“That is not the point.”
“It kind of is.” I held his hand. He wasn’t pulling away now. I feared if I pulled him closer he might bolt. I settled for holding his hand.
“Your family will never accept it. My family will never accept it. Our two countries will never—”
“What if I told you I already had a conversation with your brother?”
“Thomas?”
I shook my head. It was time to throw all the cards on the table, even if he wasn’t thrilled about it. “No, Damien. When I was in Asach, I talked to him. Your dad might not like it, but he’s a dick, and he’s not running the country anymore. Damien just wants you to be happy, and if that happiness is with me, then more power to us. My family already loves you. Jaq, please. If you tell me you don’t want this, that you don’t want me, then fine, that’sone thing. But don’t say no just because you’re scared. The press can fuck off, Jaq. Our marriage is between us, not anyone else. And it doesn’t have to be anytime soon. It’s not like we have to announce our engagement tomorrow. It’ll be a soft launch, or we can elope. I don’t care as long as I get to be with you. It’s up to you. I just want the promise that you’ll be mine forever, because that’s what I am for you. I’m yours now. Forever.”
He closed his eyes. After a long moment he leaned into me, his head coming to rest on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him and held him. I never wanted him to leave my arms.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter 11
Erich
Sometime later, Jaq and I began to get dressed. It was time to return to our day and our duties. He might have had the day off today, but tomorrow he would not, and neither would I. Royal responsibilities wouldn’t wait for us.
“We’ll have to speak with the king, your brother, right? To petition for permission. How does that work here?” he asked.
I raised a brow, pausing midway between pulling up my pants.
“For permission to get married? Yeah, I’m not doing that. I’m not going to petition Cort for shit.”
Jaq’s eyes grew wide. “What if he denies us?”
“Yeah, that’s not how that works. I’m not asking permission. And also, I already talked to him about you staying here. I didn’t talk to him about us, I didn’t want to.”
“Does Thomas know? He’s going to be upset if he finds out from someone other than me. Especially since yesterday I called him in a panic, not knowing how to take a pregnancy test.”
I winced. “I don’t know. Do you want to tell your brother before we tell everyone else?”
“Yes, but we all just had dinner together. How are we going to find another time—”
I grabbed my phone. “Cort and Thomas are here today. So are my parents and Kalwin with his family. Everybody else is gone, but that’s all right, right? We can call them later.”
Jacques nodded. He bit his lip. I had my pants pulled up now, but not buckled, and I walked over to him, using my thumb to ease his lip from his mouth. His plump lower lip was swollen from his biting. I kissed it.
“Hey, we can tell them all one on one. Also, it doesn’t have to be today. We’ll do this at whichever speed you want.”
“I want to. I do.”
“Then we’ll tell them now.”
“I’ll see Thomas tomorrow anyway, and we’ll have to talk about my job, my responsibilities. It might not look good to the public if your brother employs his brother-in-law as a nanny.” He wrung his hands in lap. At least he wasn’t torturing that lip anymore.
“Do you want to keep your job?” I asked.
“What?”
“Do you want to keep your job?” I said again. I grabbed his hands and held them in my own.
“Yes. I love it. I love the kids and… Yeah. I want to keep my job. I’ve talked about finding another one, but it was never really serious. I… I love it.”
“Then you can keep your job. Fuck whatever everyone else thinks we should do. We’re going to do what works for us. And Cort and Thomas too, of course.”
