“No, it was mine. I didn’t tell him of my plans until after it was done because I didn’t want him to try to talk me out of it.” She glanced over at Jamison over the rim of her glass of tea. “Have you told him you’re interested?”
Jamison shook his head. “No, but I did mention it to Nash.”
“And?”
“And he thought it was a something I should seriously consider…in light of the phone call I got from my ex last night.”
“Oh?”
Jamison spent the next five minutes telling Kendal about the phone call from Vonetta. “I don’t know if she was just talking out of her head because of the alcohol or if she’s really contemplating trying to get Kia back because good old Omar has left her. But I don’t want to take any chances.”
At that moment, they paused when the waiter brought out their food. Kendal almost licked her lips at the sight of Jamison’s plate. He had ordered a half-rack of Parker’s mouth-watering ribs, a huge plate of their French fries, and a bowl of slaw.
He must have seen her staring hard at his plate, because he asked, “You sure you don’t want any? I have enough to share.”
She was tempted. Boy, was she tempted. However, she drew back and shook her head. “No, thanks.” She looked down at her salad. It was big and full, and hopefully with a tall glass of water, it would be filling.
“So,” Jamison said after saying grace for both of them. “It seems getting married is a good idea, although there are areas we’re going to need to discuss in detail to make it work for both of us.”
She nodded in agreement. “What about the girls? We’ll be leading them to believe we’ll be a family, but they won’t know it’s only for a short while. How are we going to handle that?”
He drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to be honest about not having all the answers right now, Kendal. I don’t want the girls hurt later when our marriage is annulled, but at the moment, my main concern is making sure they aren’t hurt even more by being taken away from us. Right now, that’s my main focus of concern,” he said.
He paused a moment and then added, “And then there’s the question of how our relationship will pan out. The expectations and the non-expectations.”
“All right. Let’s discuss them.”
He took a sip of his drink. “I prefer not having a lot of people in our business. My family means well, but if we’re going to pull this off, the last thing we need is for the Ryans or my ex to get wind that our marriage is not on the up-and-up. So far, the only people who know about the ad are me, you, Tonya, Nash, and Ben, right?”
“And Justice knows,” she quickly spoke up to add.
He nodded. Justice was married to his cousin Blake, and chances were, she’d mentioned it to him. They lived in Canada, and he knew they could be trusted to keep their mouths closed. “Okay, so that’s all of them, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said with a satisfied smile on his face. “While out in public, we’re going to give everyone the impression that we’re a couple in love, and that since I returned home, you and I have been seeing each other. If anyone wonders why I hadn’t mentioned it, I’ll just tell them I was keeping my business private. They will believe that, because usually that’s how I operate.”
She could believe him. His family hadn’t known he’d gotten a divorce until he’d shown up back in Alexandria with his daughter. The only person he’d told was his grandmother, and Ms. Thelma hadn’t breathed it to a soul.
She took another sip of her water. “That might be true, but there’s something you won’t be able to convince anyone of, Jamison.”
He lifted a brow. “And what’s that?”
“That you could truly be interested in a woman like me.”
***
Jamison stared at Kendal, certain he’d missed something along the way. “You think I’ll have trouble convincing anyone I’m interested in you?” he asked, making sure he’d heard her right.
“Yes.”
“Why would you assume something like that?”
Kendal pressed her lips together, thinking the reason was obvious. But since he actually sat there with this ‘I don’t have a clue’ look on his face, she decided to enlighten him. “I’m not exactly the type of woman a man would beat down a door to marry, Jamison.” Especially a man who looks like you, she thought but refrained from saying. “People expect you to be interested in a woman who turns heads. You know, one of those slim and trim supermodel types.”
Jamison tried keeping a calm smile when he said, “Someone who looks like my ex-wife?”
“Exactly.”
He didn’t say anything as he sat there wondering whether Kendal realized that she was a beautiful woman. From all she’d told him and from what he’d heard from his cousin Tonya, it was clear to see she had a lot going for herself. Okay, she was a full-figured woman, but she was a beautiful and sexy full-figured woman.
If she only knew how attracted he was to her, she would get rid of those inaccurate notions…and it might scare her off as well. He hadn’t been with a woman since his divorce, mainly because Vonetta had rid his body of any desire for a woman. Or so he’d thought until he’d seen Kendal walk into the restaurant.
He leaned over the table to make sure she heard what he was about to say. “What you evidently don’t know about me, Kendal, is that my taste in women varies. No one particular woman catches my eye. At this stage in my life and after going through what I’ve gone through with my divorce, the one thing that is important to me above all else is trust and honesty. And I want someone I can communicate with. Someone I know I would like to have around, considering I have to see her every day.”
“And you think I’m that person?”
He smiled. “I know you’re that person. And as far as you not being someone who could turn heads, you’re dead wrong. Several men noticed you when you walked into this place, and like me, they were appreciating your beauty.”
She wished he didn’t say such sweet things. He’d always been a nice guy, and it was a darn shame his wife hadn’t appreciated what she had. Well, it seemed the woman’s loss was going to be her gain. “I want you to be sure, Jamison.”
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “I am sure. You and I both know what this marriage means. It means we’ll get to keep two kids who mean the world to us. And because our marriage will have a purpose, there is no doubt in my mind it will work out for as long as we decide. Okay?”
She nodded and he released her hand and resumed eating. “How long do you think we need to stay married?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
She paused a moment after taking another sip of water and then said, “I figured two years so no one will get suspicious about anything.”
“I figured two years as well. I should have an idea of what Vonetta plans to do or not do by then. Hopefully, she and Omar just had a little tiff and he’ll be back before the week is out. Then she could get that insane idea of us becoming a family again out of her mind.”
