Chapter 14
SASHA
I’ve got the syrup open over my waffles, and for a moment, I don’t move. I just hold it there, syrup pouring like a waterfall, before the server gasps and gently tips it back up. “Honey, I think that’s sweet enough,” she whispers.
I set the bottle down. Though the restaurant around us is alight with conversation, silence fills the bubble around our table. No, the bubble includes the tables around us where several people are staring, clearly having heard what Griffin just said.
The joke he just made. It was a joke. It had to be. I laugh, nervously. It comes out in a weird shrill giggle. “That’s funny, Griffin.” It’s not, really. But maybe he’s trying.
“My brother doesn’t really joke,” Jude says.
“Sounds like you folks are doing, uh, I’m just going to come back in a bit,” Amanda says, moving to the next table. She keeps her eyes on us, though.
Griffin shakes his head. “It wasn’t a joke.”
I press my hands to the table, confusion whirling. Then I lean over and whisper, “Are you on drugs?”
Cap gasps. “Oh no.” He puts on a serious face. “Uncle Griff, we watched a movie about that at school. Did someone peer pressure you?”
Griffin curses under his breath. “I’m not on drugs.” He stands up and gets out of the booth. “Can I talk to you? Maybe in private?”
“Why would you want to do that when you just proposed oh so romantically?” Heat’s rushing through me now that I know he’s serious.
“Please, Sasha.”
I look down at my waffles, but my appetite seems to have gone sideways. I can feel eyes on me. Dozens of eyes. Maybe tens of dozens. How big is this place anyway? “Fine. Yes, let’s talk.”
He holds his hand out, but I ignore it, getting out myself and walking past him with my fists clenched, my chin high. The whole restaurant seems to have gone quiet.
The door jingles as I shove it open and storm out onto the sidewalk.
Griffin’s so close behind me he catches the door. “Sasha—”
I whirl on him. “What the hell is going on?” There are a bunch of staring people out here, too, but I’m too upset to move somewhere private.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that. It just makes the most sense.”
“How does marrying someone you barely know make sense?”
“It’s my best shot at keeping you safe, Sasha.” His voice is low to keep our conversation private, though the looky-loos don’t seem to notice. One older woman’s full-on stopped—she might as well have pulled out a bucket of popcorn.
I throw up my hands in exasperation. “I know that’s your whole thing, but at some point, you’ve got to have a better answer than that.”
He smiles at the woman standing next to us and seems to do a quick assessment of where we are before holding his hand out to me.
I stare at it like it’s a code I can’t decipher, and he jerks his chin toward the corner.
Right. Though I’m still a freak-out in human form, I let him guide me around the corner to a smaller street where, miraculously for this adorable but nosy small town, there are no people.
He doesn’t let go once we’re clear of people, and for a moment, I let myself lean into how good his big, warm hand feels wrapped around mine.
Then I pull it away for pride’s sake, stuffing my hands in my pants pockets.
“The company I work for has strict policies in place about employee family safety,” Griffin says, answering my question at last.
My fingers brush against something in my pocket. It’s the little canary. I curl it into my palm. How ironic that it was this I took with me from home. The one thing that made me feel like I wasn’t an inconvenience.
“What company do you work for?”
He does that face-scrubby thing.
I grab his forearm, instantly flashing back to this morning when I did this when he was shirtless next to me.
I shake off the sensation. “No face rubbing for you. Answer the question, Griffin.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Really? You can’t tell the person you want to be your fiancée?” I know I sound a little delirious, but that’s because I am a little delirious. This proposal—this literal proposal—is off-the-wall insane.
He goes to lift his arm again, but I’m still holding on to it.
“Sasha, my family doesn’t even know who I work for.”
I blink. “Seriously?”
He meets my eye. “Seriously. It’s for…”
I sigh. “Safety.” I consider. “What is it, the secret service? FBI?” I know he won’t answer me, but my tension slips, just a little. He’s not paranoid. He’s a professional. “What do you tell your family?”
“Nothing.”
“So what are you going to tell them about suddenly wanting to marry me?”
“I’m going to repeat the brilliant story you told in there. Except I’ll tell them I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Even though they’re just words, just things he’s saying to bolster an idea that’s not going to happen, a warmth tingles in my stomach.
But it quickly turns to something more painful.
“No one’s ever said that about me,” I say.
I’m instantly mortified. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
His expression is half-shock, half…what? Pity?
The same doesn’t hold true for him, obviously.
Laura.
“They’ve missed out,” he says, looking down toward the end of the street. It ends a couple of blocks from here on a promenade by the river. We start to walk, slowly.
I swallow. Have they? “Much to my mom’s chagrin, most men don’t really find me the marrying type.”
“I do.”
I laugh drily. “Fake marriage doesn’t count.”
“I’m not talking about fake marriage. There are men out there who’d fall over themselves to be married to you, Sasha.” He glances my way, then looks away again.
“Well, I’ll never know if I marry you, will I?” The words are harsh. But maybe they’re meant to be harsh because of the hurt I feel knowing he’s said that as a man who doesn’t actually want to marry me.
