Not the Girl You Marry

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “I got them some coverage—viral coverage—for their reopening, and the sous chef owes me.” He shrugged, but it was faux modesty. He was cocky about his influence, and—God save her—she kind of loved it.

  “But you aren’t trying to seduce me?”

  He shook his head. “I’m trying to show you that I’m taking this seriously.”

  “You don’t even know me.” The fact that men who had known her for years couldn’t take her seriously as a long-term romantic prospect rode her hard and blew her doubts up to giant-sized.

  “I know you well enough to know that I like you more than a cheap seduction.”

  “What would you do if this was a cheap seduction?”

  “You really want to know?”

  She bit her lip. “Yes.”

  This whole dating thing was so strange, because she needed it to lead to more than sex with Jack. But sex was heavy in the air between them and would explode. She shouldn’t be goading him into telling her how he would seduce her, because this thing between them couldn’t go there right now. It was as though she was lactose intolerant and just popping into an ice cream shop. If only she didn’t have to convince him that she was girlfriend material for the sake of her career, she’d be able to indulge.

  But she wanted to hear about Jack on a mission for a one-night stand. Something she desperately wanted in that moment, but couldn’t have. It wouldn’t hurt to hear about it.

  “I wouldn’t bring you someplace this quiet.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’d bring you someplace loud so that we’d have to sit really close together.”

  She wiped the side of her mouth, checking for phantom drool. “Using the pheromones, eh?”

  “Nah. I don’t believe in that shit.” Of course he didn’t. He would only believe in the power of his own magnetism. Cocky. Sexy. He crossed his arms and leaned back. “I would want to be close enough so that I could whisper in your ear.” She could almost feel his breath against the skin behind her ear, and it made her shiver. He rubbed his chin and her gaze followed; she wanted to trail over the stubbled surface with her tongue. And she hadn’t even had a single wine pairing yet. She was so, so screwed.

  “I’d have to rest my hand on your thigh so I could hear what you were saying.” She could actually feel his thigh under her palm as she said it. “What would you say?” she asked.

  “I’d tell you how much I wanted your hand six inches higher, and how much I wanted to kiss you.”

  “But you wouldn’t kiss me?” She tried to keep her tone light even though her skin was hot and she felt suddenly breathless.

  “Not in the loud restaurant.”

  “Not into PDA?”

  “With you? Yeah.” He paused. “But I remember the first time we kissed. I need a lot longer. I need more.” Inside, she was screaming for the scenario that he’d just described. She wanted to have his hands on her more than she wanted to eat the most exquisite food on the planet—and that was saying something considering that food was extremely important to her. “It would be a short dinner.”

  “Not three hours and eighteen courses?” she asked.

  “The only thing I’d need eighteen courses of would be you, Duchess,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

  “But not tonight?” She couldn’t quite contain her disappointment, knew he could hear it in her voice.

  “We’ve got time.” Not enough time. The way she’d reacted to his words, the way he’d kissed her the first time, had her so messed up. Two weeks was simultaneously too much time and not enough.

  “So, tell me about your family.” Both a change of pace and the question she’d been dreading since they’d met. Sometime between an initial conversation on an app and the second date, the Where are you from? or Tell me about your family conversation happened. She’d never felt the need to lead with her ethnicity in the romantic arena because she didn’t consider that the most important thing about herself. More important things: her love of French bulldog puppies, her loyalty and long-lasting friendships, her competence at her job, and the fact that no one got to fuck with her heart anymore. Been there. Done that.

  But guys always wanted to know. Needed to know. Couldn’t help but ask. And even though Jack was proving himself to be different in a myriad of ways, it wasn’t like she could blame him for his curiosity. Still, she gave her first answer in the well-trod series of answers. “The usual. Divorced parents. My mom really raised me on her own. My grandpa was around a lot, too.”

  She smiled when she thought about her grandfather. He used to tease her that she’d gotten her good looks from him, along with his great hair. He’d been pretty good-looking, but they didn’t really look alike. He’d only said those things because it made her feel good—like she belonged.

  She sobered when Jack said, “Me, too,” shocking the shit out of her. “Just switch it around.”

  Usually the next question quickly followed, and it was, But, like, tell me where you’re from. She hadn’t expected him to be actually asking about the family structure she grew up in.

  “Oh, really?” She was going to give him a little more rope to hang himself; he could veer into the bad place yet.

  “Yeah, you know, fifty percent of marriages and all.” He motioned to the edible menu.

  “So, you’re a messed-up kid from divorce, like me?” She had not expected this conversation to lead to their finding common ground, but she was glad that it had.

  “I mean, if messed-up is what got me here with you, then I guess we are.” Dear Lord, he was charming. If his father was even half as charming, that was probably what had ended his parents’ marriage. “You have any brothers or sisters?” he asked.

  She decided to ignore his strangely sincere, flattering comment, and just answer his question. “No. Plenty of cousins, though—all girls but one.”

