enough for her phone camera to get a decent shot of what was going on inside the stables. It was a trade-off—she couldn’t hear what either person was saying, but she had more places to hide than if she’d approached the entrance.
When Daniel had put his arm around the woman and she’d kissed him, Imogen had taken a perfect shot. But in trying to get the best angle, her sandal had slipped on a loose rock and she’d gone down like a sack of potatoes.
“Graceful as a baby freaking elephant,” she muttered.