“I know it’s crazy,” he says. “But I’m serious when I say that us marrying is the best way to keep you safe. The place I work for specializes in looking after people. It would be extremely bad for business if an employee’s wife was harmed by a person we were at one point keeping tabs on.”
“At one point?”
“It’s—don’t worry about that. We’re still keeping tabs on Creelman. But I need you to at least consider this as an option. The best option. Not only because you’ll be protected, but because once Creelman finds out you’re married—after you tell your brother—there’s a chance he’ll back off.”
I was going to demand he tell me everything.
But just the mention of that name has that chill spreading further.
Maybe there are things I don’t want to know about him.
Things that would only serve to make me more terrified than I already am.
I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but I know what it’s like to obsess over things, too.
Spin them into a frenzy in my head and fall into a bad place.
I look at the treed hills on the other side in the distance. A few houses are visible, tucked into the woods like Griffin’s.
Could a fake marriage to Griffin actually work to keep Creelman away? I have to admit, the idea of having not just Griffin but a whole company behind me is appealing. And Creelman losing interest would be a best-case scenario. I let out a breath. “How would it work?”
“We’d go to Quince Valley Town Hall on Monday, get a marriage license. I’ll call my boss, let him know what’s going on.”
“Then what? Where would we live?
“Here.”
I turn back around. “What about your work? Mine? My apartment?” I work in a clothing boutique. It’s not exactly a stable career, but I do have a life in New York. Sort of. I think of my barely-friends. My lonely apartment.
My parents on the rare times they visit me, not uttering a single word to each other, but my mother with plenty of words for me.
“You’d need to move in with me, Sasha. I can…put a bed in the shop or something for me. But I’ll take on desk work. Do it from home. We’d probably have to stick it out for a couple of months.”
Griffin’s so close I could touch him. I’m safe with him. I know I am. And I know this plan makes perfect sense, logically speaking. But I still can’t help the knot of uncertainty in my chest. The thought that things are running away from me, that I’m not in control of my own life.
I squeeze the little bird in my hand, feeling the sharpness of its inner un-workings. Once, this was the thing that reminded me that someone was looking out for me.
But Griffin’s the only one actually looking out for me.
“This isn’t what I had planned for myself, you know,” I say, my voice tight in my throat. “I always thought I’d fall in love, have a big, beautiful wedding. I vowed it would be that way. I’d have a real family, where everyone loved and looked out for each other. Do you like babies, Griffin?”
Griffin runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”
I have to laugh at that. “Who doesn’t love babies?”
“I just don’t know what to do with them. They’re so…breakable.”
“So you don’t want kids?”
Griffin scrubs his face. This time I let him. “This isn’t for life, Sasha. It’s only for right now. Just to get Creelman to back off.”
It’s pathetic how that feels like a little kick to the gut.
“I know it’s not real. I’m just curious if you want kids someday.
I feel like that’s something you should know about the person you’re marrying.
” I don’t know why I can’t just let this go and give him an answer.
But I’m suddenly very keen to know this about him.
Griffin examines me a moment, then looks down. “I never thought I’d have kids, no.”
Disappointment twists my stomach for no reason at all. It doesn’t matter what either of us wants for the future; we’re not each other’s future.
There’s a couple down on the promenade walking a brown lab. They’re holding hands, laughing as they look at each other, the dog bounding happily along beside them. Going the other way, a woman walks with a little girl who’s skipping as she holds her mom’s hand.
My chest aches. “I always wanted kids.” I shrug. “But maybe it’s just not in the cards for me.” Now why am I fighting off tears?
“Sasha, this isn’t forever. You’ve got plenty of time to have a normal life after…me.”
I don’t know why, but the thought makes me inexplicably sad. “What will you do after me?”
He meets my eye. “I don’t want to think about that, Sasha.”
Maybe it’s his tone, or the way he doesn’t waver as he meets my gaze, but my stomach does a little flip.
“You know, if we still had an audience, people might call that romantic.”
He looks at me a moment too long, then looks away. “I need to be back at my HQ in New York next week with you under my protection. Which means we either need to get to the town hall by next Monday, or we need to come up with a different plan.”
“Forget what I said about you sounding romantic.”
I swear he laughs under his breath.
“What would a different plan look like?”
Griffin grimaces. “How does Siberia sound?”
“That bad, huh?”
A buzz sounds, and Griffin pulls out his phone. He grumbles and shoves it back into his pocket.
“What is it?”
“Jude’s asking if I want pointers.”
I can’t help but laugh. It turns into hysterics, and even Griffin smiles, though his brow stays furrowed as he tries not to.
After a moment, I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, wiping away the tears. “Can I give you an answer tomorrow, Griffin?”
“We don’t need to decide until Sunday night. How about we just give you a normal weekend? Hang out in town or out at my place? There’s a swimming spot nearby.”
I nod, my eyes filling with fresh tears. Nothing’s ever sounded better.