But instead of signing right away, I held up my waxy paper cup of soda and tilted it toward him in a clear sign of a toast.
Our gazes met. The air between us crackled and popped.
My gaze flicked to his hands, fingers laced together tightly atop the table. My eyes lingered on them, realizing for not the first time how much they fascinated me. They were strong, masculine. Long fingers, prominent veins crisscrossing lightly hairy hands. My gaze traveled up the solid, muscular arms under his flannel shirt.
Try not to focus on that. I forced my attention elsewhere to prevent meeting his gaze again. He had the loveliest big brown eyes. They looked sleepy, even when he was fully alert. And they were fringed with dark lashes. And his mouth…
Stop it, Kat!
I cleared my throat and brandished the cup at him. “Come on, we should at least toast, right?”
He flicked his gaze back to mine, appeared to fight the temptation to roll his eyes. But he complied, tapping his cup of Coke against my sugary pink lemonade.
“And what are we toasting? Excellent deadline margins? To an early beta-release bonus from our bosses?”
I smiled. “To us. Mr. and Mrs. uh, van—van Hoehns—”
He sighed and put his drink down, cocking a brow at me. Letting his eyes drop slowly, they trailed down the line of my long hair, past my shoulders, down my arms where it nearly brushed the table.
His gaze warmed everywhere it touched. But I’d never in a zillion years let him know that.
“Walker. Let’s just keep it simple. And I thought you were keeping your name?”
I shrugged and nodded. “Yeah… sure. Unless it makes a stronger case with immigration to change it. I’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”
“Since this isn’t lasting long, I’d say the less work you have to do to change it all back when this is over, the better.”
I slurped on the last of my lemonade and watched him with wide eyes. “It’s a good thing that I was never all that attached to the typical dream of a big wedding. Expensive dress and bouquet of half-bloomed flowers, a glamorous first dance in front of a roomful of mostly drunk friends and family. This is about as far from that as you can get.”
This time, he did roll his eyes. “Totally overrated anyway. You’re not missing anything. Even if this was for real.”
I twitched my brows, wondering what that cryptic remark meant. I’d have to get used to it. My now-husband was fond of making dry remarks that no one got. At least I knew mostly what I was getting into with marrying Lucas. We’d worked together for over a year and sparred regularly.
His eyes flicked away from where he’d been studying my fidgeting hands, then checked his watch. “We don’t have time to wax poetic with the could have beens, anyway. When we get back to work today, we’ve gotta hit it hard. You promised.”
I raised my right hand as if solemnly vowing—because there hadn’t been quite enough of that today, I guess. “All of my lunch breaks and overtime and all-nighters are yours until we make this deadline.”
He nodded grimly, satisfied. “Good. Because this—” he motioned between himself and me “—is a business transaction.”
I waggled my head, tiredly nodding in agreement. I’d heard this repeatedly in the past week. “Yeah yeah yeah. I get a certified Yankee husband to put on my immigration forms for a green card. You get all my help to make the deadline so you can impress the big bosses for that new promotion you’re coveting. I’ve got it, Lucas, like I had it the twelfth time you told me.”
“Hmm. Well, a few more times can never hurt.”
As game testers, our department at Draco Multimedia Entertainment had to assure the software was clean of bugs and glitches. It was especially important due to the upcoming release of the new Dragon Epoch expansion, War of the Sunderlands. For a game as massive and complex as Dragon Epoch, this was no simple task.
Our bosses had given us a nearly impossible deadline to accomplish this. But instead of pushing back and asking for more time, Lucas, our project manager, had accepted the challenge. Because he had something to prove.
He pressed his index finger into the tabletop between us. “Right?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes. Right. Jeez. I’m well aware of how much you want the new job. I’ll do everything in my power to help. You know what they