“It’s not impossible.”
“Liar,” she says.
My chest rises as I pull in a breath. She’s convinced. How could I ever change her mind?
“Our worlds are so different,” she says. “Like just our day-to-day is so incredibly incompatible. Like tonight, what did you have in mind? Dinner at one of the fancy restaurants at this private resort that your friend owns?” She laughs, like the idea is just too wild to fathom. “A fancy date night for me is Pizza Meet Ya.” She shrugs. “To be fair, it’s great pizza. But there’s nothing fancy about it.”
“Fisher and?—”
“Fisher isn’t an Alden,” she cuts me off.
She’s right. He’s not. “But he had a very different life to Juniper. Juniper is a mother. Unless you’ve forgotten to tell me, there aren’t children in the mix. Or an ex who’s hanging around.”
“Right,” she says. “But I’ve made commitments to my family in Star Falls and you’ve made commitments to your family in New York. They’re not the same as the obstacles that Fisher and Juniper had. Theirs are surmountable.”
“Let me take you to dinner,” I say. “Tonight. Pizza Meet Ya.”
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve just been saying?” she asks. “If I get in any deeper with you, I won’t survive you leaving.”
I close my eyes at her confession. It seems so unfair. We know what we have is rare and precious, but the stakes are too high to see this out, to see where this goes.
“Then marry me,” I say. I check my watch. “It’s been at least forty-five minutes since either of us orgasmed. I can ask you for real.” A grin unfurls on my face. I’m joking, but if she said yes, I’d buy her the biggest diamond ring.
She sits up, putting distance between us, and she rolls her eyes. “No, I’m not going to marry you, Jack Alden.”
“Then share a pizza with me.”
“I don’t share my pizza,” she replies. “Not even with you. But seriously, I need to leave.”
We both get out of bed and pull on our clothes from the night before. I don’t want to try to persuade her to stay. She’ll accuse me of not appreciating that she has a job to do, a life that doesn’t revolve around me. And I get it. I really do. If she says she needs to leave, then she needs to leave.
“Okay, then two pizzas?” I suggest. “You know what we have between us. You know you’ve never felt it before. I’m sure I haven’t. And yeah, our situations make things look impossible at the moment. I get it. I really do. But there’s a solution out there. I know there is. And maybe it will become more obvious if we just spend some time together. Maybe life will show us how we can be together if we just give it a chance.”
She sighs and sits on the bed, pulling on her socks. “No more marriage proposals?” she asks.
“I think I can hold off for the evening.”
“Okay. But not tonight. I have some making up to do with Stephanie after ditching her last night. You can take me out tomorrow. Pizza. But I’m not sharing.” She shakes her head. “I just can’t say no to you, Jack Alden.”
I know that feeling. My stiff upper lip vibrates with the need to claim victory. I settle with a grin.
“Tomorrow night, then,” she says again.
My pulse starts to race at the thought that I won’t see her until tomorrow night. I don’t have long until we’re due back in New York. I don’t want to waste time not being with her. “You talked about the fruit pickers arriving at seven.”
She checks the time on her phone. “Yeah. I need to go. I have to grab a shower before work.”
“They seasonal workers?” I ask, as I grab her keys and we head out.
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“You need an extra pair of hands?” I suggest. “I don’t know much about fruit, but I don’t have anything planned today. I could give you a hand.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You want to come pick fruit at Wilde’s?”
“Yeah,” I say, a little uncertain. I don’t want to embarrass myself. It’s not like manual labor and I are closely associated, but I had a gap year I spent in South America, building pathways. Presumably someone will show me the ropes.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Bray always handles the seasonal recruitment.”
