by Kara Isaac
“And Jackson doesn’t see it that way?”
Allie grimaced. “It’s hardly a good sign, is it? Planning to get married while drawing up contracts for who gets what if it doesn’t work out.”
Emelia didn’t know how to respond. She could hardly say a prenup epitomized certainty that their love would last forever.
“Jackson thinks it means I don’t trust him. The truth is I don’t care. It hadn’t even crossed my mind before these papers from my dad’s lawyer showed up, but my family dynamics are challenging, to say the least. Jackson signing them would make things a bit easier on that end.”
“Did you explain that to him?”
“I tried. Didn’t do a good job of it.”
“I’m sure he’ll be back in the morning. He probably just needs a bit of time to calm down. To process it rationally.” For reasons Emelia hadn’t been able to work out, Jackson never stayed over when he was in town for the weekend. Instead, he seemed to rotate around the couches and spare rooms of various friends.
“You think?” Hope glowed from Allie’s large green eyes.
Emelia had no idea. She hadn’t had anything approaching a serious relationship in years, and she’d certainly never had anything close to what Jackson and Allie had. “He may be a little mad at the moment, but he’s even madder about you.”
“I should text him. Tell him it doesn’t matter.” Allie reached for her phone.
“Would it be true?”
“What?”
“That it doesn’t matter.”
Allie bit her bottom lip for a second. “Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.”
Emelia had never seen her roommate look so uncertain. “Well then, what are the pros and cons of him signing?”
“It would make my parents happy.”
“And?”
“And . . .” Allie hesitated. There was clearly something there, but she didn’t want to verbalize it.
“Does part of you worry Jackson is attracted to your money?”
“No!” The word erupted out of Allie. The maiden doth protest too much. Allie’s shoulders slumped. “The last guy I married was after my money. I guess I still carry more baggage about that than I realized. I know Jackson isn’t after me for that . . . but then I guess a small part of me reminds me that at one time I would’ve sworn the same thing about Derek too.”
Yep, Emelia could see how that would play mind games with a girl. “Did he clean you out when you got divorced? Is that why your parents are worried?”
Allie shook her head. “We didn’t get divorced. The marriage was annulled. He got nothing. Well, nothing more.”
Emelia’s journalistic radar was practically in cardiac arrest. She’d have bet everything she had that there was one mighty big story crammed into those four short sentences. But now wasn’t the time. “Jackson knows all about Derek though?”
“Jackson knows everything.” Allie wrung her hands. “We’ve never fought like this.”
Jealousy snuck up on Emelia. Did Allie know how lucky she was that she could say that? No one knew everything about her. There was no one she’d ever been able to imagine trusting with her messy, mistake-ridden life.
An image of Peter slipped into her mind. The only person she’d ever met who made her want to indulge in the fantasy of what it would be like to have someone truly know you. She shook it loose. That was crazy thinking. She barely knew the guy, and, as she’d so emphatically told him, he definitely didn’t know the first thing about her.
“Not that I’m exactly one to be giving relationship advice, but if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about the prenup.”
“Why’s that?” Allie looked up from staring at the papers.
“That guy is head-over-heels insane about you. He would sooner lose a limb than ever leave you. If you guys can’t make it, no one can.”
Peter leaned back in his La-Z-Boy, his one piece of decent furniture; settled his family-sized bag of crisps on his lap; cracked open his one Saturday-night beer; and flicked on some sports highlights. His finger was poised on the remote to change channels if there was any sign of rowing coverage. Almost a year on, it still hurt too much to see his old teammates living his dream to be able to watch without something fierce and ugly twisting up his gut. So it was better that he didn’t.
He heard, then felt, the front door slam. He checked his watch. Not even eight. His flatmate, Tony, was on an evening shift at the hospital. And when Jackson was staying with them, he was never back before eleven. Occasionally he’d sneak in after midnight with a slightly sheepish look on his face, like he had a curfew or something.
But Peter’s couch guest stormed into the room, pulling up short when he saw Peter sitting there, staring at him.
“Sorry, didn’t think you’d be home.”
From the guy who was constantly giving him stick about his lack of a social life.
Jackson stomped to the fridge, reached in, and pulled out a bottle of beer. “Mind?” He was already twisting it open as he asked.
“Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” Jackson stomped back over, slumped onto the couch, placed his shoe-clad feet on the coffee table, and took a slug. Clearly not the right moment to remind him of the “no shoes on the furniture” rule.
“Highlights, huh?”
“Yup.” Peter aimed for nonchalant.
“Anything on the rowing?”
Peter didn’t bother to answer, just picked up the remote and turned the commentary on the diving down a couple of notches. “So, what’s up in paradise?”
“What do you mean?” Jackson did nonchalant badly.
“It’s not even eight.”
Jackson shrugged, faked being glued to some whippet-sized Chinese girl performing a double pike. “Maybe I just felt like an early night.”
Peter snorted. In all the months that Jackson had been spending weekends on his couch, Jackson and Allie had only separated themselves to get the bare minimum hours of functional sleep. The pair didn’t know what an “early night” was when they were in the same place. “Is this your first barney?” He’d have put money on it. He’d never seen the two of them really disagree. Which was odd, considering they were two quite strong personalities.
