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“I’m aware of that.”
I felt my brows draw together. “You want to marry someone you don’t even consider a friend?”
“It’s not as if we’re anything close to strangers, Addison,” he said, lowering his mug to the coffee table. “We might not know a great many personal details about each other’s life or have a friendship of any sort, but we have a familiarity that’s not common for those who had nothing more than a fling.”
That was true. I couldn’t claim to be aware of his fears, secrets, goals, and other private details, but Iknewhim on more than a superficial level. But it made no difference, given that we weren’t in sync on a very important matter. “We made the pact before I learned you don’t want kids. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I do.”
“I didn’t want them back then. That changed somewhere along the way.”
Oh. Still, it didn’t thereby follow that it made perfect sense for us to live up to our pact. “How is it you’re so sure I’m single?”
“I have many sources. It’s how I keep my finger on the pulse of all that goes on within Redwater.” Bracing his elbows on the armrests, he steepled his fingers. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
At the moment, while two of my main life goals seemed so out of reach, I didn’t have a clear vision. It must have been written all over my face, because he gave a slow nod of understanding.
“If you live up to the pact we made, that uncertainty you’re feeling will go away. You’ll know exactly where you’ll be.” He hiked up a brow, adding, “Aren’t you tired of arranging weddings for everyone else? Aren’t you finding it difficult watching the couples around you start their own family?”
Both were rhetorical questions. I’d been honest with him all those years ago about what I wanted from life. It wouldn’t be hard for him to discern where I was mentally at right now.
Unable to believe we were actually having this conversation, I shook my head in incredulity and switched off my tablet. “This is nuts.”
“Why? Because it’s not a conventional way of entering into marriage? That doesn’t make it outlandish.”
“But it does seem odd that you’d wish to do this.” I slipped my tablet back into my satchel. “It’s not as if you struggle landing women.”
“Dating doesn’t always amount to anything. Neither do serious relationships. We can both attest to that, can’t we?”
Well, yes.
“It may seem odd to you now that I’d consider this. But if you reach the age I am today and are still single, you might have a different perspective. At thirty, I would have told you I’d be committed to someone by now. A lot can happen in five years. But you know something, Addison? A lot can stay the same. Nothing about my personal circumstances has changed in five fucking years. That could be you.”
That was what I was afraid of.
“Do you wish to take that chance? Do you want to let life happen to you? Could you really be satisfied with plodding along as you have been, knowing you’ll be taking the risk that all you’re doing is allowing more time to pass you by? Wouldn’t it instead be better to take control and ensure that you meet the life goals that have so far eluded you?”
I’d forgotten how good he could be with words. “You always know what to say to sway people into giving you what you want,” I muttered.
A brow winged up. “Are you implying that I’m manipulative?”
“Yes.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up. “There are worse traits to have.”
Feeling a restless energy begin to build inside me, I pushed to my feet and strode to the large windows.
“Don’t close your mind to this, Addison. Don’t reject it out of hand. Consider it for a moment.Reallyconsider it.”
I was. Which unnerved me, because I should surely be walking out the door. I should be saying a very emphaticno, thank you. I should be set on instead searching for a man I could build a life with—a man who, unlike Dax, loved me.
But … I’d tried that. It had come to nothing. More, love had given me no guarantees in the past.
Love hadn’t stopped my exes from later hurting me in some way; it hadn’t meant they remained loyal; it hadn’t ensured that—in the case of Grayden—they didn’t leave me for someone else.
Maybe I was just bad at choosing men. But then … Lake hadn’t been a bad choice. And honestly, neither had Dax—he might not have loved me, but he hadn’t hurt me. He hadn’t broken my faith, hadn’t tried using me to further his ambitions, hadn’t cared about my trust fund in any sense.
The things he was now saying … I wasn’t stupid. I knew he was playing on my fears by painting a picture of what could be my life at thirty-five if I continued having such bad luck with relationships. That didn’t mean it wasn’t working.
One of the reasons it was working so well was that there were more risks of pregnancy-related complications for women in their thirties. I’d already miscarried once before—that was four years ago, and very few people knew about it. I didn’t want to have to go through that again; didn’t want to increase the risks. Which made me feel even more pressured to find something serious.
