Chapter thirty-three
Harrison and Violet's Apartment, The Level
Harrison
“Married?” she stammers, and her mouth drops open. “You want to get married?”
“No,” I answer on impulse.
She frowns.
“Well yes, I do, but a shotgun wedding wouldn’t be my choice.” I pinch my nose between my fingers. “Fuck, this is coming out all wrong.”
“You think? Suggesting marriage then telling me you don’t want to. Get your shit in order. I’ve got fucking whiplash.”
She turns away from me and stares at the opposite side of the room.
I place my hand on her shoulder, unsure what to do.
Her mood has flipped from blissfully satisfied and content to openly furious.
“Violet, I do want to marry you.” She sniffs loudly.
“But what I’m about to suggest isn’t the way I would want to do it. This is about protecting our child from Marley.”
She doesn’t respond, but I know she’s listening.
“Under UK law, a man can be listed on a birth certificate if they are married to the mother at the time of conception or birth.”
I pause to let her process what I’ve said.
“If we get married before you give birth, I can be put on the document. It will give me parental rights, and Marley would have to challenge us in court.”
“Harry, I’m due in a matter of weeks. How is this even possible?”
“We have to give twenty-eight days’ notice before we can obtain our marriage license. Do you think you would be able to hold on until then?”
“I’ll schedule the birth with the baby, shall I?” she snaps, then bursts into tears. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“It needs to if we want to put this roadblock in Marley’s way. We can plan toward this. If you go into labor before we do the paperwork, then once we’re married, I can apply for parental rights. But that gives him time to challenge us. It would be better this way.”
My attempt to console her backfires dramatically.
She wriggles from my grasp and pushes herself up to stand, rocking back slightly on her heels as she loses her balance. “Violet, we need to talk about this.”
She whirls to face me. Still naked from the waist down, she pulls her top up over her plump breasts.
“Fucking sort the paperwork, the documents, and your rights,” she hisses, pushing her hair out her face.
“I’ll sign whatever you need me to.” Without picking up her shorts, she walks off in the direction of our bedroom.
I watch her bare ass disappear in disbelief, at a loss with what the issue could be.
The door slams closed, and the pictures vibrate on the walls of the apartment.
I go to shout at her to be careful, then promptly close my mouth, not wanting to provoke another reaction.
When I glance at my watch, it tells me the time is ten o’clock.
Needing advice, I call the only person that I can have an honest conversation with—my only friend who has had a real relationship and a wife.
Damon answers on the second ring. “Please don’t tell me you have another bloody emergency. We are sitting down to a glass of wine after getting the little one to bed,” he says.
“My Christmas is only just beginning.” His nanny giggles in the background.
“I’ve fucked up, but I’m not sure how.” He sighs. I hear his chair scrape across the floor. “I told Violet about the idea of getting married.”
“Okay, and what did she say?”
“She asked me if I wanted to. I said no, this wasn’t my ideal way to commit to someone forever.”
“Please tell me you didn’t use the word someone.” He groans, obviously thinking I’m an idiot.
“No, I didn’t. I told her that we need to give twenty-eight days’ notice, so she can’t have the baby until the end of January at the earliest, which is close to her due date. We need to get the paperwork in order.”
He laughs, then coughs as if his drink has gone down the wrong way.
“No wonder she’s pissed at you,” he says, still chuckling.
“I thought you were a smart bastard who was good with women. Can you not see where you went wrong?”
I don’t answer him, pissed off that he thinks I messed up and have no idea what to suggest as my error.
I was being honest. “Waite, you proposed marriage then talked about the bloody paperwork. Never mind the fact you advised she should hold the baby in. Let’s not even mention the comment about not wanting to marry her.”
“Shit…” Reality dawns on me hard. “I was trying to be proactive.”
“Proactive isn’t a key requirement in a proposal. Whether this is a shotgun wedding or not, Violet will still want to feel like you’re marrying her because you love her. It would be different if it was purely transactional, but it’s not. You’ve been playing the daddy card for weeks.
It’s time to step up and show her you mean it.”
He pauses, then sniggers. “Put a ring on it, as it were. You better go do some groveling.”
“Suppose I’ll have to,” I mutter. “Thanks, mate, have a good night.”
“Oh, I will,” he replies and disconnects the call.
I wander down to our bedroom. Violet is already in bed with the duvet wrapped around her.
When I approach, she’s sleeping soundly.
Tear marks stain her eyes. Guilt bubbles in my stomach.
I did this to her with my own stupidity.
Not wanting to wake her, I return to the kitchen and take another beer, then settle myself on a bar stool with my laptop to come up with a plan of how I can make amends.
***
Violet
I’m woken by music playing along the hallway.
It’s soft and melodic, nothing like the techno crap Harry usually plays.
Blinking my eyes open, daylight seeps through the crack in the window blinds.
The clock tells me it’s eleven in the morning.
Hell, I must have needed sleep. I don’t remember Harry coming to bed.
I’m not even sure if he did after our argument.
It wasn’t much of a quarrel; it was more of a temper tantrum on my part.
Thinking back now, I was being a little irrational, but I’d never admit that to him.
We are going to get married but not because we’ve chosen to.
It’s a necessary procedure we need to go through to try to ensure the safety of our child, of the baby growing in my belly.
The detail stings. Harry is marrying me now because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.
The accelerator on our life plans is firmly on the floor, and we’re moving fast, potentially before either of us is ready to.
The music increases in volume. I extricate myself from the bed and wrap Harry’s huge white bathrobe around me before going off in search of him.
When I reach the living room, the blinds are down, and soft light from candles flickers around the room.
There are vases of flowers scattered around the space.
Roses. Red roses. Dozens of them if not hundreds.
I can’t see him. Where is he?
“Marry me.” His strong voice says from behind me. I turn around, and he’s down on one knee with a ring box open, displaying the most stunning solitaire diamond ring. “Violet Chase, make me the happiest man on this planet and agree to be my wife.”
I gasp in shock; this is completely unexpected.
I was ready for round two of our debate.
“Not because of anything other than my love for you. Because you and I were meant to be together from day one.”
Those eyes that melt my panties fix fast and take hold.
My heart pounds in my chest. “The past fourteen years should never have happened the way they did. The universe has brought us together now because we were always meant to be us. We need to take this chance.”
I gape at him, then my eyes drop to my toes as I register my ragged appearance. This is not the outfit or situation I ever imagined getting engaged in. When I woke this morning, I never thought I’d see Harrison Waite down on his knee with a ring ever.
“How did you organize all this? The day after Christmas,” I say, glancing around the room, still in shock at the setting.
It’s an effing holiday, and he’s somehow managed to procure a room full of flowers, a million scented candles, and a kickass diamond ring.
The situation is impossible to comprehend.
“I know people. It doesn’t matter. Marry me.”