“Seeing them,” I say. “I think it’s important that you have the freedom to…I mean, obviously, you would have to be careful, but I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s fair for me to stop you should you want to?—”
“Wait,” he says, cutting me off. “Obviously we can’t date anyone else publicly, so when you sayseeing people,are you talking about sex?”
I close my eyes, scrunching my forehead up in embarrassment. The truth is, I really don’t like the idea of him sleeping with other people. But he won’t be sleeping with me, so it feels like something we should talk about just in case.
“Sarah,” Carter says, his tone firm but gentle. “Look at me.”
I squint one eye open, then force myself to open the other.
“That’s not going to happen,” he says.
I bite my lip. “It won’t?”
He quickly shakes his head. “Not for me. I have too much respect for you and too much respect for marriage to let people think I would ever sneak around behind your back.”
Honestly. Every time I talk to this man, it’s more and more obvious why Miles picked him.
He’s just so good.
“I feel the same way,” I say. “Especially with you having such a high-profile career. But if you were to ever change your mind, I wouldn’t judge you for it. A year is a long time.”
He smirks. “If a year without sex was going to kill me, I wouldn’t be alive to have a conversation about it. Monogamy is the only look I’m going for. Nothing is going to change that.”
I can’t truly quantify how much I like his answer. But the relief washing over me is as potent as it is powerful. Not just that Carter wants to honor the marriage but that he isn’t the kind of guy to have casual relationships in the first place. It wouldn’t have disqualified him—I’m in no position to judge people’s choices. But I like that we align in this way.
“What about you?” Carter asks. “Are you shutting down an active dating life so you can marry me?”
I laugh even as my face flushes with heat. “Not even close. I haven’t dated anyone in almost three years. Maybe if I were better at dating, I wouldn’t need my big brother to browbeat a teammate into saving me.”
He smiles. “No browbeating has happened, I promise.”
I hold his gaze. “But you are saving me.”
He reaches over and puts the pen and paper on the nightstand, then lifts his arms, propping his hands behind his head. “Three years is a long time. Will you tell me about your last boyfriend?”
I stifle a yawn. Now that we’ve finished the rules conversation, which went so much better than I thought it would, the emotions of everything are catching up with me. Plus, it has to be close to two, possibly even three, in the morning.
Carter pats the bed beside him. “Come on. Tell me from over here.”
He doesn’t have to ask me twice.
I walk to the foot of the bed, then crawl up to the other side, keeping a healthy measure of distance between us—easy in such a giant bed.
“My last boyfriend was a guy named Diego,” I say. “I met him junior year of my undergrad and we dated until right after I graduated.”
“What happened?” Carter asks.
“We just grew apart, I think. I was staying in Savannah to do my master’s, and he wanted to move home to Boston, and neither of us seemed to care about being together enough to either make long distance work or change our plans. It became very obvious very quickly that we were not meant to make it.”
“I get that. But seriously,no onesince then?” he says, his tone light and teasing.
“Don’t judge,” I say. “I’ve been busy.” I yawn again, which is surprising. Wearing Carter’s clothes, snuggling into a bed when he’s less than three feet away, I might have guessed I wouldn’t be able to relax. But it actually feels like the opposite. I almost feelmorerelaxed simply because he’shere. “I’ve tried a few times. But…” I hesitate, not sure I want to admit this next part.
“But?” he prompts.
“I don’t know. I think I’m scared. Scared to love someone I might lose. Or trust someone who might hurt me…”
Carter looks over at me. “You’ve been through a lot,” he says gently. “Losing your mom. And then dealing with your dad…”
