Chapter 28
At the end of the workday on Friday, one week after Claire sobbed on the floor with the ruined dress, I hold on to the hope we’ll finally have a chance to sit down and talk. Every day and night has been busy for both of us. Me with work and Tom getting injured on the work site. Her with her dress and making use of the new machine I bought her.
Thank goodness I noticed her circling that specific machine in that catalog she left lying out on the coffee table. I never would’ve known what to get if I hadn’t spotted that hint.
Before I can go home to shower and surprise her with a bouquet of flowers and a suggestion that I make her dinner at her place before we talk, I check my phone and see a voicemail from Dalton. It’s not a long one, but the message is clear.
We need to talk. I fear it’s bad news. Adelaide has to know about my engagement to Claire by now. Dalton spread the word. So, what is the witch trying to do now? It’s got to be about her somehow.
I drive to meet Dalton at the coffee shop where he’s talking with the owner about buying the place and making it a bigger, combined retail space.
He comes over to sit with me at a table, shaking his head. “Bad news.”
“I feared as much.” I tap my finger on the table, worried about what he’ll share.
“Adelaide has been notified of the engagement, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough.”
I slant my brows at him. “How so?”
“Now, Adelaide is trying to get the trust out of Claire’s name entirely, which means Claire doesn’t have a lot of time to beat her at this game. She has no time to try to figure this out.”
I’m crushed, beaten down by a wave of defeat. I wanted to help her, to save her. It isn’t about impressing her anymore or winning her heart with things that matter to her and would help her succeed with her goals. It’s not enough.
“Right now…” Dalton clears his throat. “All you could do is get married. If Claire marries, the estate would transfer to her name immediately.”
I sink back in the old booth. Defeated. I stare at him, hopeless and frustrated that I—Claire and I—can’t win.
I know Claire doesn’t want to do this. Part of me fears she might be annoyed deep down that we’re playacting and faking an engagement like this. I saw the pain in her eyes when I told her how I could help. She was uneasy and suspicious, and knowing she was so instantly averse to the idea of even a pretend commitment to me wounded my pride. She doesn’t feel as deeply about me, and it’s a lesson I wish I could make stick.
When will I ever learn?
But I’m stuck all over again. I’m damned if I put myself out there to help her, but I’m also damned if I don’t. Now, she’ll lose everything, and that’s just not fair at all.
“Couldn’t you…” Dalton shakes his head. “Never mind.”
I don’t want to ask him what he has in mind. If he’s suggesting I go ahead and ask Claire to marry me for real, I’ll have to explain how she doesn’t want it. Dalton’s a good friend. I know he wouldn’t want me to suffer unnecessarily, but I can’t know for sure if he values my friendship more than he values his cousin’s happiness and security.
I push to my feet and leave, suddenly too awkward to sit there with the hard truth that I’ll never be good enough for Claire, not even when pretending it all.
Outside, I shake my head and glower at the sidewalk, heading back to my truck in a dejected daze.
I bump into someone, and as I look up to apologize for not paying attention and looking where I was going, I snort in surprise.
It’s Kevin. We never talk much, already distant because of how Dad never favored him and how we couldn’t ever connect with mutual interests, but our differences over Gina back in high school served as the final nail in the coffin of our brotherhood.
“Sawyer?” He frowns at me. “What’s wrong?”
I’m annoyed he can so easily tell something is wrong. I shake my head, too exhausted with life and heartache to explain.
Why can’t she just love me? Why?
“Nothing.” I move to pass him, but he dodges my escape, blocking me.
“Whoa. No. Even I can tell something’s not right.” We seldom cross paths, and when we do speak, it’s in limited, dry and curt exchanges. But he’s quick to be alert now, of all times.
“It’s…” I groan. I want to say it’s nothing, but he’ll persist.
“Something happened with Claire?” he guesses.
I furrow my brow. “How did you know I was seeing her?”
“You mean engaged to her?” He laughs. “Aubrey. At work. Besides, I met her at the bar when they all went out a while back.”
I hang my head and sigh.
“Come on.” He pats my back and tips his head. “Come over, and we’ll talk. After all, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you like this.”
I narrow my eyes at the back of his head and follow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He smirks at me. “Uh, Gina? Back in high school?”
I roll my eyes and walk with him. “We were dumb back then.”
“Of course. Who isn’t? But I know what I said back then still hits you now.”
I don’t reply, not wanting to have former hurts mixed with the current.
“I gave you shit about Gina. She was two-timing us, and I took advantage of it when she complained about you sometimes. She was a fancier girl, higher maintenance, and I tried to win her over by being the opposite of the outdoorsy guy you were.”
“I don’t need a reminder.”
“But maybe you do,” he says as we reach his apartment door and head up the steps. “Because if I’m not mistaken, Claire seems like another high-maintenance girl.”
