The Marriage Agenda by Sarah Ballance

the Pierce daughters.
    “I don’t know,” Chloe said sweetly, holding up her ring next to her face. “It kind of draws attention away from the bad hair and the asymmetrical eyes. Of course, I must be a lousy gold digger—you can barely see the metal for all the diamonds.”
    Neither Thing uttered a word.
    For all their highfalutin manners, society left a lot to be desired.
    Chloe suppressed a laugh as she washed her hands and left the room, knowing full well the two cats had likely found their tongues the minute after the door shut behind her.
    Knox stood nearby in the hallway. “What are you smiling about?” he asked.
    “I met Senator Pierce’s daughters. Apparently I have bad hair extensions, asymmetrical eyes, and questionable morals.”
    “You have hair extensions?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Is this the part where I get offended because you didn’t argue my morality or dispute the poor configuration of my face?”
    He grinned. “I happen to know your eyes are perfect, and I don’t question the state of your morality, but I don’t think I’d know hair extensions if I saw them.”
    “Rumor has it you can see the bad ones from across the room. And rest assured, my hair—however faulty—is my own.”
    “I think your hair is as beautiful as the rest of you.” He shook his head and…chuckled? Who the hell chuckled ? “Senator Pierce’s daughters, huh?”
    “Maybe they’ll scratch one another’s eyes out trying to win your affection. Then we’ll see who’s asymmetrical.”
    He made a whooshing sound under his breath. “What’s the classic sitcom reaction to that? Meow?”
    “If you want a classic sitcom reaction, tell me something I don’t want to hear about the fate of my dessert.”
    “You mean there’s a woman inside the beltway who will actually touch a dessert?”
    She glared.
    He laughed. “It’ll still be there when you get back. The women at the table started talking about wedding stuff—not ours, not that it would have helped—so I made my escape. Do you want to dance?”
    The last time they’d danced in public had been in that dive bar, and they’d barely made it out of there with their clothes on. “That might not end well,” she said.
    He grinned devilishly. “No self-control?”
    “Isn’t that how you like it?”
    “You’ve got me there,” he said. And he led her onto the dance floor anyway, immediately pulling her close.
    She put her arms around him, lacing her fingertips behind his neck. With the feel of his long, hard body moving as one with hers, she quickly forgot her concerns about flashing the diamond or missing dessert. Her heartbeat thundered and drowned out the din of conversation. On some level, she knew she should be scoping out the crowd, but she was a lot more interested in the man who was in danger of losing his third shirt in two days.
    Her fiancé. The guy with all the complications.
    “How long are we staying in DC?” she asked. She’d yet to break the news of their engagement to Lila, who had probably worn calluses on her texting fingers with the effort to find out what had happened with Jeff. Chloe’s parents were also due a call. Despite the fact they lived halfway across the country, she probably didn’t have long to break the news before someone else did.
    “Unless you have a conflict, we can leave tomorrow. What do you think about renting a furnished house outside the city?”
    Anywhere, as long as it has a bedroom.
    God, he was hot. And just like that, she really was questioning her morals. She’d agreed to marry him for access—not cash—but she’d just eaten a dinner at better than a hundred dollars a bite and she had enough ice on her ring finger to sink the Titanic.
    Maybe she really didn’t have any morals. But she had a chance.
    And she was taking it.

Chapter Seven
    Somewhere in Lila’s proximity, glass was shattering. It had to be, with her shrieking. “You what ?”
    Chloe thought twice about dropping the phone and