Alex coughed out a laugh. “You want a prenup?”

“Of course.”

“You check my net worth in Forbes last year?” A prenup protected him a whole lot more than it protected her.

The expression in her brown eyes was more than a little judgmental. “Of course not. I couldn’t care less about your net worth.”

He found that somewhat hard to believe. But, whatever. The important thing was to get this farce moving along. “First thing we have to do is get engaged.”

“I thought we just did that.”

He opened his mouth, but she kept talking.

“You said ‘marry me or I’ll bankrupt you.’ And I decided to take the lesser of two evils.” Her pretty lips pursed. “And, you know, I really don’t think it gets any more romantic than that.”

Sarcasm? She was getting millions of dollars, while he was accepting an inferior business deal for the sake of his reputation, and she was handing out sass?

“You’re not very grateful, are you?” he asked.

“Your blackmail victims are usually grateful?”

He shook his head in disbelief. So much for Emma being panicked and intimidated. “You were expecting champagne and flowers?”

“I was hoping for a bank loan and a good actuary.”

“Well, you got me instead.”

She nodded slowly, peering down her delicate nose at him. “That I did.”

This bickering wasn’t getting them anywhere. Alex stood, shaking off his restless energy. “If we’re going to make this work, there are a few things we’ll have to do up front.”

“Like learn to tolerate each other?”

“Like convince the press we’re in love.”

Emma’s lips slowly curved into a grin. First time he’d actually seen her smile. It gave her eyes a golden glow and put a dimple in her right cheek. And when the tip of her tongue touched her front teeth, he felt a jolt of desire right down to his toes.

At this rate, he was going to have to rethink which sister was the pretty one.