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So she’d be close by for all the drunk guys at closing time? Hell no.
“Maybe I can clean the building as part of the deal. Or bar tend. I could learn how to do that—” She was spiraling, but so was I.
“No,” I bit out harshly. It was no longer waves of possessiveness but a goddamn riptide tearing through me and ripping my reservations and rationality to shreds.
Her head shook and she swiped another tear from her cheek. “Please,” she begged—not for mercy, not for charity, not even for someone to take care of her, but for someone to help her fight.“I’ll do anything, Zeke. Anything to give the judge what they want to see. Tell me what I need to do.”
Anything.The word unlocked my mind to think outside the box—to think of anything to make her pain go away because goddammit, I wanted to be the man who fought with her—for her.
Her lip quivered. “Just tell me what I should do.Please.”
I stared at her, standing in my kitchen with my jacket over her shoulders, her face streaked with tears, and those eyes trusting me—begging me to have an answer. And I did.God help me, I had an answer… because I’d do anything for her.For all the right and wrong reasons.
“Marry me,” I rasped.
The words detonated the conversation into a stunned silence.
“W-what?” Her jaw dropped.
I met her shocked stare. “Marry me, Kenzie,” I repeated, hardly recognizing my own voice. “If you marry me, you’ll have stable housing, stable income, and…”
“You,” she breathed out.
I nodded. “Me.”
Someone who the judge would look at as a positive guardian—someone whose reputation could be trusted when I said she deserved to have custody.
“Zeke…”Her throat bobbed, her eyes red and glistening as she looked up at me.
“You could never take advantage of me,” I reminded her before she spoke too soon.
I couldn’t even claim she hesitated after that because if she did, it was for barely a second before she agreed.
“Okay,” she said, her voice husky and low.
For an instant, something passed between us that had nothing to do with her son or her ex and had everything to do with the way we clearly still wanted each other.
And now, we were going to be married.
All the rules we’d broken before would now protect the way we ached for each other.Because she’d be my wife.
Suddenly, it felt like to fix one problem, I’d created another. A bigger one. One that could destroy me.
But if it helped her… if it got Kenzie back her son… it was a risk I was going to take.
CHAPTER11
KENZIE
“You didn’t have to do this.” I stared at the ring on my finger, the weight of it the only thing tethering me to my new reality.
Married.
At first, I’d wondered if Zeke would recant his offer in the morning. Between what happened at the game and then his proposal, I was spent. He’d given me one of his tees to wear, and after changing and sliding into his bed, I’d crashed, emotional exhaustion completely overtaking me.
I wouldn’t have known if he’d slept in bed with me or not, and the only reason I knew he hadn’t was because the covers on his side were still made when I woke up.
But instead of him backing out of the proposal or offering up another legal loophole or solution, the only thing he asked was if I’d changed my mind.