“Yeah,” I grouse. “Another beautiful woman out of my league who will see me as a convenient man to sleep with for fun but never to get serious with.”
He lets me into his apartment, laughing, and I debate hitting him.
“If we’re being serious, you’re already engaged.”
Not for real. And even that fake crap won’t be for long.
“People change, Sawyer, and wherever Gina ended up is the best for us. Claire, though…” He pulls out a chair at his kitchen table for me and sits in another. “She’s not Gina.”
“No shit.” I slump into the chair.
“I only spoke with her a little bit, but she seemed very offended when I suggested you were simple-minded.”
I lift my face and glower at him.
“She seemed so curious and excited to learn about you.”
I sigh, looking down again.
“Genuinely interested, Sawyer. Maybe you two do seem like opposites, but maybe that’s why you work so well. Well enough to get engaged.”
I growl and drop my head back to stare at the ceiling. “We’re not engaged. Not for real.”
He stands and returns with two beers.
I look at his offering, then him, and wonder if we’ve finally let enough years pass to bury the hatchet.
“Talk to me, Sawyer. It’s about time we act like brothers. And I know you’re struggling with something, so try me. Lay it on me and see if we can’t figure it out.”
I sigh and take the bottle, draining a good third of it.
And then I tell him everything. How Claire and I met. The way she reminded me of Gina and how I was so untrusting of her interest because she seemed like a repeat of Gina, out of my league and no one would want to stick with a common worker like me. Then I summed up Claire’s troubles about her mom and the idea to pretend we’re engaged.
“But now her mom’s moving faster. She’s going to change it all.”
Kevin shakes his head. “That can’t be legal.”
“You’d think. Dalton and Caleb both have their lawyers looking into it. It’s twisted and messed up, but I know I can trust his word. It’s not a bluff. Somehow, in some way, that woman will prevent Claire from ever seeing a penny of the money her father wanted her to have. And Kev, she needs it. She doesn’t want it. She just needs the investment to make her business take off. I wouldn’t be surprised if she let it all sit, only using what she needs to get afloat and start up her dream shop.”
“What are the options now?”
I scoff. “Dalton says if Claire is married now, sooner than later, the estate will transfer to her.”
“Married to anyone, right?” Kevin lifts his brows. “Anyone like…the man she’s already ‘engaged’ to?”
“You weren’t there.” I shake my head and set aside the bottle of beer I drank. “She looked mortified and crestfallen.”
“Fancy adjectives.”
I kick his chair lightly. “She was not on board with the idea of marrying and divorcing for the sake of getting her money. I saw the pain in her eyes, like it would be the worst thing she’d put up with.”
Kevin laughs, rolling his eyes. “And you assume it’s because she doesn’t want you?”
“What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
“Maybe that you asking her to go through this like it’s a business transaction could be the opposite of what she really wants?”
I’m scared to let his suggestion settle into my mind, but my heart leaps with dumb hope.
“What if she wants the real thing and has to accept that you don’t seem to?”
I shake my head, thinking back to how she categorized what we had as a hookup.
“What’s the risk of telling her how you feel about her? About her, not this crappy situation she’s stuck in.”
I lick my lips and shrug. “I’d get my heart stomped on if she still isn’t interested.”
“And I bet you’d still survive. What’s the risk if you don’t tell her how you feel?”
I can’t say it.
“You’d lose her. If you don’t act, you’ll lose her. Her mother will win, Sawyer, and that will be the end of it.”
I stare at him, knowing without a doubt that he’s right. I hate that he’s right, and as I sit here and let that truth sink in, I smirk. “You know, I didn’t count on this occasion happening today. I didn’t set out to reconcile and make long overdue amends with you and have to suck it up and admit you’re right about her, about this.”
He smiles wide and splays his hands out as he shrugs. “It is what it is.”
I narrow my eyes. “When’d you go back to school and learn to become a shrink?”
His chuckles don’t piss me off for once. “Well, working with kids and volunteering at the high school, I hear a lot of sappy sob stories about love gone wrong.”
“For kids? Teenagers?”
He exaggerates rolling his eyes. “There’s always drama there.”
“I’m not a teenager!”
He guffaws. “Then stop acting like one. Be a man about this and tell her, idiot, before you lose her.”
I point at him and try to look stern. “Don’t call me an idiot.”
He rolls his eyes. “Then don’t act like one.”
I stand up, smiling at the wise guy who’s most unexpectedly shown me the way.
I won’t.
I’m still intimidated by the chance I’m right, that I’m correct in guessing Claire won’t want me for real and for good, but I damn well will have an answer.
Because after a lifetime of never getting along with Kevin, I really, really hope he’s right about this. Of all people, I never would’ve thought he’d be the one to kick some sense into me, but as I leave his apartment and jog toward my truck, I’m simply glad that he did.
My heart may not survive her rejection, but at least I’ve got my head on straight enough now to be able to tell her that she has my heart—and to beg her not to break it.