“Oh my God, Hawk, I’m so sorry.”
“He was thirty-three, only a year older than me when it happened. So now I guess we’re practically the same age.” Hell, in a couple of months, I’ll be the older one, and isn’t that every younger sibling’s dream? But not like this. Never like this. “I can’t have my daughter end up in the system and risk having her turn into my brother.”
The thought of that happening stops me in my tracks, and heavy, conflicting emotions cause my chest to clench painfully when I realize there is little I wouldn’t do to protect my daughter. I turn to Amelia, meeting her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes, and say the one thing that has been circling in my head from the second the caseworker left.
“Marry me.”
Amelia’s eyes widen in shock and she blinks up at me. “W-what?”
“I know what I’m asking of you is a lot, when you’ve already given me more than I deserve, and I’m sorry to ask for more, but this is the only way I can protect my daughter.”
I haven’t experienced desperation like this for a long time, and I have no doubt that it shows on my face. The last time I did was when I was six, hopeful that a family would one day come in and adopt my brother and me. That we would be good enough for a family to want to keep us. Even when we moved through foster homes, I was desperate for one family to want us so we could experience what it was like to have a home.
And isn’t it ironic that I would have the same feeling, but this time for my offspring.
“Hawk,” Amelia whispers, tugging her hand from mine to brush it through her hair. “I…don’t…marriage is a huge commitment.”
Don’t I know it.
But I have never met a woman like Amelia. One whose company I enjoy outside of the bedroom. Heck, I was already deep into my feelings for her even before Wren came into my life. She deserves to be properly courted, showered with affection and gifts, and not to be proposed to in some park with kids screaming in the background.
Not a careless proposal. A rushed marriage.
But a marriage is the only way I’ll be able to prove to the judge that I’m the best fit for Wren. Even with that acknowledgment, there’s still an underlying guilt for the sacrifice I’m asking of Amelia. At twenty-two, she’s still young, and marriage wouldn’t offer much of an advantage to her. In fact, she’s losing more than she’s getting out of it, but maybe I can offer something in exchange for her freedom.
“I’ll…pay you. Give you a generous allowance. Anything.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize that I’ve made a terrible fucking mistake, as hurt and insult cross her expression. “You’re an asshole,” she whispers, and I catch the tears in her eyes before she turns to leave. I move quickly to grab her hand, stopping her before she can storm away.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tightening my hold on her when she tries to shrug it off. “You’re right, I am an asshole and I shouldn’t have said that.”
She whips around to look at me. “Then why did you say it?”
“Because marriage right now puts you at a disadvantage. You don’t stand to gain much from it.”
“I get you and Wren, don’t I?”
Fuck.
“Baby—”
“Look, Hawk, I know what it’s like to lose a parent,” she says, brushing the back of her hand over her cheeks when tears spill over. “No child deserves to have a caring parent snatched away. Not by death and not by the system.”
“Amelia—”
“It stings that after all the time we’ve spent together, you would think that money’s the only way you would get my help.”
“I’m sorry.”
She lets out a shuddering breath. “You need this…for Wren. I get that.”
It’s not entirely true. There’s a twisted and selfish part of me that wants it for myself too. To tie down a woman as perfect as Amelia so no one else can get to her, but would the knowledge of my desires scare her? The intense way that I want her with me forever.
To care and protect.
To love.
I follow her eyes to the ring on her finger, one I don’t view as a prop but a promise. A perfect reflection of Amelia’s inner and outer beauty. How could I not want to spend the rest of my life with her?