“First what?”
“Big fight.”
Jackson didn’t say anything. Just toed one shoe off and then another, leaving them to lie where they fell on the floor. Peter forced himself to take a casual sip of his beer, like it didn’t bother him. The guy may have come with model looks, but he certainly hadn’t come with model housekeeping habits.
They sat in silence for a few seconds, watching an Australian girl cram in a lot of somersaults between leaving the diving board and hitting the water.
Peter held out his bowl of crisps, shoulder twinging, and offered them to Jackson. He waved them away.
“She wants me to sign a prenup.” Jackson’s eyes didn’t leave the screen.
“Allie?”
“No, my other fiancée. Yes, Allie.”
“Huh.” Peter snagged a couple of crisps and palmed them into his mouth. Thought while he chewed. “And you don’t want to.”
“Would you?”
Peter shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve ever thought about it. I don’t think there’s a blanket right or wrong answer; I think it depends on the situation. I can imagine Mum and Dad would want Victor to if the estate wasn’t already in an ironclad trust.” Not that there was any chance of his brother making a commitment to any woman for longer than a night.
“You don’t see anything wrong with signing some contract before you get married about how you’re going to divvy up your assets if you split up?”
“Well, I can’t say it’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“It doesn’t feel right. It’s like having a Plan B. Like ‘Oh well, hopefully this works out but if not we already know what everyone’s getting out of it.’ ”
Peter grabbed a handful of crisps and chomped down on them as Jackso
n continued.
“It’s insulting. It’s humiliating. Like they’d better cover the bases in case I’m after her for her money.”
“Who’s they?”
“Her family. Her family has money. The prenup came from her father’s lawyer.”
“So it wasn’t Allie’s idea.”
Jackson shook his head. “The papers just showed up today.”
“So, let me get this straight. It wasn’t Allie’s idea, it was her father’s. Her family has a lot of money. Plus, they barely know you. It’s not like the two of you spent the last five years dating so you can convince them you’re the guy for her. Given all that, I’d be stunned if they didn’t want one.”
“Guess I didn’t think of it like that.”
“Do you care about her money? Their money?” Peter took another sip of his beer.
“Of course not!” One of Jackson’s hands curled into a fist.
“Then what does it even matter? Just sign the thing if it makes her parents happy. It’s never going to be needed. Anyone who has to spend more than thirty seconds witnessing how nauseatingly perfect you guys are for each other knows that.”
Jackson groaned. “I was such a jerk.”
Peter didn’t say anything. If he’d had any girl look at him the way Allie looked at Jackson, he would’ve signed the thing with his own blood if she’d asked it.
Jackson got to his feet. “I need to fix this.”
Peter turned back to the TV screen just in time to see the camera panning over a lake and a lineup of boats. He didn’t even wait to see who was racing before his finger hit the off button on the remote. “Want a ride?”
Twenty-Two
EMELIA AND ALLIE MADE HOT chocolates and settled into the comfy chairs to watch Notting Hill. There were some situations that just needed a floppy-haired Hugh Grant from the nineties.
Emelia was immersed in Hugh interviewing Julia when the door flew open. They both jumped and turned as Jackson strode back into the room.
Emelia looked at her watch. An hour and forty minutes since he’d left. That was fast. She’d cooked meals that took longer than this fight.
Without even glancing Emelia’s way, he strode up to Allie, who’d risen from her chair. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Allie looked a little wary. Not that Emelia could blame her, given how he’d stormed out, but it was a different guy who was back.
Wrapping his arms around her, Jackson tugged Allie to him. “I’m sorry.”
Allie’s lip wobbled. “I’m sorry too. You’re right. I never should have asked it of you.”
“No. You should’ve. It’s okay. Your family hardly knows me. I don’t blame them for being wary. And I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it. I will sign whatever you want me to. Your father can have all of my stuff too if he wants it. All I care about is marrying you.”
Allie reached up and fisted her hands around his sweater, tugging him down to her. “And all I care about is marrying you. I don’t want a prenup. I’m so sorry that between Derek and my family I’m making this all so hard. Way harder than it should be.”
Emelia really needed to get out of here before it got awkward. Allie had clearly forgotten that she was in there, and she wasn’t sure if Jackson had even noticed.
She backed out of the room at a quiet shuffle, eyes to the ground. She moved the door enough for her to slip through, and she got out and breathed a sigh of relief in the hallway.
She sent a silent prayer of thanks up for their old-fashioned no-sleepovers thing. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with loud make-up sex on top of everything else.
“What’s the everything else?”
Pure reflexes kicked in and she spun around, her leg lashing out and sweeping the person behind her off their feet.
They went down with an oomph. A streak of orange streamed across her vision, confirming the voice she’d identified a split second after she’d kicked him. Peter hit the recycling bin Emelia had put down earlier, halfway through taking it outside. Cans and bottles rolled everywhere.
“Are you an actual ninja?” Peter offered up his question from where he lay splayed on the wooden floor.
