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After a few hours of driving, we pulled into a gas station to fill up, get some snacks, and go to the bathroom. Poppy would be proud of our snack consumption.
My friends hadn’t left Montecito yet, so we were set to arrive back in Seattle well before them. I was fine with that. I was ready to be back.
Poppy had sent more pictures, one of which included a corner of the duke and duchess’s home. She and Annabel were planning to get on the road in about an hour and would spend the night on the way. I was glad they were enjoying themselves. Yasmine was going to stay for another few days. She and Matt had talked for a while, and things were looking good, according to Poppy.
Go, Yasmine!
After Marco and I had been on the road for a few more hours, I offered to drive.
He declined, but thanked me for the offer. I finally felt ready to ask him how his marriage arrangement with Yasmine had come about and how he felt now that it was over.
We definitely needed to have this discussion before we got busy between the sheets. I needed to know that he was ready to move forward.
“So…” I paused, gathering the courage. “Tell me about how you and Yasmine got together.” I was trying to sound as casual as I could. “She told me a lot of it from her perspective, but I’d love to hear the story from yours.”
“Sure,” he replied easily. “A marriage arrangement is not something I ever thought I’d do, so when my mother asked me to consider one, it took me a while to get my brain around the idea.” He flashed me a smile. I wanted to touch him. My fingers curled in anticipation. “I agreed to talk to Yasmine—not getting on board for the actual arrangement itself yet—just to make my mother happy. She’d just started chemo. I would’ve done almost anything she asked at that point.”
“I’m sorry your mother is sick,” I said. “That’s hard.”
He nodded. “It’s been incredibly difficult, but she’s doing much better, thankfully. The tumor was in her liver, but the doctor was able to get it all, and it hadn’t metastasized. The liver has the wonderful ability to regenerate, so we’re hopeful.” He adjusted his hands on the wheel, seeming completely at ease. “When she broached the subject of an arranged marriage with me over a year ago, I wasn’t having any luck in the relationship department, so I decided why not make her happy and, at the same time, maybe find the right woman for me.”
“Sounds logical,” I said.
“My mother has a complicated past,” he went on. “She’s been estranged from her family for a very long time, and it’s been incredibly painful for her. She immigrated to Spain from Morocco in the mideighties at seventeen and married my father a year later, without her family’s consent. She was basically disowned after that. Then she and my father immigrated to the US in the nineties and had me. She had a rough pregnancy with me, so I’m an only child. Her parents both died before she could return to Spain to try to make amends.”
That was so sad.
It made total sense that he wanted to make his mother happy.
“We learned about Yasmine when my grandmother’s best friend found out about my mom’s cancer and started emailing her. She mentioned she had an eligible granddaughter who might be a good match for me. Arranged marriages are very common in Morocco, especially in the smaller villages. My mom’s mother found love in her arranged marriage. And my mother has known couples throughout her life who thrived and some who didn’t.” He reached out to grab my hand. I smiled. “Yasmine and I started corresponding soon after. We got along so well that a few months later, it actually seemed like it might work. You’ve spent time with her, so you know she’s nice, super smart, and has a great sense of humor. We have a lot of things in common.”
“That’s what she said. She said you were both very hopeful it would become a love match.”
“We definitely were. Kind of our own Moroccan-American love story. We kept joking that it would be a fun tale to tell our kids one day.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But after a while, the relationship just…plateaued. We didn’t start to dislike each other, but it never went to the next level. Our personalities didn’t mesh romantically no matter how hard we tried. She’d want to go out when I wanted to stay in, and vice versa. Our humor is different. I’m nerdy and more of an introvert. She’s very extroverted. I’ve been in the car with you for a few hours, and every single second of it has been fluid and easy. It’s never like that between Yasmine and me. There’s always a barrier between us, like something is in the way. We couldn’t get past it.”
“You think it’s because she still has feelings for Matt? This is going to sound a little strange, but I’ve had trouble not comparing the few men I’ve dated to you.” It’d likely been why those unions hadn’t worked out. “Or I’d compare the relationship that I imagined we would have had if we’d dated in college. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.”
