Chapter Twenty

They didn’t move until the hot water ran out, and then it was a mad scramble to freedom. Laughing, they tumbled out of the glass stall and reached for the fluffy towels hanging on a rack by the door. Jace couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have Angie here with him again. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her eyes were sparkly and wide.

“They’re doing it again,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “We’ve got to start locking them out if we’re going to get busy.”

Tilly and Truffle stood in the doorway, looking up at their half-naked babysitters. Jace pulled the towel tighter over his crotch. “Not cool, guys. It’s starting to get creepy.”

Angie flashed him a wicked smile. “Not into voyeurism?”

“What can I say, I’m a selfish guy.” He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I don’t like to share.”

“Neither do I.” She tipped her face up to his. “I want every bit of you all to myself.”

“For how long?”

The question seemed to suck the life out of the room, but Jace had decided that he didn’t want to go any further before they talked about what it all meant. If his chance meeting with Julia had taught him anything that afternoon, it was that ignoring an issue wasn’t helpful. He could have saved them both a lot of heartache if he’d voiced his opinions and wants instead of letting the doubt fester silently.

He wasn’t going to make that same mistake with Angie.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You want every bit of me…for how long?”

Her eyes suddenly became closed off, as if she’d shuttered part of herself away. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“No, it’s a serious one.”

“I…I don’t know. I have no idea what this is.” She shook her head. “I’m having fun.”

Jace frowned. It wasn’t exactly the response he’d been hoping for. Had Angie changed her mind about wanting to stay? Was this a last hurrah to her? “I’m having fun, too.”

She toyed with the knot holding her towel closed and glanced awkwardly down at her feet.

Wow. Way to kill the mood. Maybe you should have let the good feelings roll for a whole minute before you started infecting them with your awkwardness.

“I wish I was better at this,” he said with a sigh.

“At what? The extraction?”

“Huh? No. I mean the ‘after’ bit.” This was not going how he’d wanted it to. “I’m not trying to extract anything. I thought maybe it was a good time to…”

What did he think?

“It’s fine, Jace.” She walked into the hallway and started making her way through to the kitchen, scooping up her clothing as she went. “I promise I’m not going to get all stage-five clinger on you.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“It’s been clear from the start that we want different things…and then we fell into bed. I don’t regret it at all.” Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink as she clutched her clothing to her chest. “But I’m telling you not to worry, because I’m not expecting you to change your stance. I understand why now.”

Was this more about his failed attempt at marriage with Julia or because he shared that he was on the spectrum?

“So based on that,” she continued, “I know that two nights of great sex won’t magically solve all our problems. We shared something amazing and that’s it. I’m going to lock that happy memory away.”

“You’re already viewing it as a memory?”

She talked like it was over and done with, a check in the box. Like they weren’t still together right now.

“I didn’t want to make this difficult on either one of us.” She bit down on her lip. “I thought if I focused on the good…”

“Isn’t it all good?”

She made a noise that sounded a hell of a lot like his family did when they were frustrated with him. “What I’m saying is that I’m trying not to expect things that will leave me disappointed.”

The conversation was going south quicker than a newbie wiping out on a heavy wave. “We haven’t even had a chance to discuss expectations.”

Jace was certainly not an expert in reading subtext—that had been proven many times over. But nothing coming out of Angie’s mouth was ringing true, not even a little bit. She was trying to shut him down before he had the chance to say what he was thinking, like she assumed he was going to be a jerk about it. That stung, if he was being honest. But Angie must be trying to protect herself, and he had to respect that.

“I’m not trying to kick you out,” he said, closing a hand over hers. “But you’re not even giving me a chance to say what’s on my mind.”

She eyed him warily. “Is this a conversation where I should be dressed?”

“I honestly don’t know. The more I talk, the less I understand how communication works.”

That seemed to slow down Angie’s spiral, and the corner of her lip twitched. “You and me both.”

It was times like this that Jace wished he’d been better blessed with the gift of gab like every other person in his family. Clearly, he’d been standing in another line when God was handing out interpersonal skills.

But he was going to try. Because that’s all that was in his power.

“I like you, Angie,” he began.

“But?” Her eyes glimmered.

“But this isn’t a normal situation.” He raked a hand through his damp hair. “There’s a clock ticking.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She looked away from him.

