“I wish you could trust me.”
“You don’t trust me, either, or you wouldn’t have a prenuptial agreement. And I think you’d be insane to trust me that much, when you don’t even know me.”
“I’m only trying to help you. And this would benefit both of us.”
“I believe you’re trying to be nice, but you’re also naïve. Marriage isn’t easy.” In that moment, her entire body seemed to sag. She wobbled on her feet and grasped for the back of the dining chair beside her. “Nathan loved me when we got married and look what happened. How can you expect it to turn out better when we don’t love each other?”
He moved to support her elbow and urged her to sit down. It seemed all the fight had gone out of her, because she didn’t resist.
“Let’s eat while we talk and you can think about it. There’s no hurry to decide.”
“How long can I think about it?”
He smiled. Maybe there was a chance she would change her mind. “Our appointment to get our marriage license isn’t until three o’clock tomorrow.”
Though he’d said nothing to warrant her scorching glare, the heat of it forced him back a step.
I sure hope this hormonal moodiness doesn’t last the whole nine months.
Brooke swallowed another delectable bite of lasagna. She’d listened to her stomach rather than her head and agreed to postpone further discussion of the impossible marriage until they ate. She couldn’t let that delicious-smelling dinner go to waste.
“You never answered my question about your last name—Ponzio.” Cole helped himself to a piece of garlic bread and would’ve added another one to Brooke’s plate if she hadn’t waved him off. “Is that your maiden or married name?”
“It’s my maiden name. I kept it to make Dad happy. He didn’t have any sons to pass on the family name.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “It turned out to be a good thing, when I got a divorce. Since I didn’t have to change my name, no one at work knows it happened.”
“You have a close family?” he asked, before taking a bite of garlic bread.
“Just me and my sister, Harper.” She snapped her fingers. “Harper! She’s the solution to this whole problem. You can marry her, instead of me, like I suggested in the first place. You get out of doing the Matchup show. I don’t have to worry about my independence. Everybody’s happy.” Especially Harper!
Brooke didn’t say what she was thinking because she didn’t want to scare Cole away. She couldn’t imagine him living with her sister for six months without falling head over heels in love. Every guy who’d ever met Harper was in love with her, though she’d been too focused on finishing vet school to pursue a serious relationship. But if Harper were going to make an exception to that rule for anyone, it would be Cole Miller.
He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “Two problems with that idea. First, I don’t know or trust Harper. And second, that doesn’t help you and the baby.”
Brooke pushed her plate forward, her half-eaten dinner suddenly unappetizing. “I know you mean well, but you need to get this through your thick skull… I don’t want your help.”
“You may not want it, but you need it.” Cole gestured with a forkful of lasagna. “You don’t want it, because you think there’re strings attached. But there aren’t any.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Everything has strings attached. Life is full of invisible strings. They get all tangled, and you have to cut them off if you ever want to be free.”
Cole abandoned the last of his lasagna and shoved his plate away. “What would it take for you to feel safe?”
Brooke considered her answer carefully. Now was her chance to convince him this was a lost cause. “For one thing, we’d have to end the marriage before the baby came. I don’t want you making a claim on him.”
“You could file for divorce whenever you want. My attorney says we can’t put an end date on the prenup, anyway. We could be married as short as a couple of months.” Something resembling insecurity marred his usual swagger. “If you can stand me that long…”
“Don’t pretend this is about me rejecting you.” She used the scolding tone she’d acquired from her mother and grandmother. “This is me turning down a ridiculous business proposal that endangers my parental rights.”
Cole tapped a finger on his chin. “What if we have a separate signed agreement where I acknowledge that you’re already pregnant and I agree to give up any parental claims? I think it would be valid, as long as you don’t ask for child support.”
“That’s good, because I don’t want it.” Her gut eased a bit when he didn’t insist on behaving like the baby’s father.
“That’ll make Garner happy, too.” He wiped his hand on his napkin and moved to the kitchen counter to grab his cell phone. “I’ll jot off a note to him now, and see if he can whip up that contract.”
“Wait a minute. Wouldn’t it be simpler all around if you just married someone else? You wouldn’t have all these extra complications if you were with my sister.”
And I won’t have to worry about getting my heart broken, again.
He looked up from his phone screen. “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in marrying anyone else. If you won’t do it, I’ll just break the contract and pay the penalty.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” She pushed away from the table, her chair legs scraping on the floor, probably adding yet another chip to the ceramic tile. She carried their plates to the kitchen counter. “Why choose me? It’s not like you’re in love with me and want to spend the rest of our lives together.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Do you think I’m so financially destitute that you need to make me your pet project?” She scraped a plate off in the trash and put it down in the sink with too much force, clattering it in the stainless-steel sink. She whirled to face him across the narrow galley kitchen. “Because I’ll be fine. I’ve got family. If I need to, I can always move home.”
Not that she was looking forward to having her parents interfering in her life again. They meant well, but she dreaded their daily criticism.
“That’s not it.” He abandoned his cell phone and jammed his hands into his pockets, only succeeding with his prosthesis on the second try. “It’s the fact that you’re pregnant and you don’t want anything from me.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“I told you why I never want to get married or have kids.” His gaze dropped to his white-socked feet. With one toe he traced the grout in the tile. “When you dropped into my life, it was like a sign from God.”
“Meeting a pregnant woman was a burning bush that made you change your mind about everything? Now you want to get married?”
“No. Well, not exactly…” He cleared his throat. “It’s a chance for me to try it out, with no consequences. I get to see what it’s like to live with a woman and watch a baby grow… see the miracle happen. There’s a chance I really will change my mind. Decide it’s worth the risk. Then, if I meet the right woman, maybe I’ll go on a second date and a third. And one day, if I can learn to trust her as much as Bran and Finn and Jarrett, maybe I’ll get married and have children.”
