“Maybe you should get some sleep. You know, de-alcoholize or whatever.”
“I’m not drunk. I had two beers and two shots with a lot of food, and I’m a tall guy with a lot of muscle.”
I roll my eyes at him. Always so cocky, this one. “At least you’re not full of yourself.”
“Skylar, focus here and listen to what I’m saying. I think we should get married.”
“But… we don’t… even like each other.”
He smiles, and it’s scarily beautiful and terrifying. “Which iswhy this will work so well. It’ll be contractual. Business. Not love.”
I’m not sure I can even begin to process this. Yet oddly some remote part of my brain is trying, and it’s growing in me like a virus. “So, we’ll be as we are now, but married to help each other out?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Um. Wow.” I brush my hair away and press my hands into the back of my head. “You’re serious?” I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them for distance. I feel vulnerable right now. I know I do. With that, I need to force myself to think clearly. Logically. And not strangle him because I think he’s actually trying to help with his harebrained scheme.
“One hundred percent.”
“What about our families?”
He hitches up a shoulder and climbs back up onto the sofa, keeping plenty of space between us, which I appreciate. “We should probably tell them. Eventually, they’ll find out anyway, and we can be honest about it. The only person we don’t want to know the truth is Josh. And I’d probably rather Zoey not know we’re married, but I don’t want to lie to her either, so we’d have to figure that part out. Maybe we’ll just tell her you and I are special friends and wear rings to show that. It’d only be for like a year or two. Just long enough that the baby is born and things are settled and in place for you with that, and so that Zoey is in a better, more secure place emotionally.”
“What about Micha?”
“It’s not real. I’m protecting his baby sister. How can he object?”
Fair. Okay. “What about sex?”
A wry twist of his lips has my fingers and toes tingling, but thankfully, he charts a different course when he says, “No sex. That would be a very bad idea and complicate and confusethings we’re not going to let get complicated or confusing. No outside relationships, and if one of us ends up meeting someone, well, we’ll discuss it and figure it out then.”
“I think that’ll be you over me. I’m the pregnant one. Who wants to fuck a pregnant woman when it’s not even their kid?”
God, that’s so sad. Then again, it’s not as though I’ve enjoyed sex all that much. But I’d like to. Eventually, I’d like to. That seems like more of an impossibility now, but hey, I’m young. I still have time for hot, steamy, orgasm-inducing sex.
“Honestly, I can’t tell you not to have sex for two years. That’s crazy. Just don’t brag to me about it or anything if you do.”
He gives me a look, one I can’t decipher, but redirects with, “What do you think?”
I look toward the fire, watching the gas flames dance while my mind runs sprints uphill. Weirdly… my first instinct is to say yes. Because he’s right. If I’m married to another man, Josh can’t do anything to try to win me back or manipulate me into being with him because of the baby or any of that bullshit. He’ll have no argument for it, and he can’t hurt me that way. I’ll have a ring—literally—of protection around me and the baby. Hanging out with Zoey and being her friend isn’t exactly a hardship either. I want to help her through this. She’s a good kid who’s been dealt a crappy hand.
I’m a pediatric nurse. Helping kids is what I do. So, I’m clearly getting the better end of this deal. I love this house, and I adore Zoey, and it’s nothing more than what she and I have already been doing.
But that’s just crazy. I can’tmarryhim.
Not when there’s the flip side. The side that has me living with Aston for two years, all the while not dating or having sex or even being touched or kissed. That feels like a recipe for disaster. For loneliness and heartache. I’ll either grow to resent him for this or…
I can’t think like that. If I agree to this, I have to think of Aston Hughes from an emotionally detached place. We’ll be acquaintances. Roommates. Two people who simply co-exist in the same house. That’s it and nothing more.
We only have one life. And it likes to play tricks on us. It likes to give us a run for our money. It likes to challenge us and make us sad and greedy. It enjoys our pain. Our suffering. But beneath all that, if you’re able to see past it, there’s light. There’s love. There’s happiness and laughter. I have to believe that. With what I do and all I’ve seen, I have to believe that.
I do believe that.
So, this pregnancy isn’t the thing that will stop me. It’s the thing that will teach me how to rise above and be better than I ever imagined. I’m going to be strong for this baby. I’m going to do what’s right for it. And I’m going to fucking protect it.
I blow out a breath, my heart as heavy as my limbs that sink me into the sofa.
It’s not as though my love life was going to be dancing from the club rafters anyway. I’m pregnant, and then I’ll have a newborn.
