Chapter Six #6
She closed her eyes, the lullaby soothing her as well.
Standing in the kitchen, rocking her niece gently in her arms, she wished there were a quick, surefire way to stay in Banberry, see Maddie grow up, help build the clinic, and work with the local children and their families.
The warm moisture of tears hit her cheeks, and she just let them fall.
Tears were always a sign of giving up in her mind, but not today. Today they felt like a release, a way to let the emotion of the past few days out so she could focus on fixing things—for her town, her friends, and herself.
A hand brushed her cheek, and she startled. Jace stood inches in front of her, his hand resting on her shoulder. His cologne wrapped around Aurelie’s senses, freezing her in place. Only her breathing changed, becoming quicker, shorter.
“What…” she began, but he bent down and lightly grazed his lips over hers, rendering her silent.
“Shhh. Let me get this out before I lose my nerve.”
Even if she wanted to reply, she couldn’t. She nodded instead, her voice and heart lodged in her throat.
“Marry me, Aurelie. Now. Your wild idea makes perfect sense if you think about it.”
Except it didn’t. Couldn’t. Sure, maybe if he were a friend of Brad or Owen’s, and she didn’t have any attraction to him.
He is Brad’s friend. Paige’s, too.
Maybe that was part of the problem: Jace was too close to home. If she took advantage of his offer and things went south, she would become the outsider, not him.
Then there was the obvious attraction that she very much did feel.
Aurelie’s knees knocked together, pounding out her nerves in rapid fire. Her chest rose and fell in quick bursts of breath that struggled to get through her clamped throat.
Or on the other hand, marrying a stranger might be the perfect solution.
“You’re crazy. It’s impossible.” Aurelie sat down on the couch, the infant in her arms. Her legs no longer had the capacity to hold her up, and with the way her heart pounded against her chest, she wondered that the baby didn’t feel the tremor and wake up.
“No more crazy or impossible than you going back to that monster. And don’t forget, it was your idea in the first place.”
“It wasn’t so bad. I loved living there, Jace. And I was kidding.”
Was she, though? Wouldn’t it solve everything if the right person were there to help her answer all of her needs? Love, companionship, passion, and a chance to stay in Banberry?
“Fine. But what about your father? He’s plenty of reason not to go back, no matter how damn good it was. Is he still in prison?”
Aurelie shook her head. If he were, the decision would be easier.
As it was, she not only didn’t want to leave, she couldn’t go back, either.
Jace was right about that, but surely that didn’t mean they had to get married.
She barely knew his last name, let alone build a relationship with him.
She’d just go about the normal reapplication process and hope for the best.
Even if the best is months down the road and you’ve lost everything by then?
As if he had read her mind, Jace chimed in.
“It doesn’t need to be a real marriage like the one you just described, Aurelie.
It just needs to keep you here. When you’ve got a more permanent situation with a green card, we can reassess where we’re at.
” He was talking faster now, his hands in a flourish.
His reaction was so raw, so authentic, Aurelie was certain his acting skills weren’t being used to manipulate her.
It sent a wave of pure gratefulness coursing through her.
He cared about her, plain and simple. But it wasn’t enough.
In some ways, it was everything she’d ever wanted: someone who would put everything before her, be willing to put his life on the line to keep her safe. At the same time, it was too easy and too much, too fast.
She wanted the slow burn of a relationship that came about organically, leading to an inevitable progression of feelings. She wanted to marry someone because she couldn’t live without them, not because of circumstances. She wanted a real marriage and everything that came with it.
Jace’s offer to turn her joke into a solution was almost perfect, but at the same time, not even close, because he wasn’t the right person. So this couldn’t be the answer.
He isn’t now, but maybe he could be? By the time she figured that out one way or the other, though, the ink on the marriage certificate would be dry, and she’d be stuck.
He’d be stuck. Somehow, that seemed worse to her.
Her mother had been trapped on an island by a partner she thought she loved, and it had killed her, Aurelie was sure of it.
Trapping Jace to a life he thought he wanted right now wasn’t right, even if it helped her start a clinic that would be an asset to Banberry.
“Jace,” she began, but he cut her off by sitting down beside her, cupping her face in his hands, and planting his lips on hers.
“You have so much to live for here, Aurelie. Look at that baby,” he said when he lifted his lips.
Aurelie did, and her throat constricted.
She couldn’t imagine flying away from there, not knowing when she would feel the soft skin of Maddie’s cheek against hers, when she could inhale the inimitable scent of baby shampoo on Maddie’s fine, sparse tuft of hair.