“Oh my gosh.” Emelia put her palm to her thundering chest and sucked in a couple of gulps of air. “Do you want to give me a heart attack?” Oh, wow. This was not good. “Your shoulder! Did you land on it? Is it okay?
She was going to be the girl who’d destroyed whatever big comeback dreams he still had. She had to remember Oxford wasn’t LA. And she was just a charity fund-raiser. Not a tabloid reporter who regularly received death threats.
“It’s fine.” He sucked in a breath as he rotated it. “Well, no worse than it was before you floored me anyway.”
Well, at least there was that. To buy herself a few seconds, Emelia crouched down. Righting the bin, she picked up a couple of cans and bottles, tossing them back in.
“I’m sorry.” He at least had the decency to look sheepish. He pushed his torso up off the floor, then levered himself onto his feet so he was crouching. “Jackson left his wallet in my car. I was going to just put it on the table and text him, but then you came out . . . well, more like backed out . . . and I didn’t want you to turn around and just find me standing here.”
“Yeah, because that would’ve been so much less terrifying than what you did.” She reached for a bottle just as he did, both of their hands grasping it. She let go, her gaze moving up his broad chest.
“Sorry.” His mouth quirked, like he was struggling to contain laughter, which made her review the last few minutes.
She felt the burn starting at the end of her feet and working up her body. “I said my last thought aloud, didn’t I?” She must’ve. Because she distinctly recalled his asking what the everything else was.
The quirk broke into a grin as he stood. “You did.”
Wow. That wasn’t embarrassing at all. And now they were both staring at each other thinking about make-up sex. Awkward.
“So . . .” She cleared her throat. She tried to work out where to go from here. Then busied herself trying to pick up the nearest pieces of trash.
“What happened?” Emelia glanced over her shoulder to see that the commotion had even jolted the lovebirds out of their canoodling.
Peter stood. “I made the mistake of giving Emelia a fright. Didn’t realize she was a ninja.”
Emelia put her hands up. “Just a few self-defense classes.” She preferred to keep her martial arts abilities to herself.
Jackson let out a low whistle as Allie picked up the last couple of bottles by her feet and added them to the bin. “Those must’ve been some classes.”
Peter held out Jackson’s wallet. “Don’t say I’ve never put my body on the line for you. You forgot this.”
Jackson took it and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. “Thanks. We were just going to head out and grab something to eat. We’ll see you guys later.” The front door opened, then shut, and they were gone, leaving her and Peter alone.
Emelia went for the first thing she thought of to fill the silence. “Would you like coffee? Or tea?” She had no idea what it was with the British and their tea. Almost everyone she’d met drank so much of the stuff, it might as well have been in an IV line.
Then she blinked, realizing she’d just asked a guy she was crazy attracted to to stay. Late at night. With no one else there. She never would have done that back home. Not in a second. “So, um, how about we talk about the cricket?”
One second he’d been mesmerized by the sight of Emelia backing out of the living area muttering under her breath. The next he’d been on his back, winded. Thank goodness he’d managed to instinctively twist himself to cushion his shoulder from the worst of the blow. He’d only just liberated it from the sling.
Put on his butt by a girl. Not that he necessarily had an issue with that. Rowing, he’d met a lot of girls who could beat most guys arm wrestling just using their pinkies. But it was like she hadn’t even tried. The words were barely out of
his mouth before he’d been staring at the ceiling. And he wasn’t a small guy.
He watched the ninja out of the corner of his eye as she put something in the microwave, then turned and poured tea into one cup and hot water into a second. Self-defense classes. Huh. There was no chance she’d learned that move from a course at the Y.
There was more to this girl than met the eye. And his eyes already liked what they saw. A lot. Peter blew out a puff of air. What was he thinking?
“Milk?” From the way Emelia said it, it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.
“Um, yes, thanks. Just a little.”
“Sugar?”
Did he take sugar? With her staring expectantly at him like that, he couldn’t remember. “No. Thanks.”
She doctored his cup and then carried them over. “Sorry if it’s no good. I know how seriously your country takes your tea.” She placed her cup on the coffee table, leaned over and put his in front of him, then stepped back and settled into the other end of the couch. If he reached out and moved over slightly, he could run his fingers through her gorgeous wavy hair. It was loose, spilling over her shoulders. The last few times he’d seen her, it had been in a ponytail. He liked it this way a whole lot more.
He reined himself in, kept his hands busy picking up his cup and taking a sip. It was bad. Too weak. How long had she steeped it for, like thirty seconds? And not enough milk.
“Okay?” Emelia was watching him over the rim of her cup.
“Great. Thanks.” He put the cup down. Hoped he could avoid having to drink all of it. “So, how would next Sunday work for you to go and look at this potential ball venue? We could go around lunchtime. I’ve got church in the morning.” He watched her closely to see what her reaction was to his use of the C-word again. A small foolish part of him hoped that she might want to join him.
“Okay. Sounds good. What time does church finish?” There wasn’t any interest, but it also wasn’t the allergic reaction he’d gotten the first time, so he’d take it.