into this without a plan. And if I’m going to help you, you will help me. It’s in both of our best interests that it look real, once we take one step into confirming this, there is no going back. You understand?”
She nodded slowly.
“And you need to remember this. It’s essential for you, much more than it is for me. If this blows up it would simply be another bruise on my reputation, and frankly, what’s one more beating in that area? You on the other hand …”
“I could lose everything,” she said, a sharp pang of regret hitting her in the stomach.
“So we’ll make sure we don’t misstep,” he said. “I’ll follow you to your apartment.”
The thought of him, so big and masculine and … orderly, in her tiny, cluttered space, made her feel edgy. Of having a man, any man really, but a man like him specifically, in her space, was so foreign. But really, there was no other option. And she couldn’t act like he made her nervous. He was supposed to be her fiancé.
And people were somehow supposed to believe that he had chosen her.
“I feel dizzy,” she said.
He frowned. “Should I drive?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said, opening the driver’s side door. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated again, for her own benefit more than his.
And she really hoped it was true.
PAIGE’S house was very like her. Bright, disordered and a bit manic. The living area was packed with things. Canvases, mannequins, bolts of fabric. There was a large bookshelf at the back wall filled with bins. Bins of beads, sequins and other things that sparkled. Her office had simply been the tip of the iceberg.
This was the glittery underbelly.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “You can just dump my stuff on the couch.” She set the baby’s car seat gently on the coffee table and bent, unbuckling the little girl from her seat, drawing her to her chest.
He looked away from the scene. Watching her with the baby reminded him of things. He wasn’t even sure what things exactly, because every time a piece of memory tried to push into his mind, he pushed it out.
He focused instead on trying to find a hook of some kind, something to hang her bag on at least.
“Just dump it,” she said, shifting Ana in her arms.
“I don’t … dump things,” he said tightly.
She rolled her eyes. “Then hold Ana while I do it.”
He drew back, discomfort tightening his throat. “I don’t hold babies.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pick one,” she said.
He set her purse on her kitchen counter and then went farther into the living room, depositing her fabric on another pile of fabric, and placing her sketchbook next to a bin that had paints and pencils in it.
That had some reason to it, at least.
She laughed. “You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t just dump it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with caring for what you have.”
“I do care for it.”
“How do you find everything in here?”
She cocked her head to the side and he caught sight of the flash of pink buried in her hair again. “Easily.” She put her hand on Ana’s back and patted her absently, pacing across the living room.
There was no denying that she looked at ease in her surroundings, even if he couldn’t fathom it. He needed order. A space for everything. A clear and obvious space for himself. He prized it, above almost everything else.
He cleared his throat. “What size ring do you wear?”
“Six,” she said, frowning. “Why?”
“You need one.”
“Well, I have rings. I can just wear one of those,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.
“You do not have the sort of ring I would buy the woman I intended to marry.”
She paused her pacing. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t buy the sort of ring I would want.”
“We’ll come to a compromise, but your engagement ring must be up to my standards.”
She groaned and sank onto the couch, baby Ana still resting against her chest. “This is bizarre.”
“You’re the one who said we were engaged.”
“Yes. I know. And I knew the minute I said it I was in over my head but it just … popped out.”
For some reason, he didn’t doubt her. Probably because he was the least logical option to choose. If she’d been thinking, she would have chosen a different man. One who liked children and puppies and had some semblance of compassion.
He was not that man, and he knew it as well as everyone around him.
“I can’t lose her,” she said, her focus on the baby in her arms. “I can’t let one stupid mistake ruin her life. And mine.”
He looked at Paige, at the baby nestled against her, ignoring the piece of his brain that demanded he look away from the scene of maternal love. Ana took a deep breath, almost a sigh, that lifted her tiny shoulders and shook her whole little frame. She was content, at rest, against the woman she knew as her mother.
Unexpectedly, genuine concern wrenched his gut. It was foreign. Emotion, in general, was foreign to him. But this kind even more so.
“I understand,” he said. And he found that he did. “But that means this can’t just look real, it has to be real.”
It occurred to him, just as he spoke the words. The engagement wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be more. It would have to be marriage.
“You want to keep Ana.”
“More than anything,” she said.
“Then we have to be sure that the adoption is final before we go our separate ways. We need to get married, not just get engaged.”
She blinked twice. “Like … really get married?”
“I think a government office would be especially concerned with the legality of our union so we can’t very well jump over a broom on the beach.”
“But … but a real marriage?”
“Of course.”
Her blue eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”
He almost laughed at the abject horror evident in her expression. Most women didn’t look horrified if it was implied they might sleep together; on the contrary, he was used to women being eager to accept the invitation or eager to seek him out.
Though he turned his share down. Far too many were out to reform the bad boy. To make the man with the heart of stone care, to reach him, save him, perhaps. Something that simply wasn’t possible.
He wasn’t a sadist and he had no interest in hurting people. He could easily take advantage of wide-eyed innocents with a desire to reform him. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Still, he found Paige’s clear aversion to it interesting.
“I don’t mean in that way,” he said.
Her blue eyes widened further. “What way?” As if she had to prove her thoughts hadn’t even gotten near the bedroom door. She was a very cute, unconvincing liar.
“I