The Pact (Winslow Brothers #2)(32)

Me: I’m aware.

Daisy: What do you mean, you’re aware? Why aren’t you accepting?

Before I can even answer her text, she’s back at it again, attempting another damn FaceTime call.

Shit. Despite all the times before when someone tried to get me to do some stupid fucking video chat and I outright refused, I find myself tapping the screen on the green phone icon and accepting. I know from even my short-lived experience with this woman that she doesn’t give up.

In an instant, Daisy is right there, in all her glory. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her lips are full but set in a firm line, and her unforgettable wild curls fall across her shoulders like satin. It’s only been a week since we spent a wild night in Vegas together and got hitched, and yet, a sense of shock over her beauty takes up residence in my chest.

Fuck. She really is beautiful in a way that I’d almost convinced myself to forget.

But also, she has seriously crazy eyes right now. The depths of green are like a midnight forest, and her pupils are wide with anxiety.

“What are we going to do, Flynn?!” Daisy exclaims and tosses her hands up in the air. “I mean, how are we supposed to show that we’re living together when we’re not living together? That doesn’t seem like something we can fake, and I’m in LA and you’re in New York, and I just don’t even know what to do right now!”

She runs an erratic hand through her long curls, tossing strands over her shoulder once her fingers reach the bottom of the tresses, and when she’s finished fidgeting with her hair, she stands up—while still holding the phone in front of her face—and starts to pace in what I’m assuming is her living room and kitchen.

“This is completely fucked,” she mutters. “And since I’ve already sent in my application, it’s not like I can go back in time and say, ‘Oh, I’m just kidding! Ignore that application! It was just a joke!’ I’m pretty sure that would end up with me either in jail or deported or some horrible combination of both.”

“You’re not going to get deported,” I say from a deeply resolute place in my gut.

She meets my eyes, her stare firm. “You don’t know that.”

Truthfully, I don’t know that, but the urge to give her something that might help calm her down was overwhelming. Which, obviously, didn’t work at all. Plus, I don’t know… For whatever reason, I’m determined to ensure she makes it through this process with her life intact. And when I put my mind to something, I don’t fail.

“Okay, fine. I don’t know that,” I acknowledge. “But I do know that anytime you approach a situation with anxiety and fear, it makes logical thinking difficult.”

“So…what you’re saying is that I need to calm the fuck down?”

I shrug one shoulder and grin.

“You know, it’s pretty hard to calm down when losing my job and deportation are the most likely consequences.”

“Understandable.” I may not be the kind of guy who wears his emotions on his fucking sleeve, but I’m not incapable of empathy.

“And I feel horrible,” she says softly, and her chin starts to quiver. “I feel like I’m making my problems your problems, and it just feels wrong. You didn’t ask for any of this. You hardly know me. And you certainly don’t owe me anything.” A few tears fall down her cheeks, and that doesn’t sit well with me. At all.

The last thing I want to do is see this beautiful woman cry. Her vibrancy and enthusiasm are what drew my eyes to her in the first place. It’s what captured my attention in the middle of a crowded casino, and it’s what led me to doing the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever done in my life—marry a complete stranger.

“Daisy.” I say her name, attempting to grab her attention, but she’s looking away from the camera, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and losing the battle against the tears that keep falling down her now pink and splotchy cheeks. “Daisy,” I repeat again, and this time, quite possibly because this is one of the only times I’ve bothered to repeat something in my life, she meets my eyes. “First of all, I put myself in this situation. I offered. So, you feeling guilty is unwarranted. It’s going to be okay.”

She huffs out a sigh. “No offense, but now isn’t the time to say shit you don’t mean.”

I give her a knowing look, one she seems to understand immediately. I never say shit I don’t mean.

“How could you possibly know it’s going to be okay? Because from where I’m standing, it feels apocalyptically dismal.”

I make a show of looking over my shoulders. “It can’t be that bad. I don’t see Bruce Willis anywhere yet.”

She snorts at that, and my chest lightens. As the flow of her tears starts to slow, I try to infuse the conversation with logic.

“You said you work for a big real estate firm, right?”

She nods.

“Do they just sell in LA or other cities like New York, too?”

“LA, New York, Miami, Vegas are EllisGrey’s primary markets, but there’re a few other cities on the list.”

Bingo. I simply shrug one shoulder, and she searches my face for a long moment before questioning, “Wait…what are you trying to say?”

Although the answer is pretty fucking obvious to me, I can understand that her emotions are running high at the moment.