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“Oh yeah, sorry. But after you drop them off at daycare, could we grab a coffee near your office? What I want to talk about won’t take much time.” This was not something I wanted to propose over the phone—no pun intended.
“Why?”
“I want to discuss some things.”
“Nick, you’re scaring me.”
“No reason to be scared, I promise.”
“Okay.” She still sounded wary. “Sure, we can grab coffee. That means I can skip it now and focus on getting them fed. There’s a coffee shop on the ground floor of my building. We can meet there.”
“When?”
“One hour, give or take.”
“Perfect,” I said before hanging up.
This was crazy. Utter and total lunacy. I couldn’t explain to myself why I kept obsessing over it. Those kids deserved a good home, and Allison could give them that. I saw her with them. She genuinely cared about them. I couldn’t believe that their grandparents wanted to take them away from her, away from Boston. They lived in Montana in a small town. Everything would change for the twins.
As I stepped into the shower, the enormity of the situation hit me.Am I really going to suggest to Allison that we should get married? What’s gotten into me?
And yet, even though I was in complete disbelief, I was already starting to imagine how being married to her would work. My entire body stood at attention—including my pulsing cock.
Fucking hell, I couldn’t be thinking with my dick when it came to this. This wasn’t about me wanting Allison—although there was no doubt about that. Saturday evening, it took all of my self-restraint not to touch her, not to flirt. Being married to her would never work. But I just had to suggest it, to put it on the table. We’d both have a good laugh and agree to never speak of it again. I was sure of it.
***
Allison was already at the coffee shop when I arrived. She was sitting at one of the tables, sipping coffee.
She smiled sheepishly when she noticed me. “Sorry, I got a head start on the coffee. Turns out it was a bad idea to leave my house without having a cup.”
“No problem.”
“It’s self-service. Do you want to grab one?”
I sat down. “No, I’m good. I’ll get it later.”
She frowned. “Nick, you’re scaring me again.”
“I’ll get right to it. Then you can tell me how crazy this all is, and we can put it behind us.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m listening. This doesn’t sound very encouraging, though.”
I leaned back in the chair, studying her. She looked stunning, as usual. Her hair was falling over one shoulder. It was a sexy look on her, preppy but also hot. Because I was sitting at the very edge of the table, I had a view of her legs too. Her skirt wasn’t short, but her legs were endless. And they looked amazing in those high heels.
“Nick!”
Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Right. When we spoke about what Hugo told you, I was at the gym. My brothers and I started talking about it, and they suggested, jokingly, thatwecould get married.”
Her mouth fell open, her right eye ticked, and then she shook her head, wincing. “Sorry. I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It would make sense. You need someone who’d make a good impression on paper, right? I have a solid business. More than solid, honestly, but I don’t want to brag. I have assets. You’veknown me for a long time, so it wouldn’t seem like you just picked me up off the street.” I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking these points through until I said them out loud.