My Fake Husband by Black, L. (lightest ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I only reread that note I’d saved from him a couple times before putting it in my jewelry box where I kept all my precious things. I had a lot more precious things than I had jewels to take up room in it, after all. I had ticket stubs from when Michelle, Nicole and I had gone to see Justin Timberlake in Atlanta a couple of years ago. I also had a business card from the florist shop in Savannah where I’d seen such gorgeous, naturalistic arrangements incorporating tall native grasses for texture that it inspired me, and I saved the card to remind me to think outside the box and be creative. I had the earrings my parents gave me, tiny pearls, when I graduated high school, and the clipping from the newspaper that my sister had saved which was really a wedding announcement but listed my shop as the floral designer. A ring from a stall at a flea market, turquoise and silver, that an ex-boyfriend had bought me a long time ago. And the note from Damon, my most precious of all my sentimental keepsakes.

At work, I made lists, entered receipts in the spreadsheet and totaled up expenses. I checked my budget, made adjustments to my incoming orders accordingly, and double-checked everything to be sure. I was making money. Good money. Pay-back-the-fake-husband money as well as pay-back-the-bank money. My tenant’s rent covered the mortgage at my house, and my only living expenses were the portion of the utilities I made Damon accept for letting me live with him. So it was all being saved for payments. That was my big plan now. To pay ahead on the business loan, and to give Damon a divorce present, a lump sum installment on the down payment he’d insisted on making to help out with buying the building. If everything went to plan, I’d definitely be able to make a dent in what I owed him, and encourage him to use part of it to take a trip. I knew he hadn’t taken a real vacation since he was a kid and went with his family. He’d had a trip to Mexico planned with some buddies, but that had been right around the time Brody’s first wife had died and he’d skipped the vacation to be there for his best friend. Because that’s the kind of guy Damon was. The kind I couldn’t help but fall for.

I turned on my hotplate and seared the stems of the flowers I was going to work with. I wanted to get a couple of Monday’s orders ready, and I wasn’t going to risk them wilting in the cooler over Sunday. Searing the tips in a skillet made them last longer, so I could depend on their freshness. I laid out what I needed, recorded what stock I was using on an inventory sheet for final pricing, and got to work trimming and sorting, arranging and binding until the bouquet was complete. The anemones and clematis were magenta and purple, striking, vivid colors that seemed to warm up the backroom just by being there. I made the arrangement sensuous, lush, to let the broad, drooping petals show their sexy, velvety potential. I snapped a picture and posted it to my shop’s Insta news feed because I was so proud of it. Soon, I had a notification that there was a comment—four flame emojis from Damon.

Very funny, fireman, I replied in the comments and then put my phone away. I felt exposed somehow, that he’d seen the bouquet that I had made of bright, pulsing colors in an arrangement I found undeniably sexy. Like he’d walked in on me in the shower or something. But I’d posted the picture knowing people would see it, so that was that.

If it made me breathe harder to think of Damon seeing those flowers, to wonder if he saw anything sensuous about them, I had to put that aside. There wasn’t going to be some fantasy moment. A fantasy where he walked in my shop and locked the door and flipped the sign to Closed. Where he crossed the room to me in four long strides and put his hands on my worktable, palms down, and demanded to know if I had been thinking of him when I made that bouquet, when I took that picture. I’d lick my lips and nod. Of course I thought of him. Everything made me think of him. Then he’d come around the table, slip his hand into my hair and bring my lips to his for a fiery kiss. “What if I told you that fire is no joke to a fireman, it’s dangerous. It consumes. The way wanting you consumes me. There’s nothing left in me but this soul-deep burn for you—”

I shook my head at myself. Damon didn’t talk like that or act like that. If he said something burned deeply, he meant he needed to go to the ER because he was injured. But no way in hell did he burn for me, no way did he think about locking up my shop and taking me right there on the table, scattering stems and blossoms as we rocked together, my legs twined around him, his thrusts searing my body as I gave in to shudders of pleasure. Searing—damn, I needed to unplug my hot plate. I rolled my eyes. This was my real life, don’t forget to unplug the hotplate or you’ll burn the place down, Trixie.

I finished up my work, waited on a couple customers and took a lot of online orders. I booked the delivery guy for the entire next week because I had that much business coming in. Then I called Michelle.

“Don’t you fucking dare back out on drinks for tonight,” she said when she answered the phone.

“Hello to you, too,” I said wryly.

“You’re cancelling.”

“No way!” I said. “I can’t wait to get you girls drunk and