“Right, right, right.” I nodded like this was all one hop, skip, and jump of perfectly good logic. Maybe it was? Maybe I just didn’t know anything about the right way to get fake-married? “And when are we eloping? Are we talking about some city hall setup or a proper Vegas event? Or some wild and crazy third option I can’t even imagine?”
More buzzing. “We’ll figure it out over the next month and then we’ll hire a wedding planner to take care of the rest.”
“Wedding planners, stylists, private jets,” I teased. “You sure know how to spoil a girl.”
“Yeah, I’m counting on it,” he said under his breath.
I laughed, but when he looked up at me, his gaze was cool and steady. “Sorry for keeping you so late.”
“Don’t be.” He gave a sharp shake of his head and took a step backward. He wasn’t going to skip that dinner and stay with me, and I couldn’t be upset about that. “Thank you,” he said. “For doing this.”
“Make sure your lawyer writes a good prenup,” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll take the plane when this is all over.”
“I’d give it to you.” He rocked forward and I let myself believe he was looking for a reason to stay. “About that field day,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe. “Leave it to me.”
Nothing should’ve surprised me at this point but… “Leave it to you?”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of it for you.” A small smile broke across his face. “Wife.”
My lips parted and I reached for the pearls I still wasn’t wearing as he jogged down the stairs.
chapter seven
Ryan
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will play dangerous games.
I was so fuckedit wasn’t even funny.
The elevator doors opened onto the forty-ninth floor of the Prudential Center as I exhaled like I was white-knuckling my way out of vomiting. That wasn’t so far from the truth.
Fucked fucked fucked.
I waved to the receptionist and headed straight for the small conference room in the back, the one with the views toward Fenway Park. I kept the lid of my baseball cap low and my gaze on the destination. While I’d mastered thedo not talk to mevibes at an early age, some people were immune.
Most notably, Emmeline Ahlborg. The source of all fuckery in my life and the sole reason I was so fucking fucked right now.
I flung open the conference room’s glass door and paced in front of the windows. I needed somewhere to put all this goddamn energy. Instead of resting my shoulder as advised by literally everyone who had something riding on my arm, I’d spent the past two weeks lifting like I still had the recovery time of a twenty-year-old. Supposed to be going easy on my hip too,but that didn’t stop me from running six, seven, eight miles a day. Just to get out of my fucking head.
I never should’ve touched her hair. Not the first time, definitely not the second.
What the actual fuck was I going to do?
For once in my life, I didn’t know the right move and it scared the shit out of me.
The door whooshed open at my back, but I didn’t stop pacing. I heard the slide of Jakobi Jones’s custom-made loafers against the carpet, followed by a rueful chuckle that scraped at my gray matter. My manager dropped into a seat while I stared out at the blindingly bright spring day, clear skies of endless blue.
I wanted to launch myself straight into the sun.
“I thought you said it went well.” He paused and I had to assume it was to roll his eyes at me. “Even for you, this mood doesn’t paint a positive picture.”
As I saw it, there were two options available to me here.
On the one hand, I could put a stop to this right now. Blow up the tracks before the train could run away. Would it screw with our bid for those soccer franchises? Yeah, probably. And would it leave a weird dent in my relationship with Emme? Most likely. Even if she shrugged it off and made a joke out of it the same way she did with everything she pretended not to care about, the damage was already done.
On the other, stopping this meant we could never come back here again. We’d consider that pact from high school—oneshe’dproposed when we had no idea what the world had waiting for us and when thirty seemed like a distant future—void and fully forgotten if I walked away now.