“I feel terrible that you’re in this position because of someone else’s ineptitude. It’s not fair.” He paused for a minute to select the words as carefully as he could. This was not a time to stuff things up. “I want to help.”

There was only one way he could help. Only one way he could keep Angie here, with him, so they could keep exploring each other. Keep learning. The thought of her leaving now—thinking they were nothing but a memory—it felt so wrong, he wanted to scream.

He’d been looking at everything with the lens of his failed relationship with Julia, but talking to her had changed his perspective. Marriage wasn’t the problem. It was communication, or lack thereof. And with Angie, he felt like maybe he could be better.

Frowning, she looked back at him. Something he couldn’t quite read was swimming in her eyes. “How?”

“I’ll marry you.”

She blinked. “Excuse me.”

“I’ll marry you so you can stay. I can fix your problem.”

He’d expected her to show some reaction to his offer, but instead her face was a mask. Dammit. He hated being like this. He hated feeling like he was messing things up when he was trying to make them better. He wanted her to stay more than anything.

“It’s what you wanted, right?”

She blinked slowly. Once, twice, three times. “No, it’s not what I wanted.”

Shit.

“Jace…” Her expression was definitely somewhere in the gray area, and Jace suddenly found it hard to breathe. “I know you probably think you’re doing the right thing, but I said from the start I didn’t want a fake marriage. I’d hoped I might be able to find love and get married and have a chance at finding a home here, a real happy life.”

“That’s what I’m offering.”

“No it’s not. You’re offering to help. You’re…fixing my problem, like it doesn’t even have anything to do with what you want.” To his horror, her face went white. “This wasn’t a pity screw, was it?”

“What? No! Were we not experiencing the same thing in there?” He gestured to the bathroom. “I like you, Angie. A lot, in fact.”

“But you’ve made it clear that you don’t want to get married. You want to be the hermit from your comics and live alone in your quiet, un-messy little world.” She pressed her hands over her face, but her towel slipped and she swore. She sounded as though she was spiraling inside—he knew that because that’s often how he felt when things went wrong. He knew that tornado of thoughts, each one worse than the last. “This conversation definitely needed us to be fully clothed.”

He was digging a hole, and now he couldn’t see the way out. “I thought that’s what I wanted, but the foundation of that entire belief was based on something false.”

“Which was?”

“I never wanted to marry Julia in the first place. I had doubts, but I kept them quiet, and then when she left and I was hurt by what she wrote in the note…so I focused on that. I knew it was wrong at the time, but I couldn’t admit it to myself.”

“So you’re telling me that you know you want to marry me because you were about to marry someone else who you actually didn’t want to marry…only you were going to do it because you felt obligated?” She stared at him like he was an alien species. “That makes no sense.”

“It made sense in my head,” he replied with a sigh.

“Even the non-proposal?”

Was that what this was about? Because he hadn’t gotten down on one knee? “Can we start this conversation again? It went in a direction that I didn’t want it to, and I’d like to try again.”

Angie bit down on her lip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I want you to stay.” He stepped closer to her. “I like you and I want you to stay here. The only way for that to happen is for me to marry you.”

“And how will I know that the night before the wedding, you’re not silently regretting your decision, hoping I’ll back out so you don’t have to?”

Ouch. “I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

“Neither do I, usually.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “I shouldn’t have come over.”

She headed for the door, going straight outside in his towel. Jace wasn’t sure how long he stood there, watching her cross the lawn and wondering what the hell had happened. How did he manage to screw everything up even when he had the right intentions?

Tilly trotted out to the main room and plopped down by his side. But when she looked up at him, he got the distinct impression she was judging him.

…

Angie avoided Jace all day on Thursday and for most of the day on Friday, but not because she was annoyed with him. She was more annoyed with herself. They’d had amazing sex where she’d felt this deep connection, only for the moment to be ruined by both their baggage the second things got real.

It wasn’t his fault. She’d started to wrap her head around the fact that the thing between them wasn’t going anywhere, and then he’d thrown a wrench in it by suddenly wanting to swoop in and save the day like some kind of matrimonial superhero.

It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s marriage man!

Ugh. He wanted to “fix her problem”…not exactly what all her little-girl fantasies had been building up toward. She’d hoped one day that a man might be so enraptured by her that he’d fall to one knee and profess his love. Was it old-fashioned? Maybe. But it’s what she wanted. The whole twinkling fairy tale complete with a big red-bow-style happily ever after. The passionate love that couldn’t be tamed.