  “Are they all as—sharp-tongued as you?” He said it with a smile, so she didn’t take offense.

  “Not all of us. They’re nice girls.”

  He grinned at her, and she melted. “Present company excluded.”

  “Hey, I’ve been extraordinarily nice to you. I’m here, and you’re not even planning on seducing me.”

  “I see what kind of guy you think I am.” Then that jerk-off had the audacity to wink at her. As though it wouldn’t make her commitment not to go boots up for him vanish completely.

  “You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever been out with,” she said, with a sigh she hoped didn’t sound too dreamy. His charm had weakened her resolve not to get in too deep with him emotionally, either. She couldn’t help but say what she was thinking around him.

  “How so? I’m just a regular guy.” He shrugged.

  “You asked me about my family, and you actually wanted to know how I grew up.”

  His brow furrowed. “Yeah?”

  “Most of the time guys ask about my race.”

  More furrowing followed that statement. “That seems rude.”

  It had always seemed that way to her. As though a guy needed to know her race in order to know which bucket to stick her in, which racist misogynistic stereotypes he could use against her. Noah had done it, and she’d expected it from Jack.

  “My mom is white, and my dad was black.” She looked down at her glass when she said it, not able to help but worry that it would change what Jack thought about her. “I’m biracial.”

  “Cool.” She looked up to find Jack smiling at her. It was seriously just a piece of information about her that he thought was interesting.

  He was actually perfect, and she almost wished she wasn’t just using him to get a promotion.

  She could have slipped into maudlin worries about how she would feel once this was over, but their first course arrived—a “salad” made of five different kinds of jellied vegetables arranged in a row across a rectangular plate. The
y looked like something that could have come out of some nightmare of a midcentury cookbook, and she looked at them skeptically for a moment.

  Then she looked up, wanting to see Jack’s reaction. She’d figured him for a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, not necessarily up for culinary adventures. But he looked at her with mischief written across his face as he picked up a piece of the dish with a spork-like utensil and took a bite—and it made her think of him taking a bite out of her.

  She followed suit with the green jelly square, and the flavor of an honest-to-God Caesar salad exploded in her mouth. Her eyes widened, and her gaze caught Jack’s.

  A total surprise. Hannah didn’t normally like surprises, but both this meal and Jack promised to be full of them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS THEY WALKED ALONG the quiet West Loop street after dinner, Jack wanted to put his arm around Hannah despite the fact that this was a first date and a strange one at that. Even though there had been some awkward moments while they were eating—normal getting-to-know-each-other stuff—that didn’t dim the connection between them.

  And mostly, they’d been distracted by the food experience. It was more than just good; it was surprising and transcendent. Almost like experiencing a moving piece of art for the very first time. Each dish looked like one thing but tasted and smelled like another—everything from the jellied veggies that had started the meal to the lobster thermidor that had the protein wrapped in a bubble of sauce.

  There was no one he’d rather have shared it with than Hannah. She compelled him more than any other woman he’d ever met, and he would likely die from his attraction to her before he’d finished writing this article. Because there was one thing for certain: he couldn’t sleep with her while he was lying to her. He hadn’t planned to, going in—he’d wanted to make sure she liked him enough to hang on for two weeks while he put her through the wringer, but he didn’t want to get so intimate with her that he’d break her heart when he revealed the truth.

  Before tonight, he’d thought he could walk that balance, but now he wasn’t so sure. Every moment he spent with her made him like her more, made it harder for him to justify lying to her for a stupid article—even a stupid article that could totally change the trajectory of his career.

  But he always did this in relationships. He found a girl he was attracted to, and then he gave her everything she asked for to make her happy. Projected his own feelings onto her. And she always left him anyway.

  Hannah would be no different. It didn’t matter that she turned his crank like no other woman before her. It didn’t matter that the look on her face as the ravioli brittle cracked between her straight white teeth had made his cock stand up like Willis Tower. Didn’t matter that her sucking on an edible sugar balloon had nearly made him need to go to the restroom and relieve some of the pressure in his groin.

  She might turn him back into a fourteen-year-old boy, but he wouldn’t forget the hard lessons he’d learned from every other woman he’d let in. Being in her presence might be a delight now, but her absence would surely hurt more than anything he let grow between them.

  And he’d almost convinced himself that it was the truth when they got to the entrance of his building. That should have been the moment that he pivoted toward the objective of this exercise. He’d fully planned on kissing her cheek and calling her a car.

  But then she turned those pretty hazel eyes up at him, and he let himself glance at her mouth. He had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her. Everything inside him wanted to grab her by the shoulders and haul her into his body for a kiss. The vulnerability seeping out of her with every breath mixed in with his desire for her as the moment stretched long, like the cheese inside the squash blossom they’d been served an hour and a half ago had stretched as she’d taken a bite.

