“Because we need a bigger place.”
I shook my head out of his grasp. “Do we? I don’t see why we need a house if we’re not—” My voice cracked. If we’re not getting married. No, I wouldn’t be the idiot who said that. The idiot who’d spent the past month hoping and dreaming.
“What is this?” A flash of lightning whitened Matt’s eyes, which were somber now. “Hey, look at me.” Again, he took my face between his hands. “Little bird, you barely know me. We barely know one another, if you think about it.”
His words put a hairline crack in my heart. We did know one another. We’d been through so much. What was he saying?
“And marriage is about more than me,” he continued. “More than us. It’s about family. There’s a lot to consider, starting all that.”
I pinched my tongue between my teeth. Holy shit. Matt wanted kids? We’d never had this discussion, and my desire to carry a child could be described as less than zero.
His voice gained confidence as he spoke.
“Of course we’ll talk about marriage … someday. When we’re ready, you know? When we’re sure this is what we want. Marriage is very finalizing, or it ought to be.” He released my face and stripped off his T-shirt, and for a second his gorgeous body distracted me. Those toned arms, that golden trail below his navel …
“I know,” I snapped. “I know marriage is finalizing. I’m not an idiot.”
“Come here. Don’t be upset; we’re talking.” He tried to kiss my neck. I ducked.
“It was real for me,” I said. “I was ready.”
“What? Hannah…”
Matt wanted closeness—probably to confirm that we weren’t having a serious fight. I knew how he worked. He drew comfort from intimacy. See, Matt? I do know you. He pulled on my shoulder. I stiffened and fought my instinct to melt against him.
“Stop.” I pressed both hands to his chest. This wasn’t play and he knew it. He frowned and stilled.
“What’s the matter?” His voice grated with frustration.
“I was ready,” I repeated. Tears rimmed my eyelids. “I was fucking ready, Matt. I was serious when I said, “marry me.” The perfect play? Is everything a game for you?” I scrambled back on the sheets. “I can’t believe you just said, ‘when we’re sure this is what we want.’” I sniffled and a tear fell. My cheeks burned. “I am … was sure. I’d been sure.”
Matt watched me impassively. Oh, he could go so cold, even in the face of my emotion.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Of course it was a game. It was a story, a simple narrative for simple people. Something they’d understand. Do you think I would seriously parade my engagement out for the public like that? God, it’s like I said. You don’t know me at all.”
“No, I do know you.” My fingers dug into the sheets. Nothing makes me indignant like humiliation. “You’re manipulative, just like Seth said. Your own fucking brother said you’re a master manipulator, and that’s what you are, letting me and all those people think we were seriously getting married. I feel like such an idiot.”
“Don’t.” Matt leaned in swiftly. He didn’t touch me, but his breath touched my face and I froze. “Don’t bring him into this. Do you think I’m lying when I say I love you?” He sneered. “Do you think I’m lying when I say you don’t really know me? Hannah, I want things that…” He lowered his head so that he could look directly at me. I shrank beneath his frigid stare.
He wanted things that … what?
As suddenly as he’d leaned in, he withdrew. He stalked out of the room and left me shivering on our bed.
Chapter 2
MATT
Mike kept a framed picture of his family on his desk. Blonde, wife, two cherubic-looking children, and a goddamn golden retriever.
I pointed at the picture with my unlit cigarette.
No smoking allowed in my psychiatrist’s office, of course.
“The dog,” I said. “The dog is what makes this too much.”
I sat in an overstuffed armchair and Mike sat on a couch beside me, his body angled toward mine. Everything about his posture said: I am attentive to you.
Mike’s golden retriever grinned at me.
“It’s like you’re mocking me,” I said. “Mocking the poor messed-up people who must sit in this chair. With your dog. With your golden family. Do you get that?”
“You’re avoiding,” Mike said.
“Right.” I chewed my cigarette’s filter. “God, I gotta quit smoking again.”
“I could prescribe something to help with that.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m down to one or two a day anyway.” I rose and walked to the broad window of Mike’s high-rise office and I looked out at a sunny Denver morning. It was Monday. Hannah was at work and I was meeting with my psychiatrist for the first time in months because Hannah demanded it.
If I didn’t get regular therapy, she wouldn’t live with me.
That stipulation seemed fair enough, considering the last year.
“Let’s talk about your relationship,” Mike said. “Are congratulations in order?”
“God, not you, too,” I muttered.
My mind tracked back to Friday night, when Hannah and I had finally discussed “the proposal.” Yes, “the proposal,” which I viewed as a ploy to manipulate public opinion. It had worked, too. Thousands of previously angry readers (how dare that author fake his death and make us grieve?) took to social media in support (oh, their story is so romantic!).
“No, no fucking congratulations. It wasn’t real. That should be obvious.”