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Duffy’s face was blank and white with shock. She obviously welcomed my gesture just a little more than she would an intrusion of an entire army into her apartment.
And shestillhadn’t said a damn word.
Through a tight, unwavering smile, I ground out, “Take your time, Poppins. It’s not like we have an audience.”
“Eh ... of course I’ll marry you ... uhm,darling,” she mumbled, finally, with all the enthusiasm of a woman who had been offered a trip through a minefield. Barefoot. “It would be my honor.”
The lukewarm acceptance didn’t stop people from darting up to their feet, clapping and cheering for us. Dozens of people bracketed Duffy’s seat as I produced the ring I’d purchased at a pawnshop and slipped it onto her engagement finger. It was a simple, thin golden band with a square emerald at the center. The guy at the pawnshop said it was at least two hundred years old, which happened to fit into the kind of marriage style my fiancée wanted for herself.
“My God,” she murmured under her breath, wiggling her delicate fingers, admiring the thing. “It’sstunning.”
This, I knew, wasn’t an act. Her purple eyes sparkled like diamonds. I was surprised she found the cheap jewelry so lovely.
“Not half as stunning as you.” I lunged forward, grabbing the back of her head and kissing her temple. Her skin was hot and soft and fucking delicious. Too pure to belong to such a cunning, superficial creature. She froze the minute we touched, her breath stilling. I pulled back more reluctantly than I cared to admit.
Our eyes met and locked in a strange trance.
“I’ve been told there’s an engagement going on,” the conductor’s voice pierced through the silence in our car, making people go wild with cheers and laughter. “Congratulations to the happy couple.”
Poppins glanced around, looking self-conscious and disoriented.
“Hey!” a woman dressed in a suit who angled her phone toward us shouted. “That was the best proposal I’ve ever seen. The least you can do is give your man a real kiss.”
“Kiss!” the crowd began chanting. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
I peered down to catch Poppin’s mien. She looked like she was about to faint. I widened my eyes in what I hoped conveyedYou don’t have to do this.We don’t owe these people anything.But the truth was, it was going to look weird as hell if she didn’t kiss me.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“Hell, girl, if you don’t kiss him, I will, and I’m not gonna stop there!” one commuter threatened with a giggle.
Duffy looked around us in a daze. She was clearly overwhelmed. Sweat began coating her forehead. Suddenly, I felt like a class A shitbag for putting her through this. Iknewshe wasn’t a public-declarations kind of girl. Still, I’d done it for my own selfish reasons.
Sorry,I mouthed. I really was. Not enough to do it differently if I could—I’d grown too accustomed to putting myself above everyone else—but seeing her so miserable made my stomach feel like that time I got intense food poisoning in Spain.
With her lips flattened in disgust, Duffy rose on her toes. Everything happened in slo-mo. She put her hand awkwardly on my chest, which flexed instinctively under her touch. That made her jolt back, which mademewrap my arms around her waist, making sure she didn’t fall. She tilted her head up. Her eyes were full of misery and trepidation.
She was also the loveliest fucking thing I’d ever seen in my entire life, every landscape on Planet Earth included. No mountain, no hill, no lake, no ocean even came in a close second.
“You don’t have to,” I hissed. “Remember what we discussed? Don’t give people power over you.”
“I . . . I . . . I . . .”
“Want to kill me?” I offered as the entire population of the car continued chanting for us to kiss. The voices somehow drowned us out in the private capsule we both seemed to share.
Duffy moved her tongue around her mouth like it was numb. “I have stage fright.”
“Lucky we have a captive audience.”
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
“No, you don’t understand, I ...” She took a ragged breath. “When I was little, I wasn’t very popular at school. I went to a gifted public school on a full scholarship, while Kieran went to a ‘normal’ school. I was the only poor kid there. And I was ... well,verypoor. During recess, other students used to gather around me and shout what they thought about me. About my uniform, my family, my ... my lunch box. How empty it was. I don’t like attention.”
So that was where her obsession with money stemmed from. She was ridiculed for it.
“These people are not your asshole bullies,” I said quietly.
She blinked, processing it all very slowly. “I’m also a terrible kisser.”
