“We need to talk.”
I pulled my hand from his as he opened the passenger door for me. “No.”
Alaric eyed me from his greater height. “What’s wrong?”
“I need time,” I answered, glancing back at Roxanne’s house, suspecting she watched us from behind a curtain. “I need to think about all this.”
“I suppose that’s not surprising,” Alaric commented. “I don’t like leaving you alone right now.”
“Whyever not?”
“You have had a great deal to drink,” he said dryly. “And not much time to sober up.”
“I’m just going for a walk,” I replied, and gestured vaguely down the street. “I think I can handle that.”
“Are you thinking you may change your mind?”
“I don’t know what to think, Alaric. I don’t. Just give me some space, okay?”
He nodded. “Very well. Just don’t take too long about it.”
“So you’re already making husbandly demands?” I snorted. “I take orders from you at the office and that’s it.”
Alaric startled me by chuckling. “That was rather arrogant of me, wasn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Perhaps by asking you to marry me, something changed between us.”
I thought back to the moment we shook hands. “Or something else caused it.”
“That electrical thing?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure it was nothing. Static electricity.”
I shook my head, recalling the sheer power that slammed its way up my arm. “But we both felt what we felt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“And so we suddenly became attracted to one another,” I snapped, annoyed. “I wanted you to take me right there on the counter.”
Alaric grinned. “I would have if Medusa hadn’t shown up.”
“This alleged marriage won’t work anyway. Lust is not a basis for a solid relationship. Trust me, I tried it.”
He said nothing for a time, but watched me intently. Not liking his scrutiny, not sure whether I liked him at all, I started to walk away. Alaric seized my arm, halting me.
“Be careful, all right? You are still drunk.”
“Around here, all I have to worry about are rich Karens yelling at me.”
***
To marry or not to marry, ‘tis the question.
I pondered this as I walked, quite steadily and in straight lines, toward the trendy shops, restaurants, and sidewalk cafes in the downtown area. I glanced through store windows at displays of jewelry not even Roxanne could afford, mannequins garbed in expensive designer clothing. If Alaric was wealthy, how much might he offer me in exchange for the marriage and his inheritance?