“I think something like that definitely played a part for her,” Marco said. “Yasmine didn’t tell me about Matt until just a few months ago. After I proposed and the gravity of what we were doing sank in, we both knew it wasn’t the right choice. We’d become good friends, but that wasn’t enough to translate into a committed marriage. She confessed her lingering feelings for Matt and told me how their breakup was weighing on her. I told her that I’d once had those feelings for someone as well, though we’d never dated. At the time, I didn’t tell her it was you. But I think she figured it out when you and I went into business together and started spending a lot of time together. She actually encouraged me to invest with you, so I know, on some level, she knew it was you all along.”
“I really can’t believe you had feelings for me this entire time. It’s like my greatest dream has become a reality.”
He grinned. “You’re talking to a guy who doesn’t do deep dives into his emotions very often. That’s why Yasmine and I stayed together as long as we did. But the way I felt when I first met you, then when I saw you again at the bank last year, is something I’ve never had with anyone else. This excitement wells in my chest and makes my knees feel weak.” He rubbed his chest, and I’d never wanted to take a bite of anything more. “I didn’t think I’d see you again after college, so I wasn’t actively imagining us being together. But yes, that feeling is what both Yasmine and I agreed we wanted to hold out for. Then, when I began to have feelings for you again, I told Yasmine pretty much immediately. She told me that while we were discussing it, she realized that was exactly what she had with Matt.”
“I’m so glad you guys figured that out. Have you dated other women seriously? Before Yasmine?” I’d never really asked him that before.
“Not many. And none of them made me feel especially weak-kneed. It wasn’t until a few years into college that I had my first actual girl encounter,” he admitted. “That sounds lame, I know. But it’s true. I was dragged to a party and ended up having a few drinks. I hadn’t imbibed much before then. I got a little tipsy and made out with a girl. I didn’t date her or anything, but I found out that kissing a girl was a very pleasant experience.” He chuckled. “Shortly after that, I got the courage up to ask out the sister of a friend. Caroline was as nerdy as I was, so I felt less intimidated. We dated for almost a year. I still keep in touch with her. She’s in a long-term relationship with a woman now. We were each other’s first, and I joke that sex with me ruined men for her.”
I giggled.
Just thinking about having sex with this man made me giddy all over.
“She maintains the sex wasn’t all that bad, but she needed to be with me to figure out she didn’t want to be with men.” He appeared wistful. “It’s safe to say I’ve never been a slayer. I dated two women after that. One was extremely high maintenance. I was never able to please her, no matter how hard I tried. It was exhausting. The next one didn’t want to settle down. In fact, I think she’s hiking the Himalayas right now. Neither of them was a love match.”
It was sweet he was sharing so much with me. “We’ve dated the same amount,” I told him. “I’ve been in three serious relationships. I had a couple of high school romances before that, but I never got hot and heavy with them. My first college boyfriend was Brandon. We dated for a couple of years. He was fine, but we didn’t share many interests. He was an avid sports fan, bordering on fanatic. He was a good guy, but he never wanted to do the same things or go to the same places as I did. Nobody was surprised when we broke up. Next was Tate. He was a fellow accountant. And when I tell you two accountants should not get together, it’s the truth. We were the most boring couple ever. Complete homebodies. Again, he was really sweet. He just didn’t do it for me. Next was Lucas. He was the most fun and spontaneous, but I couldn’t match his energy. He was always busy, always moving from place to place. He wore me out, and I was worried if I stayed with him, we’d never be in the same location for longer than a year or two. I love it here. This is my home.” I debated whether to say the next thing, but I went for it. “To be honest, the reason they also didn’t work was that none of them were you.” He met my gaze. I looked away. “I feel like admitting this to you might put extra pressure on our budding relationship, but please believe that I’m not expecting our relationship to be perfect. Don’t think that. Or even some kind of ideal. We may or may not work out. But I’m so incredibly happy we get the chance to explore that together.”
He reached out and took my hand. “So am I.”
Then he brought my hand to his lips.
