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“Well, besides the fact she’s still alive after her little stunt, let’s start with the reason you’re keeping that tiny man alive—and in decent living conditions, go figure. Add onto that how grouchy you get when I ask you to share her, like you’d rather punch me in the face than let me have a go at her—”
Okay, Roark isn’t wrong there. I would rather punch him in the face than let him have a go at her. When you’re messing around, sure, sharing can be fun, but with Thea…
Shit. I guess it is more serious.
“You don’t think it’s a little soon?” I ask offhandedly, glancing at the back of Thea’s head.
“Dad proposed to Mom the first time he saw her, so no, I don’t think it’s a little soon. Besides, you have to start thinking about what you’re going to do with her long-term. I guess you can keep her forever, but…”
I take a small sip of my drink. “The plan was never to keep her forever.”
“Right, right. It was always to have her pay you back for the time she stole.” Roark groans, as if he finds it all ridiculous. “Seems to me you were just looking for an excuse to take her because you wanted her. I don’t think you really took her because she owes you time, Silus.”
As much as I want to tell my brother he’s wrong, I can’t. My first instinct is to correct him, tell him that, yes, I did take Thea for retribution, and that the plan was to always let her go once her time with me was up, but now that my brother suggested it was for a different reason, I can’t help but wonder if he’s right.
Did I take Thea for myself because I wanted her? Because, just from our quick interaction at the club, I knew I needed to learn more about her?
I decide to turn the conversation around on Roark and say, “What about you? You’re practically an old man. When are you going to find a woman?” Get the topic off Thea for the time being, to give myself some time to think.
He frowns at the wall across from us, behind the bar. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m getting up there, but you’re right behind me.” He runs a hand through his black hair. “If our parents were still alive, they’d be on our case about getting hitched, for sure. Mom would demand grandkids every time we’d talk. Hell, you and I would probably live very different lives if they were still around.”
Again, Roark isn’t wrong. Normally the man doesn’t spend too much time thinking, so I don’t know what makes today so special. I don’t like it. His comments are making me face things I don’t know whether I’m ready to face.
“I don’t even know how I’d go about it,” Roark goes on. “I mean, sure, it wouldn’t be hard to find a woman who’ll say yes. The problem lies with me finding a woman I’d want to ask the question to in the first place. Thea doesn’t have a sister somewhere, does she?”
I chuckle as I shake my head. “No, sorry. Just Max.”
“Pass,” my brother mutters. “Hard pass on that.”
Roark and I spend the next hour talking about nothing in particular, basically just chatting to pass the time while Thea spends some one-on-one time with her brother. It’s late by the time we leave the club, and as we drive home, I can’t help but replay everything Roark said to me. One word in particular bounces around more than the others.
Marriage.
I find myself glancing at Thea when she’s not paying attention to me, when her head is leaning against the window and she’s staring out into the neon lights that illuminate the city streets after dark. I don’t know where her mind is at, what she’s thinking about, or how she’d even feel about it.
No, that’s not totally true. She’d laugh at me, say I’m crazy. If I pop the question and put a ring on her finger…
Men like my brother and I don’t get married for love. We do it because of obligation, because it’s expected. We do it to pass on our bloodline so we can have true heirs that we train from birth to take over the family businesses. We don’t date for years before getting engaged. Things tend to happen fast for us.
Just look at my parents. Our father was an insane son of a bitch, but he was a good dad, a great husband. He may have asked our mother to marry him the day they first met, and everyone around him told him how crazy he was. In the end, though, it wasn’t a crazy decision. They fell in love, and they had Roark and me.
I must stare at Thea a bit too long, because she notices my gaze and whips her head in my direction. “What?”
I could tell her the truth, but I think it’s a conversation we best have privately. Maybe the idea wasn’t as wild as I originally thought, because the more I think about it, the more right it sounds. I need to get a ring.
But I don’t tell her the truth, not yet. I simply say, “Nothing.”
Thea doesn’t turn away after that. Her blue gaze lingers on me in a way that makes me think perhaps she and her brother had their own chat about us. I doubt their talk involved a suggestion of marriage, though.
In the end, she says, “Thank you for letting me see Max. It was good to see him in person and not on a TV screen.” Thea gets quieter. “You didn’t have to arrange this, so thank you.”
“I said I would.”
“Yeah, but… you still didn’t have to.”
We sit in the backseat of my car, so it’s easy for me to reach for her hand. My fingers curl around her tiny palm like they’ve found their home. “I said I would.” This time I say it softer, gentler, and I hope she takes it to mean I’m a man of my word and not someone who lies. I would never feed Thea lies.
The way Thea looks at me after that, how her heart-shaped face is lit up only by the streetlights we pass, how her lips part ever so slightly, a gesture some may not notice but I definitely do; it all draws the same reaction out of me.
