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After I cover all this. "Is that your guiding value? Honesty?"
"If I have to pick one." His eyes meet mine. "You?"
"Knowledge, I guess." I try to be honest, but I'm not as good at it. It's just easier said than done. It's easier to tell myselfDamon and Cassie want to know you're leavingthan to actually tell them. "I admire that."
"That makes us a good match. If you want someone to tell the truth and I want to tell the truth."
"But you still haven't volunteered an answer to my question," I say.
He nodsthat's true, but he doesn't offer a confession. There's a stiffness to his posture. One I don't want to challenge. Because we aren't really life partners. We're only in this for a few weeks.
Instead, I ask, "How did you imagine your wedding?"
"The way I imagine dates," he says. "Whatever the woman I married wanted."
"You don't strike me as agreeable," I say.
He chuckles. "See. You are honest."
"Yes, but I knew you'd take it as a compliment too."
His smile widens. He nodsyou're right, I do. "I'm not. I like what I like, and I don't compromise the way some people do. I won't go to a restaurant I hate because someone else likes it. I'll find one we both like instead. I can do that easily, because I pay attention. I notice what other people need and I try to supply it, as long as it's not in the way of what I want."
Agreeableness versus conscientiousness, in psychology terms. I only grasp the difference through that lens. And I see hints of it in his behavior.
He doesn't have a romantic vision of a wedding—most guys probably don't—so he's happy to give his bride what she wants. But he'd never agree to honeymoon at, say, the Mall of America because he'd hate it. What would he like though? "What about the honeymoon? You must imagine that?"
"Mostly the bedroom," he says.
My lips curl into a smile. "And hotel rooms look the same everywhere?" The image forms in my mind. Jackson in a big, beautiful room, a Just Married sign hanging over the four-poster bed. A blue bondage rope in his hands.This is how I wanted to tie you down.
He nods as if he's sharing my vision. As if he knows exactly what I'm thinking. "Somewhere with nice weather and a beach."
A suite in Hawaii. Jackson on the balcony in one of his linen shirts, watching the sun set over the Pacific, his arms wrapped around his bride.
His arms wrapped around me.
I swallow hard. I sit up straight. I have romantic visions of him sometimes. I certainly did when I was younger. But they're not appropriate right now.
There's no future for our romance. Only the next three weeks. "What else do you see?"
"Besides a woman in a hot pink bikini?" He doesn't saylike the one you wear,but it fills the space anyway. He's picturing me.
Of course, he's picturing me. We got married last night. We're on our honeymoon now. "Maybe we should do it. Book flights to Hawaii. Hide from our families in a hotel room."
"Say the word and I'm there."
It's tempting. One week away from the world, only the two of us, in a hotel room, falling in love as we fall into bed again and again.
That's why I can't do it.
I can't do it to myself. And I really can't do it to him.
I shake my head. "We shouldn't."
"We always do what we should," he says. "Aren't you tired of it?"
"Look what happened when we tried to rebel." I hold up my left hand. "We have to face it. We're not good at letting our hair down."
