Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
CHRISTIAN
You know when you have a problem, and the harder you think about it, the further away the solution gets?
That’s been my life for the past few days, ever since my father casually brought up news about my impending marriage.
For the life of me, I can’t see how to swerve this, and stupidly, I’d begun to believe that after Xan and Nicholas marrying within a few months of each other, I’d have several more years at least before my turn on the chopping block arrived.
How wrong I was?
And this isn’t just about Grace and my growing obsession.
I’m often all-in with the women I date until the novelty wears off.
That can happen in a week, a month or, in the case of my last relationship, three whole months before I woke up one morning and the feelings I’d had just…
weren’t there anymore. No, this is about losing my freedom to live my life as I choose.
Whichever way I cut this, I’m not the settling down kind.
I like variety. It keeps life interesting.
In another few years, I may feel differently.
Who knows? But if Dad gets his way, I won’t get to find out.
He’ll have me up the aisle and married to some debutante before I can say, “Fuck, no”.
I’ve known the direction I’m destined to take, but knowing something might happen at a distant point of the future, only to have that future pop up out of nowhere and smack me in the face is… well, it’s a fucking nightmare.
I should talk to Dad; get him to see reason. There is no valid purpose to marrying me off right now. I’m not buying the whole “it’ll be good for you” spiel he trotted out.
Closing my laptop, I push my chair back from my desk. May as well get it over with. I pick up my phone, and as I do, it pings with an incoming text. The second I see it’s from Grace, I can’t open the message fast enough.
Grace: I wonder if you’re free for a coffee. I have something I’d like to talk to you about.
I’m always free for this woman. Even if I wasn’t, I’d make myself free. I check my calendar, move a meeting from twelve o’clock today to the same time tomorrow, and hit reply.
Me: That sounds intriguing… An hour? Same place we went for coffee last time?
Three dots appear the moment I hit send.
Grace: I’ll be there.
Curiosity plucks at my gut. What can she want to talk about?
Unless… my stomach sinks. I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about continuing our fledgling relationship, considering I’m about to be off the market.
She said she wanted to keep seeing me, but things said in the moment can change once reflected upon.
That’s it. I’m certain of it. And if that is the subject she intends to broach, then I intend to persuade her otherwise.
Before I head downstairs, I send a message to my driver. By the time I step outside, he’s pulling up with my bodyguard in the passenger seat. I climb into the back and give him the address of the coffee shop.
On the journey, I try to work, but I’m distracted by what Grace could want. I hope my gut feeling is wrong. We may have only been on a couple of dates, but I enjoy spending time with her. I don’t want this to be it, leaving me with too much time on my hands to contemplate my future.
Dawson stops right outside the coffee shop, and Marshall accompanies me inside.
My pulse jumps at the sight of Grace sitting in the same place we occupied last week, two lattes already on the table.
She looks nervous as she stands to greet me, wiping her hands on her jacket as though they’re clammy. She’s cutting me off, I know it.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Hi.”
I bend to kiss her cheek, and she doesn’t pull away.
Promising? Maybe. More likely manners, though.
It’s clear to me that Grace may have been raised poor, but she was raised right.
Most of the debutantes who pass through my life could learn a thing or two about class from this woman standing in front of me, gnawing on her bottom lip repeatedly.
I motion for her to retake her seat, and I choose the one opposite. The chair legs scrape over the floor as I pull it from under the table.
“Thank you for coming.” She plucks at the sleeve on her shirt. “I know you’re busy.”
“Never too busy for you, Duchess.”
She scratches behind her ear. Whatever she has to say to me, she’s worried about it. I reach over the table and take her hand, then fold it inside both of mine. “You wanted to talk to me?” I keep my voice gentle, coaxing a reply from her.
“Yes, although now I’m here, and you’re here, I’m losing my nerve. It sounded good in my head, but it’s silly.”
“There’s nothing you could say to me that I’d find silly.”
Her lips flicker up, but the smile is gone as fast as it came. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About getting married.”
Here we go. She’s breaking up with me for sure.
“Right.”
Tugging her hand from between mine, she brackets her nose and rubs. “This… I mean…” She swallows, and my gaze drops to her slender neck. A neck that would look fucking incredible with my hand around it as I drove into her. A fantasy destined never to become reality, more’s the pity.
