Page 19 of The Game Plan

“Jax! Jax?”

I end the call and press the intercom buzzer on Sienna’s building, as instructed, only a half hour later than expected.

* * *

“You’re thirty-three minutes late,” Sienna says, opening her apartment door to me with a look of thunder on her face to match her tone.

“I stopped to pick up breakfast for you, honeybun.” I shove the flat white and brown paper bag her way. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh.” She scrutinizes the gifts, frown lines softening slightly, then silently steps away from the door. I watch her ass move in her yoga pants and practically drool over the sliver of waist exposed above them, where her body curves in before those amazing t— “Do not look at my ass, Jax Harris. I’m not wearing these clothes for you, I have a Pilates class in fifty-seven minutes.” She checks her sports watch. “Fifty-six now.”

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not fun, Sienna.”

She takes the lid from her coffee cup, considers the contents, then sniffs and sips. I smirk as she realizes I got her drink order right; this guy’s got game. She clears her throat and I know it pains her to say, “Thank you, this is actually very kind, for you.”

Shaking my head, I turn my cap backward, take off my jacket and toss it onto her sofa, before pulling out a stool from the tiny breakfast bar in her pokey kitchen-diner-lounge.

“I appreciate you think I’m a waste of space but outwardly, you need to at least pretend to like me if we’re going to make people believe there’s longevity in our marriage.”

She takes a plate – chipped – from a cabinet and sets out the selection of pastries I bought because I didn’t know what she’d prefer.

I take the opportunity to look around the rental. It’s small and since the window looks out to another building, kind of dingy. Nothing like the condos in the building she had been living in with her ex, which I can only imagine are all similar to Mitch and Lauren’s place.

Doing my best not to gawp, I watch her outrageously feminine curves move around me and take some papers from a glass coffee table – also chipped – in front of a two-seat sofa that looks like it would chafe a man. She might be crabby but Sienna looks out of place here. Can you be too sexy for an apartment?

“This is for you,” she says, placing a document in front of me that’s been stapled in one corner, over a cardboard triangle – looks official.

“And this is?” I take the lid off my drink – I hate those tiny holes – and take a proper glug.

“A prenuptial agreement.” She tears a piece of croissant and puts it in her mouth. I have to look away from her when she wraps her lips around the end of her finger to suck it clean. “Don’t worry, I want nothing from you and that document says as much. I’m entitled to nothing, no matter if we’re married for a fortnight or the full three months of my visa.”

Ouch. That stings, unexpectedly. “Brutal,” I tell her.

“Smart,” she retorts. “You don’t want a Vegas fling to result in me rinsing you of your hockey fortune now, do you, stud?”

I probably should have thought about that. “I guess not.”

Did we have a fling? Did I go down on her in the chapel loos or are those leggings sending my imagination into overactive mode? Why the hell can’t I remember this stuff?

“Plus, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. The façade to spare both our blushes is payment enough to each other.”

I raise an eyebrow now, thinking, I’ve seen the skin of her neck pinken, her cheeks glow with impending orgasm and I didn’t mind it one bit. Or am I making this up?

“Okay.” She picks up the remainder of the croissant – so that’s her favorite. “I maybe get slightly more out of this, since I get a visa and a chance to figure out my next life move, which relies on my professional reputation being intact, but this temporary arrangement is the best thing for your public image, too.”

I let her have it because if I disagree, I have to ask myself why I am doing this and I haven’t decided yet. Maybe when my memory of what happened in Vegas comes back to me, I’ll know. Right now, there’s still too big of a tequila void.

“Now.” She plants another piece of paper in front of me. “The rules.”

“The rules?”

“Of our… arrangement.”

When I don’t immediately look at the list in front of me, she taps her painted nail – black with one gold gem on it – on the page. Black… like her eyes when she looks at me. She loathes me, or for sure being my wife.

The Rules of Marriage: Jax Harris and Sienna Jamieson

No kissing on the lips.