Not a pity proposal.

In a fit of disgust at her own pathetic-ness, she’d boxed up the VHS player and all the rom-com tapes. She would return the player to him, and if he didn’t want the tapes, she’d ride them down to the charity store next week. She had no use for them now.

After being with Jace, she knew there was no way anyone else in this town—or possibly anywhere else—would compare. Sure, he didn’t always say the thing she wanted to hear, but there was no denying he made her heart flutter. That was the worst part of it all—she really liked him. Liked the way he made her feel, liked the fact that he listened to all her grand plans for the retirement home and offered thoughtful suggestions. She liked that he was creative and good with dogs and a total family guy. He wanted to help her…but she needed more than that. If she was going to marry someone, it would be for the right reasons.

You’re asking for too much.

But was she? Hadn’t her childhood taught her that she was responsible for finding her own path, her own happiness? That if she didn’t think herself worthy of a good life, then nobody else would be lining up to give it to her? She had to seize it. Demand it.

And as much as Jace was everything she could have wanted, she wouldn’t settle.

She stood in the middle of her cozy little granny flat and looked around. When she’d moved in six months ago, she’d done her best to make it feel like home.

She loved this little place. Never mind that she could reach the kettle from the dining table or that her bedroom was barely more than a ruler’s length around the double bed. It was the first place to ever make her happy. The first place she’d looked forward to coming home to.

“Maybe you should be grateful you had it, even if for a short time,” she said to herself.

There were people who’d come out of the foster system a lot worse than her—people whose scars were external as well as internal, who had more to worry about than living their life in a fishbowl. Angie was grateful to have had the opportunity to come to Australia, even if it felt like her heart was breaking knowing she’d have to leave.

Jace popped into her head. Whenever she thought about the future, he was there. That crooked, sexy smile. Those bluer-than-blue eyes.

“Stop it,” she cursed herself. What kind of self-inflicted torture was this?

A thump on her front door startled Angie out of her reverie. She was supposed to be working on her proposal for the retirement home board today, making plans to call local businesses and get their agreement to donate classes.

She headed to the front door and pulled it open.

“Hey.” Jace stood there, a crinkle between his brows and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “Can we talk?”

“I’m working.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

She wasn’t ready to deal with this yet, mainly because she still hadn’t figured out how to protect her heart around him.

“Please.”

She hesitated a moment longer, but he looked so earnest that eventually she stepped back and allowed him to come inside. God, what was she supposed to say? Or maybe she shouldn’t say anything at all.

This was just like all those times she’d been shuffled to a new home. That period of awkwardness got shorter every time, once she learned how to quickly insert herself into people’s lives. But even though she didn’t let that weirdness show, it didn’t mean it wasn’t there on the inside.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

Jace walked over to the couch and dropped down on it, his long legs needing to bend so they didn’t hit the coffee table. “I didn’t articulate myself very well the other day.”

She took a seat on one of the chairs on the other side of the table. “Okay.”

Jace dug into his pocket and pulled out a note—it looked like it had been folded and unfolded several times. The edges were bent, and there were crumple marks all over it. He drummed his fingers against his leg. That little sign made her relax—because it meant this at-ease exterior was simply that: a front. He was as nervous as she was.

“I wrote down what I wanted to say because I thought it might go better, since…well, you know,” he said. Then he cleared his throat. “The marriage proposal wasn’t only about helping you stay, because I know that if you were only looking for a piece of paper, you could have found that anywhere. The thought of you leaving makes me really sad. In fact, there’s not a single reason in the pro column.”

“Did you actually write a list of pros and cons about me leaving?” For some reason, that made her heart melt.

“Yeah, I did. And they were all cons.” He looked so sincere, it made her want to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him silly. “If this were any normal situation, I wouldn’t be proposing now. That’s not romantic, but it’s the truth. However, this isn’t a normal situation and I’ve been viewing marriage for a long time tainted by something that shouldn’t have tainted it. So if the only way that we get to explore this thing between us is for me to propose, then I want to do it. Because not having that chance to see where it goes is too high a price to pay.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “I was not expecting that.”

“I wasn’t, either. But if I put my logical cap on—”

“When did it ever come off?” She laughed.

“If I put my logical cap on,” he repeated, ignoring her dig, “why not try? You have forty days remaining on your visa, right?”

