“Youwhat?”
She bites her bottom lip, eyes darting around the room before bringing them back to me.
“I need you to marry me,” she repeats, more determined than the first time she said it.
I nervously chuckle and move around the couch and sink into the overstuffed velvet cushion. My hand finds the back of my head and I twist a piece of hair between my fingers before leaning over my knees and looking at her.
“Listen, Noelle.” I uncomfortably laugh. “I know I said last week that I’d be there for you if you needed anything, but I didn’t meanthis.”
“You don’t understand.” Her eyes go wild and burn like the active fire burning behind her. “If I don’t get married by the time Grams turns eighty, she’s going to sell the inn.”
“What?” This is the first I’ve heard of Holly House potentially being for sale. As long as I’ve known her, Noelle has been dreaming about the day she would inherit the inn from hergrandmother. “I thought you were going to take over once Mary turned eighty.”
“I was,” she shrieks and then pauses to collect herself. “Or, I thought I was. Up until a few weeks ago.” Her voice trails off and her eyes fall to the floor. She seems like she’s somewhere else entirely, lost in a memory in her mind.
“Noelle,” I say her name firmly to pull her attention to me. When she looks at me, I can see she’s fighting back tears. “Come here.”
I’m shocked to see she actually listens and moves to sit next to me on the couch. My hands twitch in my lap, begging to reach over and wrap themselves around her but I resist. While she’s made her feelings about me crystal clear, she still came to me when she needed help. I don’t want to lose the progress we’ve made by acting on impulse. Instead, I move half an inch closer to her and dip my head low to catch her gaze.
“Why aren’t you inheriting the inn, Noelle?” I say softly.
Her eyes crush together as the tears start to fall. She quickly brings her hands to cover her face and chokes out an explanation between her sobs.
“Because I’m almost thirty and I don’t have a husband. According to Grams, the inn can only be passed down to amarriedwoman. I’ve spent the last eight years since graduating focusing on running the inn and proving to her that she could trust me with it, and I don’t meet the one fucking requirement I have to have toactuallytake over the place.”
“You’re the most competent person for the job, though, she has to see that,” I say, trying to comfort her. Against my better judgement, I place a hand on her back and start to move it in small circles. It’s something I used to do when we were kids whenever we were watching a movie on the couch or accidentally falling asleep at her grandmother’s house. The smallmovements always seemed to relax her then, so maybe it will now.
“She does see that”—she lifts her head to look at me through waterlogged eyes—“that’s the thing. SheknowsI can handle it and she knows how much I love the place. But its ‘tradition,’ written in the family will or whatever that gets passed from owner to owner. In order to inherit the inn, I have to get married. I have to have a husband.”
“And you want to marry me?” I ask, unsure of what to be more stunned by. The fact that she’s still letting me rub her back, the archaic and totally insane family rule we’ve never heard about, or the fact that she camehereto askmeto marry her so she could take over Holly House.
“Only temporarily,” she blubbers, still collecting herself.
“Temporarily?”
“Just long enough to convince everyone that we’re really married and for Grams to sign the paperwork over to me so I can take control of the inn. Then I can change the paperwork to say I can keep the inn even if I’m not married and I won’t need you anymore. We can get divorced and move on like nothing happened.”
Ouch.
“What?” she asks. I must be making a face or something. Shaking my head, I try to look at her with an even expression.
“Nothing. You’ve really thought about this,” I comment, trying to not sound like I care that she wants to marry me for no other reason than to inherit Holly House. It shouldn’t bother me—it’s not like I’ve been secretly pining over her all these years or something. That would be completely insane. And yet my heart feels like someone’s sucker punched it and it’s still reeling from the blow.
“I’m desperate,” she sighs. Sitting up straight, I can see that she means what she says. Her eyes are bloodshot andtired, and fresh worry lines are beginning to etch into the corners of her mouth and forehead. “Holly House isn’t just an inn, it’s my home. It’s where I went when I lost my parents. It’s where I’ve spent every Christmas and birthday. It’s the only place I’ve ever worked and the only real place I’ve ever felt safe except for when you and I were?—”
She doesn’t finish her sentence and quickly looks towards the fireplace. I don’t need her to finish it to know what she was about to say. That the only time she ever really felt safe was when we were together. My heart hurts again but this time because I’m reminded of what I robbed her of when I left things the way I did. The longer I’ve been home, the more I’ve wanted to be able to make it up to her in some way. To show her how truly sorry I am for ruining something perfect, something magical, something once in a lifetime.
Reaching over, I finally take her hand in mine and she follows the line of our hands up my arm before finally looking at me.
“I’ll do it.”
“You will?” Her voice falls a few octaves when she hears me agree to be her temporary husband.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’ll do it. We’ll get married, put on a show, get you that inn, then call it quits right before the new year. I have to head back to Boston then anyway so it lines up perfectly.”
Her mouth falls open for a beat before she flings her arms around my neck, pulling me into a hug. When she pulls me close, I discover she still smells like fresh sugar cookies like she always did when we were growing up.
“Nick, thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
