“Tell me something, Keiran. How you think this will end, hmm?”

So damn close. Body angled to face him, her fingers drummed against the desk, other arm draped over the back of the chair.

“She’ll get tired of me eventually and move on.” He shrugged, even as the idea made his chest ache. He knew what he’d gotten himself into here. Knew he was full of shit when he’d agreed to this whole thing. He didn’t just want this to be sex, and it would blow up in his face soon enough.

“And you’re good with this?”

“Doesn’t matter if that’s what she wants.”

“You like her—” He opened his mouth to protest. Remi held up a hand. “Don’t even try to lie right now. You’re both being ridiculous as hell here. I don’t know what she’s doing. Hell, I don’t think she knows. Guess your pipe-laying skills are that good.”

“She likes what I do well enough.” He wasn’t trying to be cocky. Cherisse had been vocal enough when coming for him to deduce that. But he sure as hell wasn’t going into details with Remi.

“Someone’s gonna get hurt,” Remi announced.

“I won’t hurt her.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean her.”

Of course. Because he was the sap in this situation. The one most likely to let his emotions tie him up when Cherisse was just here for a good fuck. He couldn’t blame her. She’d been upfront. He was the one lying. About more than one thing.

He spun the empty bowl in his hand. “Anyway, thanks for letting me in. I need to go. Promised Maxi I’d babysit. She’ll suffocate me in my sleep if I bail, and she doesn’t get to go out.”

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. She’s the cuter twin anyways.”

He clutched his chest. “Damn, tell me how you really feel.”

“Bye, Keiran.”

“Laters, Remeena.” He chuckled all the way to the door as she tossed some seriously inventive curses at his back.

Chapter 27

Cherisse

IT TOOK THE REST OF the week and into the next one to fully ditch the cold, which set her back workwise, even with Reba handling details with that other wedding she had before Ava’s. That bride had apparently been a hair-trigger away from going full-on Bridezilla with Reba because Cherisse hadn’t shown up to the meeting. Reba’s explanations that Cherisse was sick didn’t help. The bride had shouted in Reba’s face about being sent an assistant instead of Cherisse, which had then turned into Cherisse getting on the phone—still feeling like crap—to soothe the woman and fit in a reschedule of the meeting because no matter how Cherisse tried to tell her Reba was capable of running the meeting, the client didn’t care.

Cherisse had been willing to dissolve that working relationship immediately. She didn’t want to deal with someone who was condescending to Reba like that, but Reba had talked her down.