Royal Chase

“You would look adorable pregnant,” he said, and it was getting too serious, too real, and much too hot in this room, so I decided to change the discussion.

“I have a crow’s toe.”

“A what?” He probably thought it was some Southern thing that got lost in translation.

“You’ve heard of crow’s feet? Those lines around your eyes? I have a little one. A toe, not quite a foot yet.”

He walked over to me and looked into my eyes. This turned out to not be a good conversation topic either, as he was standing too close and uncontrollable parts of me liked his proximity very, very much.

“You don’t.”

I wished he would move. Or that my legs would work so I could. “I do. I’m getting old and wrinkled and will have to start buying more expensive eye cream.”

“The man who loves you will adore you even when you’re old and gray.” The unspoken message was very clear. Even I couldn’t pretend he was talking about something else. “Every line around your eyes would be a time he made you laugh. Every wrinkle in your beautiful face would mark the journey you’d taken together.”

So now he didn’t care if I got old or fat? He must have seen the disbelief on my face.

“I don’t fall into the camp of men who imagine their wives will stay young forever. And it doesn’t matter. Don’t misunderstand me, I like the way you look now, but I would still want to be with you, even when your outer beauty fades. Because we would still laugh, and I would still be excited every morning that I got to wake up next to you. I would always think that you were as beautiful as you were the day we met. If you were mine, I would never stop wanting you or thinking you were the most amazing woman I’d ever met.”

My breath hitched and my heart put in its two-week notice, letting me know it intended to quit. You quite literally could have knocked me over with a feather. I was unable to respond.

First, he’d told my parents he wanted me to be the mother of his child(ren), and now he was saying the most incredible thing any man had ever said to me. It was like the gloves had come off and he was just going to go for it. It was probably the closest thing he’d made to a confession of possibly being in love with me.

But he still hadn’t said it.

And did he mean any of it? Had he been saying the same exact things to Abigail, Genesis, and Michelle?

Was he kissing them? Holding them? Doing stuff with them? Was I special? Did I matter to him at all?

I didn’t know one way or the other, which made it even harder to make a decision. Because if he meant what he said, if that was the way he felt about me . . .

Then I had a very serious problem on my hands.

Fortunately, he didn’t push the issue or force me to answer. He took out his phone. It seemed like a strange thing to do. Who was he going to call?

He called a taxi company. I hated the way that I felt—wanting him to stay and wanting him to go at the same time.

Call finished, he walked over to the pool table. “I haven’t played this in a long time. We probably have time for a game before my taxi arrives. Do you play?”

“Uh-huh.” Wonderful. I had been reduced to single-syllable sounds.

“What if we made a wager?” He picked up a pool stick and chalked the end. “How about if I win, I get to kiss you, and if you win, you get to kiss me?”

Him trying to hoodwink me restored my speech. “I’m not one of your idiot bimbos. That’s the same thing, smart guy.” I also didn’t know why he’d said it, because he’d already proven that even if I wanted to kiss him, he wouldn’t cross that line until I was single and available.

“What do you propose then?”

I winced and wished he hadn’t used that word. I was back to where I was on graduation day, thinking about kissing him but not being able to. Part of me fantasized about telling him to stay put, driving down to Sterling’s law firm, and ending it. The other, smarter part of me urged me toward caution.

Sterling should have been there instead of Dante.

I hated this indecisiveness. It was so unlike me. I wanted something, made a decision, and went after it.

What I did know was that one man was with me here and now, and the other had been too busy. “Tell you what. If I win, you owe me. I can call on you at any time for any publicity reason, and you’ll show up, no questions asked. If you win . . .” I took in a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. “I’ll consider your offer.”