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She could say no. It was her choice.
“All right. You get credit for that.” It was reluctant, but she supposed it couldn’t be all about her. He was giving her the upper hand, and she could take it and wield it over him, or she could do what he was doing and be gentle with her power.
It seemed like when someone got a little bit of power, they liked to lord it over people. Goodness knew she had that done to her often enough. But she could be different. She could be...gracious with her power.
“Thank you,” he said, irony in his voice, but his face once again impassive. “You need to think about it carefully. I don’t plan on getting married twice.”
Chapter 5
“Well, if you’re looking for a pure, virgin bride, remember I have two children.” Alaska wanted to tell Ezra about the other things that she had done, but this was the best opportunity she had...ever. She didn’t want to talk him out of it.
“I know you have children.”
“Well, there’s a lot of other things you don’t know.” She couldn’t keep herself from saying it. If he was looking for a lifetime love, he needed to look for someone else. She was hardly lifetime love material.
“Do any of them matter?” he asked, like she would seriously tell him.
“I’ve done some pretty awful things for money. I don’t know what matters to you.” That was a flippant answer and not the truth. He was a righteous man, someone who valued purity and honesty and integrity, and all those other things that she wasn’t. She knew those things would matter to him.
“The only thing that matters is that you’re not married to somebody else. It would be illegal in that case for us to get married. The only other thing that matters to me is if you’re going to keep your word or not. Because if you’re not planning on keeping your word, I’d rather you didn’t give it to begin with.”
Was he for real?
“You don’t want to know about the things I’ve done? You don’t want to know about the fact that the father of my children was married when I slept with him? You don’t want to know that I used to sell myself in exchange for drugs?”
She wanted to slap her hand over her mouth. The things she hadn’t wanted to tell him had come out. In the form of questions, sure, but they’d still come out.
He hadn’t flinched when she spoke. She’d seen his eye twitch, but he hadn’t changed his position.
“But that’s not who you are anymore.” His words were a statement, not a question, and she found herself nodding in agreement. That was how she felt about it. That wasn’t typically how other people felt about her. They saw her past and considered her a part of it.
And she couldn’t fault them for that. A person was a product of their past. The things that they had said, done, and lived, watched and read, those all went in and made a person.
When Jesus came into a person’s life, he could make them new. She’d experienced that.
Even though she still had guilt over the sins of her past, the way she lived, the things she’d done, she knew that when God looked at her, He didn’t see those things.
Sometimes it was hard to believe, but she knew it to be true. Jesus had paid the penalty for those sins, and in God’s eyes, she was just as pure as the man standing in front of her. The thing was, the rest of the world would look at them differently. She couldn’t believe he didn’t.
But there couldn’t be anything else. “What benefit is this to you?”
“I told you. I can’t explain why.”
That confused her. She wasn’t used to people doing things out of the goodness of their heart. The reaction of his siblings made a lot more sense to her. While she knew that Asher was probably the only one who really didn’t want her, and the other ones would probably allow her to stay, Ezra actually wanted her. He wanted her so much he was willing to marry her—a lifetime commitment, real marriage, marry her—in order to keepher.
“I don’t get it. I don’t understand what you see in me. Why you’d want to help me. Why you’d go to such great lengths to...have me stay.”
He lifted his shoulder, like it didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he wasn’t...giving up everything for her. Which basically he was.
“Aren’t you going to want to get married sometime? Didn’t I hear a rumor about your fiancée coming to visit?”
At the mention of his fiancée, he had more of a reaction that he’d had over anything.
“I knew it. You have a fiancée. I don’t understand.” She was leaning toward the idea that she had to begin with, that this was some kind of cruel joke that he was playing. But what she couldn’t figure out was why. It seemed like a sadistic game. And Ezra did not seem like a sadistic kind of person.
“I’m sorry. I can’t explain. But the offer is there. It’s up to you whether or not you want to take it.”
She closed her mouth. She wasn’t going to get an explanation. And she wasn’t going to get any declarations of undying love either. She was hardly in the position to hold out for more. She almost laughed at the thought.
