Page 28 of First Comes Marriage

“Alright, I won’t push.”

On the front step, Aunt Lucy snagged Sabrina’s hand, pulling her off to the side of the driveway for a hushed conversation. Baz’s eyes stayed on her the entire time, scanning for signs of—he didn’t know what he was looking for, but he knew something was wrong.

His mother came up beside him, sliding her arm around his waist and resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m so happy for you, Sebastian. You know, after everything that happened with Holly, I thought you’d given up on finding true love. And you seemed happy enough, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more for you.”

He glanced at his mother before returning his attention to Sabrina. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted you to know the kind of love that changes you, the kind that lights a fire in your belly and keeps on burning, come hell or high water. To know what it’s like to have someone look at you like maybe you’re magic, and for you to feel the same about them. And now you have that.”

His gut twisted, bile rising at the back of his throat as he swallowed down the truth and gave her a short nod. How could he tell her that he didn’t have any of those things? All he had was a set of cheap wedding rings and the fuzzy memory of his wedding night to a woman whose family had already decided he wasn’t good enough, a woman who he hadn’t spoken to in ten years and who damn near had a panic attack at the mere idea of being his wife.

Across the driveway, Sabrina’s eyes met his. Her face had gone gray, her brow crinkled as she winced again. He was across the pavement, pulling her into his side, before she could even lift her hand to press against her abdomen. She melted against him with a little exhale of relief that made him feel ten feet tall.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “It’s time to go.”

***

“I guess at least they didn’t also try tounpackmy things.” Sabrina nudged one of the boxes stacked neatly in the corner of Baz’s living room. Her entire life crammed into a handful of boxes and old suitcases. If she hadn’t finally gotten a reprieve from the period cramps from hell, she’d be inclined to feel sorry for herself, but as it was, all she wanted to do was figure out which box her aunt had packed her pads in before the cramps returned.

And Sebastian seemed to have calmed down now that she wasn’t white as a sheet and two seconds away from cursing every female hormone in her body. But for a while there, as they’d driven home from his mother’s house together in the back seat of some guy’s Toyota Camry, he’d seemed rattled. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the cracks in his stoic demeanor, but she’d clocked the way his eyes kept flitting to her, his lips pressed together into a flat line every time she shifted in her seat, the crease between his brows when she flinched as another cramp took hold.

Now, Sebastian stood in the middle of the living room, a good ten feet away from her, as though he were afraid of getting too close. A wild laugh bubbled up in Sabrina’s chest and she clamped her lips shut to keep it contained. Her husband didn’t want to get close to her—at least not when she wasn’t on the brink of passing out from period pain. What the hell had her life even become?

He turned in a circle, hands on his hips, as though trying to decide what to do next, before letting out a grunt and gathering up two of the boxes like they weighed nothing at all. He took the boxes and headed down the hallway off the living room, Sabrina following on his heels. As they walked, he tilted his head towards a closed door on one side of the hall. “Bathroom’s through there.”

He pushed open a door on the other side of the hall, leading her into a sparsely decorated bedroom. He set the boxes on the floor and headed back out to the living room for more. The room was clean and bright, a large window overlooking the bay letting in plenty of natural light. The queen-sized bed in the center of the room looked like it had never been slept in, and the dresser drawers were, unsurprisingly, empty.

Sebastian returned, setting down another pair of boxes.

“You don’t need to do that,” she said. He arched an eyebrow at her and shook his head, turning back towards the living room. She followed after him. “I mean, if I’m not staying, there’s no point in moving me into the guest room.”

His step faltered, but he continued on moving the boxes.

Sabrina huffed out a frustrated breath and leaned back against the hallway wall, watching as he worked.

He dropped the box in his hands inside the door of the guest room and turned on her, planting his hands on his hips. “My mom and your aunt. They seemed…”

“Happy?” He grunted in agreement, and she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. The cramps may have stopped for now, but they would be back. They always came back. And their brief, unexpected appearance earlier coupled with the insanity of that conversation at Sebastian’s mother’s house had drained any energy she had left. “Aunt Lucy is the only one who’s never seemed disappointed in me, you know?”

She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Sebastian stared at her for a long, silent moment, something working behind his eyes as a muscle in his jaw ticked. Finally he cleared his throat and looked away. “It’ll probably take a few days at least for my lawyer to figure out the annulment. Maybe until then we could…”

“What?”

“Not tell them.”

“You’re serious? You want to pretend to be married?”

“Wearemarried,” he reminded her, taking a step closer. He reached his hand out to her and pulled her to her feet, leaving only a few inches between them.

She nodded, processing his proposal. “And I’d live here?”

“You stay here in the guest room. Bathroom across the hall is all yours.” He tilted his chin towards the wall behind the guest bed’s headboard. “I have an en suite in my room.”

“So we’d be like roommates. Just for a few days?”

“Until the annulment is settled. Then we can tell everyone we realized we rushed into things.”

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