Page 65 of Rule 3: Never Fake Marry the Coach's Son

This isn’t the 1950s, and I’m not a woman who can get pregnant. There’re no bonus points for being inexperienced now. Dmitri sleeps with a different woman practically every time the bus stops in a new place. What will he think if he discovers that the friend he married for boring bureaucratic reasons has been pining for him for years?

My stomach clenches as I force myself to keep chewing.

Dmitri squeezes my thigh, and I probably give him a startled look. His eyes are round with worry.

“Okay?” he murmurs.

I nod, even though it’s not true, but when his lips swerve into a smile, there’s no way I’m not smiling right along beside him.

“You’re so cute!” Linnea squeals, and Dmitri stiffens.

“How is school going?” I ask quickly, listening to my sisters chatter about teachers and classmates.

I keep on asking them questions because the last thing I want is for Mamma or Pappa tto start interrogating Dmitri

The tension that’s gripped me since we arrived starts to dissipate.

Of course it couldn’t last.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dmitri

Oskar’s family oozes niceness, and I’m saying this after my face hasn’t quite healed from Coach’s punch.

But Coach was defending Oskar, and... I get that. I would punch anyone who hurt him. And yeah, I can see now that if this doesn’t go well, if we don’t convince the world that we’re in love, if he becomes a poster boy for green card fraud...that will hurt him.

Terribly.

When I imagined worst-case scenarios, I only thought about this not working for me. I couldn’t picture a world where Oskar wasn’t gliding toward his fantastic future. I know he’s just working for the team temporarily, that he took his LSATs this summer, that he’s applying to fancy law schools that will set him up for life.

Oskar is considering pursuing law. He can’t be found breaking US immigration law. I am so unworthy of this sweet, kind man. He moves with such grace, laughing with his sisters.

He seems to have relaxed from his initial unease, because this man was not made for lying, especially not to his family.

I’ve corrupted him in a million ways, and all I want is his happiness. Lately I’ve begun to think that maybe my very presence makes him unhappy. Why else would he scamper away when we’re watching movies on the couch?

The flickering candlelight plays across his face. His long lashes flutter when he talks, and I have an odd urge to trace his upturned Swedish nose and cup his full cheeks, rosy now from wine.

His sisters pepper me with questions. I’m too stiff with them, I know. But I’m not used to children, and I want these laughing, teasing, outrageous girls to like me. Normally, I don’t care what people think. This situation is novel.

“So tell me about your family,” Oskar’s mom asks. “Do you have any siblings?”

“No.” I furrow my brow. “I mean, maybe I have half-siblings. I don’t really know my father.”

“That must be difficult.”

I shake my head. “I never met him.” I give a soft laugh to prove to her that it’s not difficult at all, but it sounds hollow and horrible, and I press my lips together.

Does he have another family? Are they sitting around somewhere doing happy things together?

“Maybe he’s dead,” I say finally. “My mother said he was a soldier. But I guess I don’t know.”

My mother lied about a lot of things, and telling her son that her dad was a soldier and that’s why he never was around would be on brand.

Still, it’s definitely possible.

I tense. God, the only people I have to fight are on the ice.