Just Between Friends. Julianna Morris

      Ignoring the voice inside his brain that was laughing sarcastically, he leaned forward.

      “How do you want to handle the ceremony?”

      Kate drew a circle on the table with the tip of her finger. “How about going over to Victoria? Your brother’s wedding there was beautiful.”

      A frown creased Dylan’s forehead. Victoria, British Columbia, was popular with courting couples, and the O’Rourke women had raved endlessly over what a romantic setting it had been for Kane and Beth’s wedding. But it didn’t seem right for him to marry Katydid in a place intended for lovers, not when they were just friends making a paper commitment for a year. It was much easier thinking about it that way—a paper commitment. Not really a marriage.

      “I’d rather keep it smaller, here in Seattle,” he said after a moment. “Maybe just the two of us in a civil ceremony at the courthouse.”

      Kate’s eyelids dropped instantly, yet he thought he saw disappointment in their sea-green depths before it was hidden. But surely she didn’t want a romantic wedding—or worse, a church wedding. There was something sacrilegious about going into a church and promising to love, honor and cherish when you were planning to get divorced in a year.

      “Won’t your mother be disappointed?” Kate murmured after a moment. “I know how much she enjoyed it when Kane and the others got married. We could ask her pastor to do the ceremony. It wouldn’t have to be a big deal.”

      Dylan winced.

      Much as he wanted his mother to stop pestering him about settling down, he didn’t want to hurt her. But she’d be both worried and appalled if she knew the truth about why he was marrying Katydid. Fond as she was of Kate, she’d say they were making a huge mistake by using the sacred institution of marriage for something other than love. He was a little uneasy about it himself, but it wasn’t as if they’d really be married.

      No sex, for one thing.

      Lord, the next year was going to be dismal.

      Unfortunately, sex deprivation didn’t seem like a good enough reason to say no. Dylan cleared his throat. Kate was so innocent, she probably didn’t have a clue about what she was asking from him.

      “Katydid…I just don’t feel comfortable about having some preacher speak words over us.” His inexplicable physical reaction to her was causing another kind of discomfort, but she didn’t need to know about that.

      A stillness crept over Kate until she slowly nodded. “I see. So we’ll do it at a courthouse, or wherever civil ceremonies are offered.”

      Swell, now he felt like a selfish crumb.

      Husbands probably felt like that a lot, so he was getting off to a good start. Moreover, it didn’t even make sense because Kate knew the ceremony wasn’t supposed to mean anything. So why did he feel guilty?

      He sighed. “Look, I know you wanted—”

      “No,” she interrupted quietly. “You don’t know. It’s fine. We’ll have a civil ceremony and explain that we were in too much of a hurry to wait for a big wedding. That should satisfy the lawyers. They’ve been nagging me about the deadline, anyway, so they should understand.”

      Dylan searched Kate’s face, trying to guess what was going through her head. If she thought anyone would understand their marriage, then she was fooling herself. Katydid was like a shaft of moonlight—beautiful and unattainable, with quicksilver emotions and a pedigree of snobbish old wealth and privilege. While he was the son of down-to-earth Irish immigrants who’d worked hard and made a place for themselves in a new country.

      They were utterly incompatible.

      The only reason anyone might be deceived was because of the charity events she’d dragged him to over the years. Of course, his family had often hinted about something between them, but he’d always laughed it off.

      Now they were the ones who’d be laughing.