“I’m mad at you,” I murmured.
“I’m mad at you too. You said you’d tell them in a couple weeks. You didn’t.”
I frowned. “I’m aware.”
“Don’t you think it will be better this way? If people find out from us instead of gossip?”
“Or not at all,” I murmured.
Jasper studied my face, his eyes narrowing. “You weren’t going to tell them, were you?”
The blame, the scorn, in his voice made me wince. “No one needed to know.”
His jaw clenched. “That’s why you want the annulment.”
“Do you really want everyone to know?”
Jasper didn’t answer. He just cast his gaze toward the island and the stack of mail on its surface.
It turned quiet. Too quiet. He might be okay with these long stretches of silence but they made me squirm. The vinyl beneath my thighs squeaked.
He had a right to be angry. So did I.
But the damage had been done. By both parties.
Hiding this marriage was no longer an option.
“How did you tell them?” I asked Jasper. “Foster and Talia? How did you tell them?” Maybe I could steal his explanation because at the moment, my own eluded me.
He sighed. “Told them I fucked up.”
Brutal. But effective. And true. “Then what?”
“Said I married your sister. Talia assumed it was Lyla. Then you walked in the door.”
To freak out and announce our marriage.
“Ugh.” I dropped my elbows to the table, letting my head fall into my hands. “What a cluster.”
My phone vibrated again. The curiosity was too much, so I slipped it out. Talia. She’d called three times. Lyla, only once.
“How do we fix this?” The question was for myself, but Jasper answered.
“What if we called off the lawyers?”
“Huh? What do you mean? We have to get the annulment. Or . . . a divorce. We need the lawyers.”
Jasper stared at that stack of mail on the island, his expression focused on whatever was on the top. “What if we stay married?”
I rubbed my ears. They didn’t seem to be working right today. “Say that again.”
He stood straighter, his gaze whipping to me. “What if we stayed married?”
“You want to stay married. How does that fix this?”
“Hear me out. What if this marriage wasn’t some drunken mistake?”
“Except it was a drunken mistake.” Had he forgotten that we’d both been riding the alcohol express as we’d walked into the Clover Chapel and messed up our lives?
“We know that,” he said. “No one else does.”
“I don’t understand.” I pressed my fingers to my temples, to the headache that had sent me to Lyla’s coffee shop in the first place. It had faded momentarily, during my panic attack. But it was brewing again, raging behind my skull.
“Instead of hiding this, what if we owned it? Tell everyone we got married. Admit it was rushed and reckless. But tell them there’s something here and we’re going to see if it works.”
My hands fell along with my jaw. “Stay married. To me? But I just announced to the coffee shop that we’re getting an annulment.”
Jasper lifted a shoulder. “We tell them it’s not a for-sure thing. Which it isn’t. And that we’re just exploring our options.”
Stay married. That was impossible. Wasn’t it?
Jasper’s gaze flicked to the stack of mail again. It was subtle. But something on that stack kept drawing his attention.
“What are you not telling me?” I asked.
He faced me, pinning his shoulders back, making them seem even broader. “I need a favor.”
“And I’m guessing that favor has something to do with whatever you keep staring at.” I pointed to the mail.
Jasper nodded, plucking a square card from the stack. “I need to go to a wedding at the end of June. Go with me.”
“As your wife?”
“As my wife.” The way his voice dipped, low and gravelly, sent a shiver rolling over my shoulders.
“And after the wedding?”
“We’ll get divorced.”
Divorced. There’d be no annulment. No erasing this mistake.
“I know you want this to be annulled,” he said. “But there was always a good chance we’d have to go through with a divorce instead.”
My shoulders slumped. “I know.”
“I’ll take the blame,” he said. “You can tell the world it was my fault. Tell your family I was a horrible husband. Tell them I cheated or something.”
“No.” My lip curled. I wasn’t going to paint Jasper out to be a person he wasn’t. “They’d hate you for that. Foster would hate you. We’ll just tell them it didn’t work out.”
Jasper took one step toward me, then stopped. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”
Did it? My mind was reeling.
I’d gone to Eden Coffee for some caffeine to chase away a headache. Less than thirty minutes later, Jasper and I were discussing a fake marriage.
“Who?” I asked. “Whose wedding?”
Jasper dropped his gaze, staring at his boots for a long moment. Then he lifted his chin and whatever openness he’d had a moment ago in those dark eyes was gone. They looked shielded. Hard.
“My ex-wife’s.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JASPER
There was a gap in the trees surrounding the A-frame. It was no more than twenty feet in diameter, but it was enough to see past the needles and boughs and sweeping limbs to the glowing midnight sky above.
The breeze brought with it the scent of pine. Smoke from the fireplace trickled from the cabin’s chimney. An owl hooted in the distance, but otherwise, it was quiet. Peaceful. Empty.
If I stood here long enough, neck craned to the heavens, would the stars offer some advice? I could use some tonight.
Not long after I’d handed that wedding invitation to Eloise, watching closely as she’d read it twice, she’d stood from that cheap folding chair and asked to be driven back to town. She needed time to think about my proposal.
So I’d taken her home, dropped her off at the curb, then watched as she’d dug her key from beneath the mat and slipped inside.
It had gone against every gentlemanly manner my parents, tutors and nannies had instilled in me not to escort Eloise to the door. But damn it, I didn’t trust myself.
A hot, mind-blowing fuck wasn’t going to change the fact that my life was a dumpster fire. Eloise and I had enough complications at the moment.
When I’d returned to the A-frame, I’d spent an hour online, searching for a new dining room set. The card table had always been temporary. It hadn’t bothered me, not until today. Not until Eloise had sat in that cheap, flimsy chair.
She deserved better.
In furniture.
In husbands.
What was she thinking? What was I thinking?
The guilt I’d thought would vanish by spilling our secret had only grown. I’d fucked up. Again.
Eloise had called me a thief.
She hadn’t been wrong.
Telling Foster and Talia, taking that chance from her, might just be the worst thing I’d done in years.
Was that why I’d pitched this idea to stay married? Because I just kept screwing everything up?