“How about you let me take care of you instead?” He cut a piece of the frittata and slid it onto a plate, garnishing it with a few sprigs of parsley and adding clementine slices to the plate. “Think of it as a thank-you for helping me win the bet with my cousins.”

The bet? Her gut dropped and she managed—just barely—not to flinch back. In the past week, she’d forgotten all about Nash’s reasons for their limited-time-only marriage. He didn’t want to be married any more than she did, which was what made the arrangement so perfect. Now, the question was would she be able to make it three more weeks without spending way too much time thinking about what he was packing in those gray sweatpants?

Probably not.

Chelle took the plate with a thank-you and sat down at the barely big enough for two plates bistro table at the end of the kitchen, underneath the window that led out to the fire escape. Nash joined her with his matching breakfast. His oversize-lumberjack-of-a-man frame shouldn’t look comfortable at the itty-bitty table, and yet he fit right in. Some people were like that. Nash Beckett was obviously one of them.

He lasted three bites before he set his fork down on his plate and looked her straight in the eyes. “Are you going to let me read your book?”

“No,” she said without hesitation, while stuffing down her panic at the idea of anyone—anyone—reading her work. “I’m working on book four. No one wants to start on book four.”

Nash’s eyes went wide. “You have three books already done?”

That nervous buzzing that always made her feel all jittery partnered with that roller coaster boosted with nitro feeling in the stomach she always got when she talked about her books had her putting her fork down. The frittata was good. Not puking it up because she was peeling back a layer of her skin and cutting open a vein of vulnerability was better.

“You gotta let me read them.”

He propped his forearms on the table, which meant his fingers were within millimeters of hers, which meant she added the warm, needy tease of desire to the buzzing and the stomach flopping. She was about half a second from adding super-sexy palm sweating to the mix when both of his dimples made an appearance.

Oh God, she was about to get the full court Nash Beckett charm offensive.

“I could give you free feedback,” he said with all the confidence of a guy who manspread on a crowded train.

Okay, she was getting what Nash thought of as a charm offensive. It took a lot of control not to laugh out loud at his idea.

“That sounds like the absolute worst version of hell.” Oops. Okay, that may have been too harsh—if 100 percent the truth.