But if she didn’t, would that mean she was only biding her time for a moment where Adam might be more willing to agree to live a lie with her?
No—that was precisely why she had to do it now.If she hid the notion from him when she was still seriously contemplating it herself, then she was lying to him—or even worse, hoping he’d change the part of himself that inconvenienced her.
Never, Ellie vowed fiercely.
Steeling herself, she sat down on the bedroll and drew up her knees.“While we’re on the subject…”
Adam looked from the blankets to his damp trousers.
“You could take them off,” Ellie suggested.
“Slept in worse.”Adam kicked off his boots and dropped beside her.
Kalb flopped down at his side, gazing up hopefully.With a sigh, Adam rubbed his belly.The dog melted into the gesture.
Weariness was written in the slump of Adam’s shoulders.“On the subject…?”he prompted.
Ellie drew in a breath and got to it.“Constance has suggested that perhaps utilizing a fiction of sorts around our actual marital status might be a valid way of navigating our rather unique situation.”
“You lost me,” Adam informed her bluntly.
“She thinks we should pretend to be married,” Ellie blurted out.
Adam’s brows arched with surprise.“But you’d hate that.”
“I would?”
“Pretending to be married?”
“Toyou,” Ellie emphasized.“I know it would look like I was going along with an institution that I fervently oppose, but we wouldn’t be—not really—and we would both know that.We’d just be… choosing who we decided to share that with.”
Adam looked thoughtful.
Ellie hurried on, her stomach lurching with worry.“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have even brought it up.I’d be asking you to do exactly what you just told me has been so dreadfully bad for you—living a lie.”
He shook his head.“It’s not the same thing at all.”
“It isn’t?”
His brow rose.“Pretending I want to marry you?That’s not a lie, Ellie.I already told you, I would’ve asked you weeks ago if I thought you’d be open to the idea.It’s not lying to pretend to do something I would’ve happily done all along.Hell—in a way it’d be more honest than what wehavebeen doing.”
Hope fluttered up in Ellie’s chest, light and fragile.“It would be?”
“What do you think’s more real?Pretending I’m just your brother’s friend, and then sneaking off to fool around with each other when no one’s looking?”He traced his fingers along the line of her jaw.“Or telling the world that we’re crazy about each other?”
Hope welled up in Ellie, turning real.
Adam drew her down to the bedroll, wrapping his arm around her back.Ellie tucked herself against his side, her head resting on his bare shoulder.
She traced her fingers over the familiar contours of his chest.“I have been thinking of what Zeinab said back in Egypt—that we don’t have to fight tyranny by banging on the door.And we don’t.It’s none of their business how we’ve chosen to love each other.Or what we do to protect that love in the face of a world that refuses to understand it.”
His face darkened with worry again.“I just don’t want to let you down.”
“Who’s voice is that?”Ellie chided him softly.
“This time?Mine.”
Understanding snapped into place with a wrench.“Pretending to be that other Adam is hurting you.”