“And if she doesn’t?” she asked, needing to hear his answer. It stood to reason that no matter how much the woman had hurt him, a part of him still loved her. What if she showed up in Alexandria fighting for him back?
“Then I don’t know what to tell her.” He chuckled tersely and then said, “I take that back, I do know what to tell her but trust me, you don’t want to know what it is since it won’t be pretty. I could never forgive her for what she did, not only to me but to Kia.”
He felt that way now, but…
Jamison reached for her hand again upon seeing the look of doubt in her eyes. As an attorney, he’d seen it before, especially with his older clients who thought he was too young to represent them in the way they wanted to be represented. He had proven them wrong like he would prove Kendal wrong.
“You’re going to have to trust me on this, Kendal, like I’m going to have to trust you. Remember, we are going to make sure trust plays a part in our marriage. Trust well as communication. I’m going to want you to talk to me and tell me what you’re thinking, no matter what.”
She didn’t say anything and then, “Okay.”
He released her hand and looked over at her. There are other things we need to talk about, such as where we’ll live. Tonya said you lived in a condo and that my place is larger. I own a house in Tiger Lilly Oaks.”
She knew the homes in Tiger Lilly Oaks were huge and expensive, so chances were his place would be better. She wouldn’t sell her place, just lease it for two years, because she would need a place to go back to when their marriage was annulled.
“And then there’s the matter of our sleeping arrangements.”
Kendal felt a lump in her throat at the same time that tingling resumed between her legs. “Sleeping arrangements?”
“Yes. It will be hard to convince any of our families and friends who might drop by that we have a real marriage if we’re sleeping in separate bedrooms.”
Her brows bunched together. “How will they know?”
He chuckled. “Trust me, they’ll know.” He studied her a moment and said, “I don’t plan on taking advantage of you or the situation, Kendal. I consider you a friend and never understood this ‘friends with benefits’ thing. I’m not pushing for us to sleep together by any means. I was merely making an observation.”
And it had been some observation, she thought. Sharing a bed with him was something she was not ready for now and doubted if she would ever be. She was not one to indulge in casual sex, which is one of the main reasons she rarely went out. Men expected you to put out on the first date, and that was just not her style. Besides, sleeping with him would change the entire dynamic of their relationship, and she wasn’t sure that was something she would be able to handle right now.
“Let me give that some thought. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with a plan that will work for both of us,” she said
“All right.”
They resumed eating. She wasn’t sure what plan she was going to come up with, but she had to make sure it was one that they could both live with.
***
While driving to pick up Carr from her parents’ house, Kendal heard her cell phone ring. She knew immediately it was Tonya. “Yes?”
“So how did things go?”
Kendal smiled. “Great. Now I know why I had a crush on Jamison when I was younger. He was my hero back then and is my hero now. We talked, and we’re both prepared to do whatever needs to be done to keep our girls. Before leaving the restaurant, we sealed the deal.”
“I’m glad. The two of you have too much to lose. I can’t imagine you without Carr and him without Kia. So did the two of you discuss any particular specifics about the marriage?”
She knew what Tonya wanted to know. “If you’re asking me about sleeping arrangements, the answer is yes. He feels in order to convince everyone the marriage is real that we’ll have to go all the way, otherwise someone will get suspicious. I told him I’d come up with a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
“I don’t know, but it will be one that has to work and that we both agree with.”
Tonya didn’t say anything for a minute and then asked, “And why don’t you want to sleep with him, Kendal?”
“Because it won’t be that sort of relationship. In fact, we both agreed to let Ben draw up the terms of our marriage agreement. We figure two years should do it. We also decided that because of the petition, we should marry within a week. I suggested we not make any type of an announcement, just do it. That will work out since there’s no waiting period in Virginia.”
“But you always wanted a big wedding.”
Yes, she had. “But that’s not going to happen, and I’m not going to worry about it. We’ve decided to go to the court house next Thursday. We would like you and Ben to be our witnesses.”
“Why Thursday and not Friday?”
“We want to take the girls to Busch Gardens for the weekend and plan to leave on Friday. It will be our first outing as a family.”
“You think you have everything figured out, don’t you?”
Kendal frowned at the question. “Yes, pretty much. Other than how we’re going to deal with our sleeping arrangements. Our plan is not to share a bed.”
“Well, I think that plan will backfire.”
Kendal’s frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you had too big a crush on Jamison back in the day for feelings and emotions not to get rekindled when the two of you are living under the same roof.”
Kendal nibbled on her bottom lip when she brought the car to a stop at a traffic light. “We are two different people. That was a teenager’s crush that’s died a slow death over the years, Tonya.”
“Whatever. You loved him as much I loved Bryan. Some feelings you just can’t kick. You’ll see. I’ll talk with you later. I have a lingerie show I need to get ready for tonight.”
Moments later, as Kendal pulled into her parents’ yard, she couldn’t shake off Tonya’s parting words about some feelings being hard to kick. She knew her best friend was right, but when you didn’t have a choice in the matter, you did what you had to do.
***
Jamison glanced up at the knock on his office door. “Come in.”
His cousin Ben walked in smiling. “Nash indicated you needed to see me,” he said, sliding his tall frame into a chair. Jamison had a lot of cousins, but there were ten of them who had been born within four years of each other. Seven guys and three girls: Blake, Tyler, Nash, Ben, Morgan, Lance, Tonya, Lilly, and Lavender. From the time they were newborns until they’d started school around the age of five, Gramma Thelma had kept all ten in her home while their parents worked, so they couldn’t help but be close.