“I knew I married you for a reason.”

“Yes, for my incredible taste in music, not for my ability to successfully drag five pounds of beef and fries across the city.”

She scooted her chair forward until their knees touched. He had barely processed her closeness before she pulled him in by the tie. Their lips crashed together, and Will let her take the lead. She parted his lips and slid her tongue across his own. His body stirred, wanting so much more—it always did when Hannah kissed him.

“Hannah.” He pulled back, the word barely a whisper. They couldn’t do this here—not like this.

“Tell me you feel it too,” she said in a low voice, her forehead pressed against his.

He stared at her hands, that single word—too—rolling around in his head. Tell me you feel it too. Which meant she felt something for him. “You know I do.”

“I want to invoke Rule 3a.” She’d said it plainly, but to Will, she might as well have exclaimed her love for him from the rooftops.

“What?” Great, now he sounded like an idiot.

“We’ve been sharing a bed for two weeks and practicing kissing and...” She took his hand in hers. “I want to be able to do what we just did and feel what I just felt without wondering what it means and what we’re doing, and if I’m jeopardizing our friendship and the pact by thinking that I want more. Because I want more, Will.”

Holy shit. He was not expecting this when she walked in the door. “I-I completely agree.”

She nodded, and a shy smile lit her face. “So, husband...” She kissed him again, and he prayed that no one decided to walk into his office right now. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

His heart swelled. Those words were perfect in their ridiculousness. Nothing could be more them.

“Yes,” he said, sitting the slightest bit back. He had to say the rest of it before there was no going back. “But I have one stipulation—consider it Rule 3b.”

She scrunched her nose in confusion, and Will tightened his grip on her hands to keep from pulling her into his lap and forgetting all rational thought.

“Okay?”

“I’d like to take it slow, make sure our hearts are in it too.” Or until he was sure her heart was in it—his was already there, ready to drop those three little words and mean them forever. But he’d loved Hannah for years, and she’d only had him back in her life for a month.

“But we can still do this?” She kissed his neck, the edge of his chin, and the corner of his mouth before bringing their lips together in an earth-shattering kiss.

Will’s hands shook in his lap. Taking it slow was going to be difficult. “Yes, we can still do that.”

“I’ll add it to our agreement,” she said, sitting back.  

Will watched her, still not believing this was happening. But it was. He had married Hannah. And that was about to mean so much more. “You know, you didn’t have to butter me up with burgers before asking that.”

She grinned. “Those were actually for my next request.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What would you say to lunch with Kate and her new guy one weekend?” Hannah asked as she stole yet another fry out of Will’s container.

“Oh, there’s a new guy?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said around her straw. “Actually, it’s crazy, because he started as a Herpes.”

“A what?” Will’s voice went too high at the shock of the word.

Hannah bent over herself laughing. She held a hand up, signaling him to wait for an explanation as soon as she caught her breath—which he wasn’t sure would ever happen. Her cheeks had turned bright pink with laughter, and it hadn’t died down. She had to be exhausted to laugh like that.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

They both froze, and Hannah’s laugh cut short at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. Will suppressed a shudder. Jonathan, who never came to the city, had appeared on the one day Hannah surprised him for lunch. Maybe his father was having him followed.

“Dad?” Will had spent years training himself to address Jonathan by his name at the office, but something told him this wasn’t a professional visit. For one thing, Jonathan wasn’t wearing a tie, and two, he didn’t just drop in. He expected others to come to him.

“William, Hannah.” He nodded at each of them respectively. “How fortuitous that you are both here. I have a few things to discuss with you.”

Hannah straightened next to him, but when he looked over, her face was placid, even expectant. After a moment, she turned away from Jonathan altogether, taking care to pack up the food.

“Shall we go to my office?” 

“Of course, we’ll be right in,” Will said.

Jonathan turned and left the room, though his presence still hung heavily. Hannah hadn’t said a word, but her jaw was tight, her eyes practically slits.

“I have to tell you something,” she said after a few excruciatingly long moments. She sat down, head in her hands. A jumbled mess of words came out of her, but they were muffled by her hands.

Will drew them from her face, tucking them into his own. “Tell me, Abbott.”

“He gave me annulment papers when we were in the Hamptons,” she said, her eyes trained on their hands. “He thinks we’re going to have an heir and I’m going to take the Thorne fortune.”

“Oh.” A mixture of emotions went through him. It wasn’t surprising. What had been surprising was that his father hadn’t made a move yet. And annulment papers were far from the worst thing he’d done to a girl Will had brought home. He’d most definitely paid off two of Will’s prospects in his early twenties. “So that’s why you said we needed to act more like husband and wife?”

She nodded and gave him a wry smile. “That, and I really wanted to kiss you again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “It didn’t matter. I gave him the papers back, told him I loved you, and said he could go screw himself. Okay, I implied that last part, but still.”

He was impressed—not many people took on Jonathan Thorne. “You went toe-to-toe with my father over me?”

She flushed. “The thing is, I kind of like you.”

He kissed her because he wanted to and because he could—she was his girlfriend and his wife. “You just like having someone to keep your feet warm at night.”

There was a sheen in her eyes he’d never seen before. She shook her head, showing a bashful, adorable smile. “Let’s go see what he wants.”

Will had walked the halls of Wellington Thorne his entire life—running through them as an unruly kid, handing out mail as a petulant teenager, and following around the project managers as an ambitious college student. Aloof employees became invested coworkers. Their attention wandered. Will wasn’t the heir—that was Jon, destined by a chance of birth order and a penchant for business and finance. The younger Thorne would be general counsel and would fix their mistakes, but he could also be one of them. Will had been one of them for years. Walking down the hall with Hannah, her hand wrapped in his and her punk-chic style clashing with everything Wellington Thorne stood for, he had their attention again. Not a single eye stayed on its screen. Phone calls and conversations paused as they passed. The prodigal son had returned with a wife.

Sarah, Jonathan’s secretary for as long as Will could remember, sat at her desk outside his office. She glanced briefly between the two of them, her expression warming. Sarah had always had a sweet spot for Will. “He’s ready for you.”

Hannah kissed his cheek. “Here goes.”

Jonathan sat at his desk, flipping through papers. “Good, you’re here. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, as I’m sure you both have to get back to work.”