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Courage ran through my veins like hot sauce, and I scooted closer to Hardin, who didn’t seem so inclined to move away. “I don’t want to be in this arrangement either.” He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his eyes when I told him that. “Have you ever had a bond with anyone that was unexplainable?” He gave me a blank stare and I felt the courage leave my body as soon as it came. “I mean, have you ever been so consumed by this one person that all you can do is think about them. Everywhere you heartheir voice and their laughter. Every pair of eyes you see is theirs. Everything you like happens to be their favorite thing. I sound stupid, I’m sorry.”
“No, it doesn’t sound stupid at all. I was actually online the other day looking for pictures of my first tattoo with the thought that you’d think I was cool. I had to pass on the piercings though. Ah, who are we kidding, Desiree? We are complete opposites and we’d never be able to keep each other happy consistently.”
My heart sank into my stomach, which meant to me that his feelings weren’t as strong. “Yeah, it was dumb to think that I had fallen for you. Thanks for the water. I’m going to go home and watch some sad movie while crying over my pint of ice cream.” I placed the glass on the table and didn’t wait for him to escort me to the door.
“Wait— wait, Desiree!” Hardin blocked the door. “You are so pig-headed, aren’t you?” He asked with a gentle smile and as he stroked my cheek, currents of electricity raced from head to toe. “I wanted to tell you I wanted to get out of this agreement because I can’t pretend not to have feelings for you.”
“But you just said we’d never be able to keep each other happy consistently.”
He shook his head, “There is no such thing as a perfect relationship, is there?” I chuckled and shook my head. “Desiree, the first time I heard your voice, I was smitten. The first time you stepped into my office, my feelings for you were heightened. Yet, when you mentioned we should pretend to be a couple, I was on the fence because it was a challenge not kissing you, among other things.” I leaned in, teasing his mouth with mine, waiting for him to reciprocate until he held a finger in front of my face. “We need to do this right. Desiree, may I kiss you?”
“Hardin, it's 2021, you don’t need to be so old-fashioned.”
He hesitantly wrapped one arm around my waist, placing one hand behind my neck. Hardin paused breathlessly, and covered my mouth with his in a sweet, tender kiss, which deepened the closer he pulled me to him.
We broke from the heated kiss, and I cupped his face, “Is it too presumptuous to tell you that I’ve fallen in love with you?” I whispered with labored breath.
Hardin grinned, kissing the tip of my nose. “Yes, it is. Would it be too juvenile if I asked you to go steady with me?”
I burst out laughing and mocked a teenager, “OMG, so we are going to be the prom king and queen, right totally?”
Hardin lifted me into his arms and carried me to the living room, never taking his mouth off mine. Our make out session was becoming too hot as his hands wandered all over my body. “Hardin, don’t you think we should take this slow?” He groaned and sat up.
“I’m sorry, I have no idea what got into me,” he patted my thigh and pulled me into his arms. “We need to do this the right way.”
“What about your radio show?” After all of that hard work to gain listeners and raise his ratings, it was beginning to seem like it was all for nothing. There was also no guarantee I would get the boy in the end...or vice versa.
He heavily sighed, “I’ve got something to tell you.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear this, but he wasn’t going to give me a choice. “I was offered a position in Atlanta as Vice President of Finance for a gaming company,” he squeezed my hand with sorrow set in his amber eyes. “Um, I accepted the offer, and they are giving me a month to relocate.”
Just when I thought there was a bright light at the end of my dark tunnel of love lost, he dropped a bomb on me. “Wait a minute, we just now confessed our feelings to one another and you’re leaving anyway?” it hurt, and it angered me; he was going to leave me anyway. “What was the point in all of that?” I jumped to my feet, growling, “Why do I even bother with me at all? Screw that, screw all of this. I am running away to Switzerland to join a convent and write off men and relationships altogether.”
“You are jumping to conclusions—but please hear me out, will you marry me?” Hardin asked with a crooked grin. “Don’t make me beg!” He said, pulling me down to the couch with him.
I arched my brow and let out a sarcastic laugh, “You want to take it slow, but you want to get married? That makes no sense.”
“Well, yeah, I did but I can’t bring myself to break up with you now that we’re in an actual relationship. And I don’t want my girlfriend to be thousands of miles away.”
I slid off the couch and shuffled to look out the window at the scenic view of the strip. “What happens if we get to Atlanta and find we are terrible together?” I asked. It was a difficult question, but I had to be sure. I’d never rushed into marriage, nor had I met the man of my dreams until a month ago.
Hardin joined me and wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing my neck. “Any type of relationship is work, no matter if we’re married or not. I know we’ve just now made it official, but I have all the faith in the world that we’ll be happy together or at least I’d hoped. Desiree, I want to be with you for the rest of my life and if you want, we can have a child or two together.”
I chuckled between the tears. “First comes fake love, then comes marriage, then a trip to Georgia. I think I am good at waiting to have children for a while though,” I turned and faced him. “I will marry you, but you let me pick the house.” Marriage was all about compromise. Hardin was a big city guy from San Diego, and I was a country girl from around the Dallas area. I’m a little bit country, he’s a little bit rock and roll or is that the other way around? I’m the one with tattoos and piercings. We were polar opposites, but we could totally make this work. “I have all this money saved up, we could...”
He covered my mouth with his hand. “Let’s work on planning everything first before we choose carpet and tile colors, okay?”
That’s all we did for the rest of the evening was plan where to get our marriage license and where we wanted to get married first off and of course, when. We decided to take a road trip to San Diego for our honeymoon, and he had booked the rooms for next weekend.
“I cannot believe that in a few days, I’m going to be Desiree Mills.”
“It has a nice ring to it, I think!” Hardin kissed me, pulling back and gazing into my eyes. “Speaking of which, I am taking you ring shopping tomorrow and lunch. We can then come back here and spend the rest of the day exploring each other’s bodies.”
I moaned; I loved the sound of that.
Seventeen
Desiree
Three Weeks Later
