“Fine. I will have Quaid strike that part of the contract, but you have to get something out of this.”

“I will. I want to know if we can work, too.” She’d thought about it on the long drive from Guidry’s. If she was going to do this, she needed to be honest with him, too. “I think you’re the reason I haven’t been serious about anyone in years. I’ve dated but it never went anywhere, and I think it’s because I’ve always wondered what could have happened between us. So I’m going to ask you flat out. I wasn’t brave enough to do it back then. Why did you turn me down?”

“Because I knew I had to go to Chicago to work for at least two years. I wasn’t in a good place for a relationship, and you deserved a relationship. We were young, and I didn’t know how your family would handle it if things didn’t work out between us. Your family has always been important to me.”

She could understand that. “So it wasn’t that you weren’t attracted to me.”

His jaw tightened. “I was attracted to you then. I’m very much attracted to you now. I need this marriage, but you should understand, I want it, too. I don’t want to wait anymore. I worry if I do, I’m going to wake up and be out of time.”

“I worry about that, too. But we can’t simply say we’re married and start trying to have babies.”

“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll practice for a while.”

“Rene, I think we should concentrate on ensuring that you remain the CEO and then we can talk about how to move forward. We should date.”

“You want me to date my wife?”

“I’ll only be your wife legally. I want to make it clear that I’m not jumping into bed with you. We’ll put on a show for your family and agree to also take this time to get to know each other again. And you have to be all right with me telling my family what’s going on.”

“Agreed, and some of my friends will understand the nature of our marriage. Other than them and the people you’re close to, I think we should keep up the ruse.”

He was definitely being naïve. There was no way to keep those secrets in a small town. “All of Papillon is going to know. There are already rumors that you’re getting married to keep your job.”

Rene sat down and sighed. “Then this might not work at all.”