That’s why he’d ditched today’s usual takeout in the boardroom at Beckett Cosmetics with his cousins before their weekly company meeting. He’d told Dixon, the company CEO, and Griff, the former head of R&D, that he had to take a client out to lunch.

In reality, he was pacing the marble hall in front of the county clerk’s office at the Harbor City Town Hall and checking the time on his phone every third step, grinding his teeth as he wondered if she’d really show for the appointment to get their wedding license.

He’d texted directions to Chelle, including a link to the courthouse on Google Maps. He’d offered to send an Uber to pick her up, but she’d turned him down. He’d said he’d meet her at her place and they could go together. She’d told him he was being annoying and to stop it.

He’d kept texting but had deleted each message after that.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

Maybe he should have insisted on offering his help.

Fuck.

Grinding his teeth, he checked his phone for the millionth time as he headed for the front doors. He could be at her place in twenty minutes. He grasped the oversize brass handle and swung the door open. A gust of cold air blew in, along with the sound of an excited low bark. Chelle was halfway up the wide steps, headed in the direction of a bored-looking police K-9 standing with its handler at the base of the stairs.

Was he a total asshole for taking a moment to appreciate the view?

Yes. He was.

He looked anyway.

Chelle didn’t look like the frigid wind blasting down Fourth Avenue could send her flying. Her smile was wide and full. Her ass was high and round, the kind that a man would need both hands to hold onto—not that he would be doing that no matter how abso-fucking-lutely she checked off every one of his boxes on his thank-God-for-thick-women checklist.

This was a mutually beneficial marriage of convenience for a limited duration. Sex would only complicate things. He hated complications. He had enough to keep track of as it was when it came to running Beckett Cosmetics and his family’s lives.

Still, he took a second look.

Then a third.

And he was a good ten seconds into the fourth when her husky voice cut through the fantasies he was starting to run through his head.

“Oh, you’re not that scary at all, are you, you sweet little furball? Now give me your paw and you’ll get the treat,” Chelle said, her voice firm as she planted a hand on one of her generously round hips and held aloft in the other a Milk-Bone dangling from the tips of her fingers as she stared down at the police dog. “Paw, Georgette.”