Page 16 of Clear Shot

Ah, hell.

I’m not ready for this conversation.

“Where do you want to sleep?”

She cocks her head. “Is that a trick question?”

I shake my head. “I told you there was no rush for sex. But I have to be honest—it’s going to be hard to keep my hands off you if you’re sleeping next to me every night.”

“There’s no slowing this down,” she says, sinking into the nearest chair. “We’re here, doing this. Married. I don’t know how to back pedal.”

“We’re not going to back pedal—we’re going to go slow. We have to. Otherwise, we’re setting this up for failure.”

“We decided on a one-year expiration date,” she says. “That’s pretty much the definition of failure.”

I sit beside her but avoid her gaze. “What do you want, Hana? Deep down, in the part of you that you don’t tell anyone, what do you want?”

She’s quiet for a long time.

“I want whatever is going to be easiest for both of us. Whatever will allow us to co-exist for a year without getting complicated, so that neither of us ends up with a broken heart when it’s over.”

When it’s over.

We talked about a one-year time frame but now that she’s my wife, I can’t envision what that looks like.

Do we spend the next twelve months living and laughing and hanging out—eventually sleeping together—and then just walk away? Why does that rub me the wrong way?

“We’re not in love, Aiden,” she continues after a moment. “So let’s treat this like what it is—a business arrangement.”

I don’t know where she’s going with this, but this is absolutely, positively not a business arrangement.

“Business arrangements require an exchange of money, and that’s not happening here. And when the inevitable happens—don’t even try to deny we’re going to end up in bed at some point—we’re definitely not exchanging money then.”

Her cheeks flush pink but she lifts her head. “I just mean that we don’t want to complicate things. We agreed to a year, so let’s not get tangled up in…emotional stuff.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” I admit. “We’re friends. We’re going to be living together, pretending to be a madly-in-love couple in public, and eventually sharing a bed, so?—”

“We don’t have to,” she says quickly.

“We don’t have to what?” I ask. “Sleep together? Come on. It’s not a question of if, it’s simply a matter of when. We can try to delude ourselves but we shouldn’t.”

She rubs her temples and it’s obvious she’s struggling with something. My gut tells me it’s not the sexual part of things, but she’s trying really hard to put some distance between us and I’m not sure why. Last night she seemed fine. It’s only now that things are official that she seems to be having second thoughts.

“Do you not want to do this?” I ask finally. It’s jarring to realize I’m holding my breath as I wait for her to answer because… I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s changed her mind.

“We’ve already done it, no?” she asks curiously.

“We can get it annulled if you’re freaking out.”

“Oh, I’m definitely freaking out. But I don’t want to get it annulled. Unless you do.”

If there was ever a woman who needed to be kissed, it’s Hana right now.

But I can’t.

She’s wary, throwing up boulder-sized barricades, and I feel like I need to respect that.

“Look, I know this is a little awkward,” I say carefully. “But we were already good friends. Nothing has to change right now. We can just?—”