He looks up, his dark eyes meeting mine in a way that makes him look the same way he did back then. This man is so good, and any woman would be lucky to be loved by him. But his life is here and always will be, and I’ve never been able to imagine myself staying in this town forever.
“How do we do this?” he asks quietly.
I shrug. “One day at a time?”
“Okay.”
“Or maybe one moment at a time.”
“Even better.”
I grab a pair of tennis shoes from the back seat, since I’m not about to stand in a bakery for hours in my heels, and then I look at King with determination. “First things first, I’m going to make you tell Meg that I’m your wife.”
He winces. “No, see, I thought it would go over better if you did that.”
Yeah, definitely not taking on that task. “But she knows you better.”
“You’re less likely to get slapped.”
I can’t help but laugh. Meg seemed nice enough when I worked with her, and it sounds like King never really gave her any signs that he might be interested. Unless he did without realizing it, which seems more likely than he thinks. If he’s anything like the guy I knew, he was probably plenty friendly and unknowingly filled her with hope.
I start walking toward the boardwalk, knowing King will follow because he always does. But now I have his orbit analogy in my head, and I can practically feel him behind me like he’s the moon to my planet, tugged along with me while I take my own path. Was it always that way?
“I’m not going to say a word to her,” I tell him, shaking away the unease that starts building in my belly. King is doing me a huge favor—monumental—by giving me his uncle’s bakery, and I don’t want him to feel like he’s being steamrolled. Outside of this Meg problem, anyway. “So unless you want her to hear the news from one of the regulars, you’re going to be the one to break it to her.”
He swears under his breath and then picks up his pace to walk even with me. “I forgot how stubborn you can be.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. But I hoped you grew out of it.”
I snicker. “I grew out of a lot of things, like skinny jeans and A cups, but I like to think I’ve only gotten more hard-headed.”
I can almost feel his eyes stray to my chest, though he quickly forces his gaze forward again as he says, “Is that why your boyfriend dumped you?”
The question catches me so off guard that my foot catches on a slightly raised plank of wood, tripping me. The only reason I don’t faceplant is because King grips my elbow.
“Sorry,” he says as he helps me up. He doesn’t sound all that apologetic. “I was curious if it was a creative differences sort of thing or if he got annoyed by your stubbornness too many times.”
“How do you even know about that?” I had planned to never mention Lane, seeing as my past relationship has no bearing on this one outside of the breakup being the reason I ended up here.
“Your stubbornness? It’s your defining feature.” He chuckles when I glare at him. I don’t think he’s trying to be mean—I don’t know if he’s capable of being truly cruel—but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his way of putting up some walls between us again. I’ll accept it, but only because those walls are going to be necessary if we want things to stay black and white.
“Coop,” he says when I don’t respond to his teasing. “Apparently he’s a fan of your show.”
“It’s not my show. Not anymore.” And as much as I never loved being on TV, Lane’s unilateral decision to kick me out will never sit easy with me. I know things were rough between us, but I didn’t think they were that bad. How many signs did I miss because I was so focused on what was ahead of me? It’s ironic how much time I spent trying to make sure things were working so I could control what happened, only for that determination to be the reason I lost control entirely.
I fold my arms around myself and sigh. “We should really get to the bakery and tell Meg that we’re married so she knows she works for me too now.”
Thankfully, he accepts my deflection and nods. “Yeah, I’ve got a lesson in an hour, so I should get that slap sooner than later so it has some time to fade.”
Meg doesn’t slap King, which seems to genuinely surprise him, but she does glare daggers at him when he leaves the bakery. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with me now that I’m not just a helping hand, eventually choosing to pretend I don’t exist as she goes about her tasks, and I decide I should probably watch my back from here on out.
Just in case.
Chapter Eight
King
I’m always so much happier on the water.
Taking my first student of the season out to try some waves feels like plugging in a piece of my soul that fell out two months ago when the last of my family slipped away. As I straddle the board, giving my student a few minutes to get comfortable on his own board, I tilt my head back and soak up the sun. I’m always eager for summer, when I have enough students to keep me busy and my shop really takes off, but things got a lot more complicated when Bill got sick.
I haven’t had a peaceful moment like this in months, and now that I have a wife, I doubt I’ll have many for a long time to come.
A wife. Georgie. It’s been three hours, and it still doesn’t feel real. And yet…
I can’t get the name Georgie Kingston out of my head, which is going to be a problem even if she has no plans to actually change her name. It’s like she was meant to be part of my family, which for generations has been of the opinion that only the names of the British monarchy are acceptable. Uncle Bill—William—and my dad, Edward, were only a small part of the Henrys and Elizabeths and Charleses that have made up my pedigree pretty much since the first colonizers arrived in what is now the eastern United States.
Maybe that’s why Kingstons don’t live to see old age. It’s our own hubris in thinking we deserve such lofty names.
I always liked the name Royal.
Georgie is the only person I ever willingly allowed to use my first name, and a part of me loves hearing it on her tongue again. I shouldn’t let her, but after our little truce this morning on the way back from the courthouse, my resolve is slipping. Ten years ago, I would have died happy being able to say that Georgie is my wife. Now… Now, I have to make sure I don’t let myself start to think any of it is real. She said herself that she’s not going to last long once she gets the bakery in her name, and then she’ll be gone.
Just like before.
