Attraction - a fraudulent marriage

29. interrogation

This is a new chapter of Attraction, enjoy. xo

The woman seated behind her desk tapped a pen against the pile of forms, disturbing the pressing silence. She eyed us over her slim glasses.

"Mr Carlsson, you were here on a tourist visa. Did you travel here with the intent to marry?"

I remembered Lara's insistence that we should be as honest as possible. "I never intended to marry."

She flinched, studying me for a moment before she typed something on the paper in front. Her stark appearance only helped to make me nervous. "Yet, here you are, married less than four months ago."

I leaned into Tom's side, glancing at my husband beneath my lashes. "Tom happened."

"And how did the two of you meet?" she asked.

"I saw him across the dancefloor at a club I used to visit." I couldn't exactly tell her I'd worked there illegally.

"Which club?"

"Tempest."

"Do you frequent this club often, Mr Carson?" she asked, probing Tom for details.

"Not regularly. I was working that evening, making sure that Joah's friend, Chris, came back safely that night."

"So, you had a common connection?" She eyed me.

"Yes. Chris Sinclair. I took full advantage of that when I began to flirt with Tom."

"I see," she said, writing again.

My heart was beating precariously loud. I had no doubt she could sense my nervousness.

"And when was your first date?"

"I tagged along to a charity dinner, prepared with a playlist to give Tom as a thank you gift for driving me home as well that night after the club. I got Chris to invite me to the dinner and I sat there for ages, waiting and waiting until Tom wanted to talk to me." I smiled at Tom again, remembering how reluctant he'd been that night, but also how he'd taken care of me at the end. That wasn't a lie.

"He was pretty resistant to my first attempts. I think he thought I was too young or something. But it turns out he couldn't resist me." I was still looking at Tom rather than her.

"Mr Carson, why don't you describe your first date? I'm not sure it sounds much like a date."

Tom leaned back, seemingly at ease. "I'm not sure that was our first date. I think we had our first date the next morning when we went to get breakfast at a café close to my apartment." A lie, but a believable one. The timeline was simply a bit off.

"Am I to understand that you went home together after this charity dinner?"

"Oh, yes," I replied. It was almost easy to believe that it had truly happened.

A small smile teased the corner of her lips.

"When was your second date?"

"Does it still count as the first date if we went out the following evening, or is that the second?" I blinked at Tom. "You drove me back to my place so I could get some clothes, but I don't think we actually spent any significant time apart." I was mixing days, but she didn't need to know that.

She shook her head, maybe amused. "Why don't you describe that day, Mr Carlsson."

I didn't hesitate. "After breakfast, we went to the park. We found that we had quite a lot of things in common. It was kind of weird actually. I'm not usually that open, but with Tom it felt like I had nothing to lose. I told him about what happened to my family, and I never tell people about them right away."