“Grace.” I wait for her to give me her eyes. “Whatever it is, you can say it to me. Just spit it out. You’ll feel better afterward, believe me.” Once I know what I’m dealing with, I can take action, but until she tells me what’s on her mind, I’m blundering around in the dark.
“What if… what if we got married?”
My mouth falls open, eyes bulging. Of all the things I expected her to say, a marriage proposal wouldn’t have made the top one hundred. Not even the top one thousand.
“Marriage? Us?” Shock pushes a laugh from my stomach, and the second it breaks free, I regret it.
Grace pales, shoving her chair back to stand. “I’m sorry. Of course, it’s a laughable idea. Forget I said anything.” She dashes off, and in the few seconds it takes me to react, she’s wrenched the door open and is halfway down the street by the time I lurch from the coffee shop.
“Grace, wait.” I break into a sprint, easily catching up to her before I clasp her upper arm and pull her to a stop. “I’m shocked, that’s all. I didn’t expect you to say anything like that. I thought you’d called me here to tell me you didn’t want to see me again.”
“Not see you again?” She lowers her chin, shaking her head. “Christian, it’s the thought of not seeing you again that made me do… that.”
Lust, hot and sudden, races through me. I raise her chin, and the second her luminous eyes meet mine, I’m a goner.
I slide a hand around the back of her neck and smash my lips to hers.
She groans, parting her lips, letting me inside to explore her.
And I do. Thoroughly. Her breasts press against my chest, and if we were anywhere other than on a public street, I’d have my hands full of them right this minute.
We break apart, my lungs burning, chest heaving. Grace’s lips are swollen, and she dabs them with the tips of her fingers.
“Come back to the coffee shop with me?” I raise it as a question rather than a demand. She’s already spooked by my reaction. “Tell me more about your idea and why you proposed.” I grin. “Literally.”
She hesitates for a moment, then breaks into a smile. “Bet you didn’t expect that when you woke up this morning.”
“Nope.” I thread our fingers together. “It’s not every day a reprobate like me gets a proposal of marriage from an honest-to-goodness Lady.”
Her cheeks flush with color at my compliment, and she looks at the ground. She’s a dichotomy. One minute, she’s brimming with confidence, and the next, she’s crawled into her shell. Which version is the real Lady Grace Ambrose? Although I’m fucking attracted to both of them, so what does it matter?
I coax her back to the coffee shop. Our drinks are still on the table, and I pull out Grace’s chair for her, then take my own.
“Why would you propose marriage?”
“Because.” She lifts her right shoulder in a half shrug. “You don’t want to get married.”
I chuckle, and as she realizes what she said, she laughs, too. “Yes, I’m aware how daft that sounds, but hear me out.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Okay.” She wraps her hands around her mug and leans forward. “You like your life the way it is, correct? Free to come and go as you please. Date anyone you choose. Bachelor forever, yes?”
“I mean… I hoped my life would stay like that, but deep down I always knew my time to marry would come. It’s the De Vil way. We’ve entered into arranged marriages for centuries. I don’t like it, but there’s no escaping my duty to take a wife of my father’s choosing.”
“Then, we make it so he chooses… me.”
My mouth falls open, then snaps shut. “You?”
She gives me a crooked smile and another shoulder pop.
“I’m not na?ve, Christian. I get that you’re attracted to me now, but that’s unlikely to last forever, and that’s fine by me.
I’m not looking for anything long-term, either.
We enjoy each other until whatever this is fades.
As your wife, I won’t stand in the way of anyone you want to date.
You’d be free to live your life anyway you see fit, and I’d be free to do the same. ”
I frown. “And what would you get out of it?”
She rubs her lips together. “Financial security.”
“Money? This is about money?”
Her cheek pops as she runs her tongue along it.
“You’ve never been short of cash, Christian, but let me tell you, there’s no honor in being poor.
It sucks. Did you know that more than fifty percent of people in this country are one month away from losing everything?
All it takes is for them to lose their job, and that’s it.
Most have no savings to fall back on. They’re living day to day, month to month, trying to keep up with the rate of inflation while their wages continue to stagnate.
It doesn’t show grit or determination to be able to survive being poor. All it does is grind you down.”