Page 27 of Yours, Forever

"I'm happy to let everyone assume I'm sexing you up every day. They'd be right, if we'd married out of love."

The realization that my heartbeat was out of normal range clicked like a spring-loaded trigger mechanism; an orange flag, warning me that talking about sex with Max should stay in neutral territory.

I searched for a way to make fun of it, but my phone dinged with an upcoming text message. I flipped the chicken and reached for my phone, silently thankful I had an excuse to change topics.

Except that the text I read was not fun at all.

"What happened?" Max asked.

Again, he could see me all too well. I didn't have a chance to dwell on it, as my general worried mood had a sudden reason to get worse.

I lifted my eyes to him. "How seriously do we have to worry about what your father might do?"

He stood, halfway moving into action before he realized there wasn't much to do, at least not without more information.

He shook his head. "What's going on?"

"I got a text from Daniel. Someone has been calling around town. He thinks it has to do with your dad."

The next day, Max spent most of the morning out; he had meetings with a couple of local businesses, and he wanted to stop by the town hall to chat with Daniel. The goal was to gather as much information as possible about the calls they'd been getting. Around lunch time, Max and Daniel appeared by the café, casually chatting on the sidewalk.

My eyes seemed drawn to Max the most, for some reason. He had gotten an umbrella from somewhere and he leaned on it, his back to me, and one foot crossed over the other. His perfectly cut suit highlighted his wide shoulders and hung from him in the most delicious way. The overall look of someone straight out of a fancy magazine ad insert: elegant and inexplicably attractive. It made me want to see what the effect would be like, if he weren't wearing his jacket, and his vest accentuated the shape of him. It didn't matter that the look clashed against the casual background. The eye porn he served... yum.

The fact that our marriage was a sham didn't mean I couldn’t enjoy the view. All I needed to do was avoid developingfeelings for him before he went back to his real life. Should be manageable.

Just in case, I took a break from the general admiration for his looks, and took care of a few dirty dishes. It meant having my back to them. Max's deep laugh reached my ears, before he came into the café alone.

"Honeyplum!" Max exclaimed. I sighed. At least, it helped that he called me annoying names. Couldn’t take him too seriously. "Daniel invited us for dinner."

"Max. Don't call me that." I dried my hands and frowned in his direction. "Dinner?"

The way he looked at me told me everything I needed to know. It had to do with the calls the town had received.

I only had time to nod when my phone rang, disrupting our silent conversation.

My mother's number lit up the screen. My stomach dropped.

"Uhm..." I glanced at Max. "I need a sec."

"Okay..."

I escaped to the backroom. "Hello?"

"Hi, honey."

I rolled my eyes at the word; I'd never liked it and she never stopped. The fact that Max called medarlingmost of the time didn't sound so bad anymore.

"Hi, Mom. What's up?"

"Nothing much, just catching up."

I frowned. "Really?"

We didn't catch up often. In fact, I hadn’t heard from her in a few months. For her to call, she wanted something. I frowned and waited for signs.

"Oh, you know…" Her casual tone was a bit forced. "Anything new in your life… Or anyone new?"

Crap. "Mamá..."