  Her tongue darted out as she licked her bottom lip, and that put the final nail in his coffin. Just by existing, she tested his willpower and shorted out the motherboard of his better angels. “Want to come up?”

  She smirked. “I thought you weren’t trying to seduce me.”

  “I’m not.” He looked down, feeling his skin get hot. “I just want to spend a little more time with you.”

  That was the truth. Not the one that he’d meant to come out. It would have been a good way to go about losing her to be inconsistent with what he said. He’d always found that women responded well to his general sense of personal integrity. Apparently, it was rare.

  As a practice, he never said he would do something and then did the opposite. He never said he was looking for a relationship if he was really just trying to screw around. And—maybe it was just his nature—but he was never looking to just screw around.

  The one-night stand had never been his thing. In fact, the whole story that he’d told Hannah about what he would do if he were trying to seduce her into a cheap fling was bullshit. Not the part about how he would try to seduce her, but the cheap fling part.

  She was worth so much more than that. So much more than this.

  That was why he hated himself a little when she stepped into his body and said, “Yes, I’d love to come up.”

  That was why he hated himself even more when he smiled and wove his fingers with hers before opening the door for her.

  * * *

  —

  HANNAH WAS GOOD AT her job because she had a great memory. Where most people needed lists and spreadsheets to keep track of the million-item to-do list, she needed three Post-its and her own mind. The only time she displayed forgetfulness was when she was really into a guy.

  If a guy warned her, as guys so often did, that he wasn’t “ready for a relationship” or wasn’t “looking for anything serious” on a first date, she could forget it by the third. She wouldn’t remember until the only thing left of the relationship was an STD test and regret.

  She could already feel her memory failing her with Jack.

  As soon as she’d tasted the cellophane-clear apple pie, she’d known that her promise to Sasha—the one about not sleeping with Jack tonight—was done for. And it wasn’t that she could be bought with an expensive meal, either. It was the way he’d looked at her as she’d been enjoying it, as though her pleasure in eating the food was just as important as his.

  When he’d stared at her as she’d licked the last of the translucent pastry off the custom-designed pie plate, she’d felt it all the way from her toes to her scalp. Even as he ushered her through the lobby of his building toward the elevator, there was searing heat where his palm touched hers and an excitement flowing through her veins that she hadn’t felt for a very long time—maybe ever.

  She definitely hadn’t felt like this with Noah. Even though their breakup had hurt so badly that she felt it through her entire body, had cried almost every day for six months thereafter, she hadn’t felt the same kind of need for him as she did for Jack.

  With Noah, they’d kind of floated at the edges of the same social circle for a few months, edging toward each other during group outings until the group didn’t have to be there. And they’d definitely had sex on their first official date. Of course, in his Noah way, he’d made her feel like she’d made a bad decision by sleeping with him right away.

  They’d had quite a bit of wine at dinner, and he’d kept saying, “You started this.”

  She’d forgotten all about it until much later, when Noah’d said he couldn’t see a future with her. Even though they’d mutually floated together, he’d found her too overtly sexual and not the kind of woman he could truly depend on to be a good wife and mother. And not black enough to be half of the power couple he desperately wanted to be a part of.

  Just remembering those cutting words made her hesitate and her steps falter.

  Jack stopped beside her and looked down at her, his forehead creasing with concern that she wanted to drink up like springwater. “What’s wrong?”


  She couldn’t tell him the truth—that she was afraid that she’d climb on top of him at the first opportunity and scare him off with her extreme horniness. So she settled for a partial version of the real story.

  “I know that if we have sex tonight, you’re never going to call me again because you’ll think I’m just after you for the D. And I’d really like it if you’d call me again.”

  Her words were louder than she’d intended them to be, and he looked around before cupping her jaw with both hands and pulling her close, until their foreheads touched. “I never promise something and don’t deliver.” His deep voice resonated inside her, and that was before he took the swoon factor and dialed it up to about eleven. “And I promise that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen when we get up to my place, I’m going to call you.”

  Even though she had no reason to believe him and she half expected a camera crew to pop out and tell her that this was all some sort of elaborate prank designed to make her look foolish on some obscure streaming channel aimed at incels wanting to humiliate feminists, she believed him.

  “Let’s go upstairs, then.” His smile made her shine from the inside out as he led her the rest of the way to the elevator. Her guard was pretty far down at this point, so after she took in the luxe finishes in the common areas of the building, she asked, “How do you afford this place on a reporter’s salary?”

  When he grimaced, she tried to cover. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. That was so nosy.”

  The door dinged, and he squeezed her hand. “I’d have been a little surprised if you hadn’t asked, honestly.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t afford this on my own,” he said. “My dad owns the contracting company that built the place, and he got a unit in the deal closing because the development company didn’t have enough cash to pay him.”

  For some reason, she felt relieved to hear that he didn’t come from crazy-big money. “And dinner tonight?”

  He grimaced again before looking down and reaching into his pocket, presumably for his keys. “The sous chef really did owe me a favor.”