Any shred of her resolve crumbled around her thumping heart.
Jace continued, “Think about the clinic, about the women and children who need you and Paige. They need you, Aurelie. It’s selfish not to stay, don’t you see that?”
His breath was warm on her cheek. He’d said they needed her. Did he, though? Call her crazy, but she thought that should bear some importance when a marriage proposal was on the line. Not to mention his reputation, career, and so much more.
“What about you? You’re a movie star, Jace. You can pretend you’re here for good to fix up your dad’s ranch, but you left this life once. Why would you want it back now? And what happens when you marry me and your life back home calls to you?”
In the half-beat of silence that followed, Aurelie imagined the truly impossible: that he would declare his love for her, proclaim that he was doing this because she was what he’d been missing.
When he cleared his throat, though, she realized she wouldn’t have believed the words even if he said them with the same sincerity with which they’d started this insane conversation.
“My agent said I should settle down, find a nice girl. She thinks it’ll clean up my image, help Hollywood take me seriously as an actor, not just a typecast playboy.
You’d be doing me a favor, too, Aurelie—if I ever go back to acting at all—by helping shape that image into who I want to be.
As for ranching, I’m not sure what it will or won’t be in terms of my future, but I do know that it’s the only thing I want to do in the present.
Aside from helping my childhood friends by helping you.
See? We’d be doing this for each other.”
Knowing he’d be getting something out of the arrangement eased her closer to a yes than she had been moments before. But…
She measured her next words carefully.
“What about love?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you think love should be part of a marriage?”
“I do, and we can separate when you’ve got your green card. We’ll still be young, you can still have a family and all that.”
Aurelie scoffed. All that was everything she wanted now, not years from then, when she finally became a citizen and her dad could no longer touch her.
“And until then? Won’t you want, you know, to be with someone? How will they feel when they find out you’re married?”
Several expressions flitted across his face. He clearly hadn’t considered this aspect before he had flipped her fake idea of a sham marriage back on her.
Too bad she had; it was part of the reason she hadn’t just accepted this ridiculous plan. She wanted this man, physically at least. How could she be expected to keep that under wraps if he didn’t want the same thing? The boundary between them was already lace-thin.
“Well,” he said, a broad grin erupting where a moment ago his lips had been drawn and serious, “there’s no reason we can’t make that part of our marriage legit. I think we established earlier that attraction between us isn’t a problem.”
He winked, and Aurelie blushed.
“So, we’ll be fuck buddies who are married, but love won’t get in the way,” she said.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
As much as Aurelie wanted to tell him that his idea—hers, actually—was the most asinine thing she’d ever heard, she couldn’t.
Because it kept her here, in Banberry, in the life she’d built. More importantly, it kept her out of her father’s grasp. And she’d voiced her concerns about trapping Jace, which he’d combated with logic.
Before she could step back from the razor-thin precipice she stood in front of, she leaped. “Okay,” she said, her voice as confident as she could muster.
“Are you agreeing?” he asked. The hope that lined his voice buoyed her resolve.
She shocked herself by nodding.
“I am. I mean, I do.” She laughed at the attempted humor.
“All right then,” Jace said, springing from the couch like he’d been ejected. He bent down and kissed her firmly on the lips and then headed for the door.
“Wait!” Aurelie asked. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to make some calls. Can I pick you up in an hour?”
An hour? Her limbs went numb, her fingers and toes tingling. What had she talked herself into?
“You want to do this tonight?” she asked, another lump forming in her throat, making it impossible to breathe, to think.
He jogged back to her, tilted her chin up to meet his lips again. Gazing into her eyes as he tenderly kissed her on the lips, then the tip of her nose, then her forehead, he nodded.
“Aurelie, I’m making you my wife tonight. You’d best get yourself dolled up, hon. We’re gonna need some pictures to show off to a judge. And my agent.” He winked and headed back to the door, where he stopped short again and wheeled back to look at her.
“It’s nine o’clock in the country, Jace. Nothing’s open.”
“Fine. We’ll do it first thing tomorrow. By the way, what’s your last name?”
Aurelie laughed, a high-pitched giggle that felt more like rising panic than joy.
“Gardinier. Aurelie Gardinier.”
“Yours?”
“Michaels.”
“Oh yeah. Duh.” The famous movie star… How could I forget, even for a moment?
“Nice to meet you,” he said, throwing her another award-winning smile and disappearing. Aurelie sat there stunned for two full minutes before the baby shifted in her arms.
“Oh my God,” she whispered to the infant, “what the hell have I done?”