Page 42 of Top Shelf

A coldness moves through his eyes. “Who would imply that?”

“A greatest-hits list of idiots.”

“They are all wrong.” I watch his throat bob, and he looks from the folder on the table back to me. “The marriage changes legal status, Heidi. Not who you are.”

Well, that is a very fucking sexy thing to say.

I sit back down and glare at the folder filled with absurdity sitting between us. With a sigh, I pull it toward me, flip open the cover, and scan the first page, making a few notes as I go.

The bastard has bullet points.

“This is very organized.”

“Thank you.”

“That was not praise.”

“Hm. I like praise.”

I swallow and keep my eyes on the page.

Heidi. This man is the epitome of literal. He doesn’t mean praise in the way you think he does. Pull yourself together.

Unfortunately, my mouth has never once listened to my brain before speaking.

“Do you?” I ask, glancing up. “Like being told you’re a very good boy?”

His gaze settles on me, and my stomach drops because nothing about him squirms at my teasing like I thought it would.

“Only when it is earned.” His gaze drops to the red marks in the margin. “You made good notes too, Heidi. Very good.”

My pulse trips hard enough to make the red pen twitch in my fingers, and I look back down at the contract. “That was not an invitation to praise me, Karlsson.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Hm. Shame.”

With a slow blink, I refocus, and he waits while I read. The preliminary terms are laid out clearly. A marriage before Sweden’s Midsummer, and a duration through the legal transfer of Solvik plus a minimum public period until the end of September. A temporarily shared residence which will be rented separately to either of our apartments. A possible trip to Sweden, and studio funding structured to protect my ownership and operational control.

Both parties retain independent counsel, there is no expectation of physical intimacy, and either party may withdraw before signing final legal documents.

I look up. “You wrote ‘no expectation of physical intimacy.’”

“Yes.”

“That’s very unsexy phrasing.”

“It is legal phrasing. It cannot just say ‘we will not fuck’, no?”

My eyes snap up, and Viktor looks back at me as though he didn’t just drop a fuck into my tiny office.

“Wow,” I chuckle. “Did the Swedish profanity department just clock in?”

His brows pull faintly. “You object to the word?”

“No, but I object to how calm you were when you said it.”