“You heard?” Jax asked.
“About the engagement. Just now. Shawna told me. He proposed? I didn’t think things were that serious.”
“They’re not.”
“Are you sure?”
“About 90 percent. I’m driving to the high school right now to confront him. I’ll let you know what he says.”
“I’m not sure I want to know,” she admitted. “If he did this for sex...”
“Right? Moron. I’m pulling into the parking lot. Talk later.”
“Bye.”
But as Ryleigh hung up, she realized she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to know the truth about the engagement. Because if Harris had done it for anything other than being wildly in love with Shawna, the entire situation was going to end very, very badly.
Jax parked at the high school and walked directly to Harris’s office. He was on the phone but the second he saw her, he muttered, “I have to go,” and hung up.
“Jax, what are you doing—”
She cut him off with a quick shake of her head. “No,” she said loudly. “Just no. Don’t play me. What the hell are you thinking? You proposed to your girlfriend so you could have sex with her in the house? Who does that? I can’t believe it. You think this is all a game, but you couldn’t be more wrong about any of it. This is a terrible idea. You’re playing with her life, Harris. She’s twenty-six. She thinks you mean it.”
She paused to take a breath and because some foolish part of her hoped he would defend his actions by declaring his love for Shawna and tell her she was wrong. Because for once, she really wanted to be. But instead of being outraged, he gave her a faintly guilty look then declared, “It’s your fault. You’re the one who wouldn’t change the parenting plan.”
Holy crap! She sank into a chair and stared at him.
“So I’m right. You’re not in love with her and you didn’t mean it when you proposed. It was all about you getting laid.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t put it like that. I like Shawna. She’s great. I want to see her more than I can without us being engaged.”
“You’re not seeing her,” Jax snapped. “You asked her to marry you and she believed you meant it. She said yes. To marriage. This is a huge deal. You have made some bad choices in your life, but this is about the worst one. Do you know what you’ve set in motion? She’s planning a wedding.”
“She’s not. We agreed to take it slow. We’re not going to talk about the wedding for a few months.”
She could almost pity him. “Harris, she’s planning a church wedding for two hundred. She told me.”
He went pale. “What are you talking about?”
“She came to the store to talk to me because we’re all going to be a family now. She wanted to reassure me that she already likes the kids and as their stepmother, she won’t take my place.”
“She came to see you?”
“Yes. To tell me about the engagement. The ring is very nice, by the way. Oh and she wants Gentry to be a bridesmaid.”
He swore loudly. “No. We agreed we weren’t going to deal with the wedding. She wasn’t going to start planning.”
“The man of her dreams proposed. Did you really think life would go on as normal?”
“Yes!”
“Well, you’re wrong. Dammit, Harris, you’re playing with that woman’s life. If you’re not madly in love with her, you’re going to break her heart and all because you couldn’t wait a week between orgasms. That’s pretty shitty. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out the truth?”
He looked wide-eyed and shaken. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Of course not. That’s your job.”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
