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Esme pulled her legs up, tucked them underneath her, then crossed her arms over her chest. “We need to talk about what we said at the hospital.”
Rewind, a voice inside his head begged. Do over. Forget any of it happened. Ryder ignored that voice.
“I proposed marriage,” he said, like she didn’t remember.
“I told you I loved you,” she countered, her voice strained.
“You can’t. You shouldn’t.”
“I do.” She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on the arms of the chair, leaning forward. “And I think you love me, too.”
For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. “Marriage will solve our problems.” It felt easier to ignore her statement, which couldn’t be true. Not when he’d made the decision not to love again. Even his love for Chase and Noah terrified him, especially after Chase’s health scare.
But kids were different. They were loyal to their parents, even when mistakes were made over and over. Ryder’s family was proof positive of that.
Loving Esme would make him vulnerable in a way he couldn’t comprehend.
“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “I spent most of my life dealing with my parents’ unhappy marriage. By the end, they could barely tolerate each other, yet they refused to walk away. They certainly weren’t in love anymore.”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “We’re not going to bother with love.”
She sniffed. “Is love such a bother?”
“You know it is. We both do. My parents hurt each other, too, and I swore I’d never do that to myself or someone else. But they did love each other at the start, which made it so much worse when things went bad. I heard my mom crying in her room when Dad didn’t come home, and it broke my little-kid heart. If she hadn’t loved him, maybe his betrayals wouldn’t have hurt so much.” He let out a deep breath. “And when I found out Steph was pregnant, I threw myself into loving her. Turned out it was more like falling on a bed of nails. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so trapped if I hadn’t expected more from her. Without the pressure she felt, breaking free wouldn’t have seemed so necessary.”
Esme shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself for Stephanie’s death. We’ve talked about that, Ryder. You didn’t force her into that car. I know you would have given her whatever space or support she needed.”
He pressed his lips together and didn’t respond. The rational side of his brain wanted to believe her, but it was hard to release the guilt that had lodged in his heart.
Esme studied him. “We can’t pretend we have no feelings for each other.”
“I don’t want to pretend. I... I care about you, Esme. You’re a great mom and a wonderful co-parenting partner. We get along great in everyday life and...” He glanced at the ceiling. “And at night. We’ve got a good thing going. There’s no reason to mess it up with unnecessary labels.”
Esme stared at him for several seconds, her greenish-gray eyes flashing like sparks danced inside them. “You don’t think becoming husband and wife is a label? Because I’ve been in that kind of marriage, Ryder, and it almost broke me.”
“This is different,” he insisted. “We understand each other.”
“Yes.” She blinked as if to bank the fires burning in her gaze. “I think we do.”
“This conversation is not going the way I wanted it to.” Frustration pounded through him. “Can we go back to how things were last night, Esme? Before Chase—”
“We can’t go back, and maybe we should have never started down this path in the first place.”
The lack of emotion in her voice made his heart clench. Wasn’t this what he’d feared in the first place—that she’d come to realize she never truly needed him?
“What are you saying?” he forced himself to ask. “Have you changed your mind about raising the boys together? Are you giving me some kind of ultimatum?”
It was a ridiculous accusation to lob at her. Still, memories flooded his brain of the times his father had complained about his mom and claimed that if she hadn’t made so many demands, he wouldn’t have been forced to repeatedly disappoint her.
Ryder didn’t want to fail Esme, but clearly he already had.
“I would never jeopardize Chase’s and Noah’s happiness for my own benefit,” she said with preternatural calm. “I hope you know that.”
He nodded vigorously. “I do. I trust you.” Ryder reminded himself they did not have the same toxic relationship as his parents. He and Esme would be able to work things out, provided they were both on the same page. “I just want—”
She held up a hand. “You’ve made it clear what you want, as well as the limits of what you can give. I’m willing to honor that for the sake of our sons.”
The vise in his chest loosened slightly. “You won’t regret marrying me,” he assured her.