“Forty-two, actually.” Not that she was counting down every single second or anything.

“Why don’t we trial it for a month? We’ll get engaged, and we’ve got thirty days to see if it’s working. If not, then you have almost two weeks to say goodbye and get everything in order.”

Some part of her had thought that in the cold light of reality—rather than the rose-tinted post-sex haze—Jace would change his mind about his offer. Instead, he was here, asking her to reconsider. Showing he’d put a lot of thought into it. It wasn’t romantic, sure. But it was Jace, through and through.

“Angie.” He stood and walked around the coffee table to her, reaching down to her hands and pulling her up to standing. “I was too afraid to admit it before, because I let my own insecurities and fears get the better of me. But being with you…it meant I couldn’t ignore how I felt anymore.”

“I couldn’t ignore it anymore, either,” she said.

“But?”

This was the time to be honest with him. He’d taken a leap, showed his cards, and laid everything on the table. She had to do the same. “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That you’re going to regret asking me to marry you. That you’re going to wake up in a month and think that what you thought you wanted—peace and quiet and solitude—is actually what you want.”

That he would change his mind, like he’d done before.

And that would be like experiencing foster care all over again. The hopes dashed when inevitably people found her too difficult. Angie had tried so damn hard, but eventually the facade of the “perfect girl” was too difficult to keep up. She’d slip, let her imperfections show. Let the real Angie show. And that’s when she’d find herself packing her bags, unwanted and unloved again.

Maybe she’d been chasing that mythical passionate “big” love because it wasn’t real…and therefore she couldn’t get hurt. But this thing with Jace, whatever it was, was fragile and delicate and honest.

And that scared the crap out of her.

You can make it work. You want this, and you want him. Everything you asked for is staring you right in the face, but you’re too chickenshit to take it!

“I can’t remember the last time I was so happy as the other morning when I had you and those two funny dogs all piled on the bed with me.” He squeezed her hands. “It’s the opposite of everything I thought I wanted. So let’s try. Let’s see where this goes.”

“I never thought you’d be the kind of man to jump into something and ‘see how it goes.’ Don’t you plan everything out?” She cocked her head, wondering if she pinched herself, she would  wake up and be cuddling her pillow.

“I have planned everything out,” he said. “We need to submit a Notice of Intended Marriage form to the Victorian Marriage Registry at least one month before the intended wedding date along with our birth certificates and IDs. Then we could get married at the registry office so we can put your application in for a spousal visa, and then we can have a non-legal ceremony with all the trimmings at whatever point we want.”

Of course he’d done the research.

She laughed, shaking her head in wonder. “This is nuts.”

“It was your idea,” he pointed out.

“And I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever pull it off.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to take your chance with some other eligible Patterson’s Bluff bachelor?” His tone was joking, but there was something serious and vulnerable glimmering in his eyes.

“No, I don’t. Not even a little bit.” She swallowed against the lump in the back of her throat. “The only reason you weren’t on my list was because of the conversation we had when I first found out about the mistake with my visa extension. You made it clear what you thought of marriage.”

“That was the only reason?”

She nodded. “Otherwise you would have been the entire list.”

“Well, now that it’s settled…” He dropped down to one knee and pulled a small box from his pocket. It was old and worn; the pretty blue flocking was totally rubbed off in patches. Inside was a small gold ring with a subtle pattern engraved on the band and a small but sparkly diamond in the center. “Angie Donovan, will you agree to a thirty-day trial engagement?”

Despite the warning prickle of tears in her eyes, she laughed. “Do I need to read a terms and conditions document before I accept?”

He frowned. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I trust you,” she said. Jace was one of the only people she’d told about her past; he knew more of her real life than anyone. If that wasn’t a sign he was special, then she didn’t know what was. “And yes, I agree to a thirty-day trial engagement.”

“I know the ring isn’t much, but it belonged to my great-grandmother. If you want something different—”

“Stop.” She shook her head, finding herself feeling a little overwhelmed. “I never had a family, so I never had heirlooms or history or anything like that. Which makes this the most perfect thing you could have given me.”

He took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. It was a little snug, but Angie took that as a good sign. It was like the ring wanted to stay there.

“Thank you, Jace.”

“For being the kind of guy who writes a list of pros and cons before proposing?” he teased.

“For being willing to be more.”