“Did you have anything to do with him being with Jodi?”
“No. I swear to you. I learned about them the same night you did. When he learned I had married you and I’d cost him the property, he contacted me again to ask for money and threatened me with telling you everything. I paid him, time after time. The night after the charity event, the night he saw us together—do you remember? I told you I was going to the office, but he had texted me that night so I went to meet him. By then I knew I was falling for you, and I didn’t want him to ruin whatever chances we had. That last time we met, I told him I wouldn’t pay anymore because of that look he put on your face the day he showed up, and if he pushed his luck, I said I’d let Jodi know who he really was. He shrugged and said there were plenty of Jodi’s, but only one Rose for me.”
“Don’t lie to me, Jack. You didn’t love me. You weren’t even nice to me in the beginning. I’m not someone who believes you can fall in love with someone without knowing them. Don’t feed me bullshit.”
I brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Will you shut up? I wasn’t in love when we first got married or even the first time I saw you. I’m not saying it was love. It was just interest, maybe a crush, but the more I got to know you, the more I couldn’t not fall for you. If I hadn’t known you had bought all the equipment to open your place, that you had spent your money, if there had been no contract, I’d have still paid Joshua to protect you from him, but after that, I’d have approached you like a normal guy. I’d have gotten to know you, asked you out, nothing more.”
“Why were you so mean to me? You barely spoke, and don’t think I forgot what you said to me after the wedding. You told me it was a mistake, I was a mistake and said we shouldn’t have done it.”
I smiled, but there was no humor in it. “That was my guilt. I didn’t know what to do with you, and I knew in the end, when you learned about what I did, it was going to kill whatever chance we had or didn’t have for good. I didn’t know how to get over it. Trust me, it was an unexpected reaction. If anything was going to happen it had to come from you. I wasn’t going to let you accuse me of forcing love even though I’d manufactured the marriage part. So, I decided to just let it be and let you have the coffee shop while maintaining a healthy distance. I didn’t want to help you set the place up. I didn’t want to be around you so much. I even considered telling you everything. That was why I kept asking you to go out to dinner with me, but I couldn’t do it. I was gonna wait for the right time. Then you got sick and I didn’t care what would happen, whether you knew what I’d done or not. I didn’t give a fuck about the guilt, and you were warming up to me, so…”
“You love me now,” she whispered.
I cupped her head and rested my forehead against hers. “You are the love of my goddamn life,” I whispered back, my voice raw and hoarse. “Somewhere in between all the pretending, I completely fell for you, and I can’t even think of my life without you in it.”
She cupped my cheeks in return. “You want to divorce me, Jack.”
I pressed my body against hers until I heard a little gasp and her back was resting against the counter. “Yes. I want to so I can start fresh and show you that I can be what you need. I want to start over, do it right this time, ask you out like a normal person.”
She seemed to think it over as I held my breath and waited. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to start over. I don’t want to divorce you. I want to keep going.”
“Okay. Then we won’t.”
“But you have to promise me, Jack. You have to promise me that you’ll never keep anything from me. I need to trust you. It doesn’t matter how much I