His 24-Hour Wife (The Hawke Brothers 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

aboveboard. Summer will be there as our outsider point of view. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly.”
    “Okay. How about you go back with Summer. Give me directions to your place and I’ll pick up some food on the way.”
    As Callie told him how to get to her apartment, her stomach fluttered. She was going to spend the evening practicing touching Adam Hawke.
    Or, more precisely, she was going to spend the evening pretending to be unaffected while her husband touched her. And she wasn’t even sure that was entirely possible.

Three
    A dam shifted the bags of food to one hand and pressed the buzzer for Callie’s apartment. When he’d woken this morning, he’d grabbed a quick coffee before heading for the gym. His head had been full of thoughts about the day ahead: a meeting with a potential supplier and some paperwork he needed to catch up on. Not once had he even come close to imagining how the day would truly unfold.
    Less than twenty-four hours since Callie had crashed back into his life, his schedule, his family and his life were all in a mess.
    He was used to being the one who solved problems, not the one in the middle of the trouble. But one day with Callie Mitchell had turned the tables on him.
    And worse, he might be getting ready to participate in a sham of a marriage, but he’d learned one thing today—his desire for his wife was anything but imaginary. It threatened to overwhelm him anytime she was near. But he had to keep any reaction to her buttoned down. If he was to survive what was coming with his sanity intact, he’d need to keep a very clear line between what was real and what was part of the PR plan.
    The door buzzed and opened, and he headed into the foyer and took the elevator to the sixth floor.
    Callie was waiting in the doorway to her apartment, giving him a nervous smile, and his shoulders relaxed a little. He was glad he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable about the situation.
    He held out the bags in offering. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got sushi, Chinese and pizza.”
    Summer popped her head around the corner. “Great. I call dibs on the sushi.” She grabbed the bags and headed back into the apartment, leaving him in the doorway with Callie.
    She’d changed into jeans and a sky-blue top, and her long, caramel hair was caught up in a sleek ponytail. She looked understated and utterly desirable.
    “Look,” she said, digging her hands into her pockets, “I just want to say how sorry I am that you’re caught up in this.”
    He frowned, not quite following her thinking. “I signed the marriage license right beside you.”
    “But no one would ever have known if it wasn’t for my job. And my slimy coworker.”
    “Still not your fault,” he said dismissively. “Besides, you never know what journalists would have found once they started digging for dirt when Liam and Jenna’s wedding drew closer.”
    If anyone was to take the lion’s share of the blame, it should be him. Among his brothers, he’d always been the one who could be relied upon to be the most responsible, a trend that had started when they were kids and his parents would leave him in charge of Liam and Dylan. It was one of the reasons they’d voted him CEO of the entire Hawke’s Blooms company.
    Whenever he’d relaxed his guard too much in the past, bad things had happened. Like when he was thirteen and making out with his first girlfriend behind the sheds after school, and a ten-year-old Dylan had wandered off and been missing for two hours. Adam had been frantic. He’d eventually found Dylan safe, but with cuts and bruises from a fall. Adam had been more careful to watch his brothers after that.
    Then there was the time he’d let himself get rolling drunk on a trip to Vegas and wound up married...
    He followed Callie into the spacious apartment and across to the kitchen. Summer had pulled out some plates and cutlery and she handed them to him to take to the table.
    As he watched the