And then the tears fell. They just poured right down my face. There was no holding them back.
Dane softly cursed again and caught my face with his hands. He thumbed away the tears. “This was not how I imagined this conversation would go. I didn’t think you’d be so shocked to hear I wanted you to stay. You heard the things I said to Owen yesterday. How could you then think I’d want a divorce?”
“I thought you were just playing the role of possessive husband.”
He rested his forehead against mine. “No, baby girl. For me, this has been real for a while now. How did you not see that? I took you on dates, I got you that damn cat, I sleep in the same room as you.”
“But never in your room. I thought that meant you were making it clear that it was just sex.”
He lifted his head, frowning. “You love the room I chose for you, so why would I ask you to move? If you want us to move into the master bedroom, we can. But I don’t think of it as my bedroom anymore. I go in there to dress—that’s it. It’s more like an oversized closet.”
I took a shaky breath, hoping to center myself and stop the tears from falling. Thinking back, the signs that he wanted the marriage to be real were all there—I just hadn’t read them right. Or maybe I’d been too scared to let myself believe they were signs of any sort, too scared to let myself hope.
Even now, despite how blunt and straightforward he was being, I found it hard to process that he was offering me the very thing I wanted most. Which was, quite simply, him. It didn’t matter to me that I married him as part of a deal we made, because it was that deal that brought us together. I doubted we’d have found our way to each other without it.
I licked my lips. “You’re certain you want this marriage to be real?” I needed to know he wouldn’t change his mind at a later date. It would absolutely crush me.
His eyes hardened. “It is real. You are my wife in every way that matters. If you need me to sign those papers and remarry you, though, I’ll do it. But let me be clear on something. If we divorce, it won’t dissolve anything between us—it’s just paperwork. You won’t go back to being Vienna Stratton. You won’t stop wearing my rings. You won’t move out of this house. Nothing will change. It’ll just mean we’ll have the ceremony all over again.”
I sniffed and shook my head. “I don’t need that. I don’t need another ceremony.”
“You don’t?”
“I kind of liked the one we had.” Plus, our Vegas ceremony held its own kind of importance. It was the first time that he’d kissed me. The kiss had been far from fake, and it blurred the line between fact and fiction.
I looked at the letter in my hand. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t want us to have kids if you don’t actually want them, Dane.” I placed the letter on a nearby shelf. “No child should ever feel unwanted.”
He smoothed his hands up my arms. “I woke up early a few weeks ago. You were flat on your back, asleep, and your camisole had ridden up. I looked at your bare stomach, and I found myself picturing it all round with my baby. I don’t know where the image came from—it just popped into my head. I can’t really describe what I felt. I just know that baby wouldn’t have been unwanted if it were real. I don’t know if I’d make a good parent, though. I don’t even know what does make a good parent. I’ll Google it.”
A chuckle bubbled up and burst out of me.
“I told you I could make you laugh if I wanted to,” he reminded me.
I nodded. “You did.”
“So, do I sign the papers or tear them up? Either way, you are mine, and you’ll stay mine,” he warned, his voice thick with ownership.
A pleasant chill skated down my spine. His possessiveness never failed to flick my switch.
A loving declaration would have been nice, but I wouldn’t have believed it. I did think he was capable of feeling the emotion, but his willingness to connect with others had been oppressed by his father. That bastard had forced the people most important