Page 18 of Bride for Keeps

She couldn’t do this. Notthis. Not just sit here and talk. It hurt exponentially to sit across from him and feel that ache of how much she wanted to be with him.

It was a horrible feeling to want something you knew was toxic, something you knew hurt you, just because it felt good in the moment. There were good moments in her marriage with Carter, but in the end she’d emerged less than a year later a duller, quieter, less sure version of herself, knowing he saw through everything to the parts of her he’d never love.

“Please go. Please file the papers. You can’t stop the divorce, Carter, but it’d be so much easier if you just did this. Please. If you care about me at all. Please make this easy.”

He stared at her across the table. Not at her exactly, but at her hands. She curled her right hand over her left and looked away from him.

“Five minutes a day,” he said, his voice soft but certain.

“What?” she replied, wrinkling her nose at him.

But he had that McArthur look about him. Driven and sure, except… She couldn’t explain it, but itwasdifferent. Maybe it wasn’t sure so much as determined. She couldn’t work that out, and there was no point in working it out. She had to move on from figuring Carter out.

“Five minutes a day for a month. You give me five minutes a day for a month to win you back.”

She wanted to scream, or lean forward and bang her head against the table a few times. Instead she sighed heavily. “There’s nowinning, Carter. It just didn’t work.”

But he kept on like she didn’t exist, just as he always did. “Five minutes a day for a month. If you’re still determined to end it—end this thing… You know, youknowit’s right. I know you do.” He reached across the table and took her right hand away from her left, exposing her rings still there on her finger. He brushed his thumb across the bands.

She used every last ounce of energy to keep the tears from spilling over. “You don’t know everything, Carter.”

He met her gaze then, and it wasn’t anything she recognized. “No, I don’t,” he said gravely. “You’re saying if I care about you that I should make this easy, and I’m saying if you care about me, you’ll give me a month. Five minutes out of your day for a month. That’s it.”

“Why should we prolong the inevitable?”

“Are you so certain? There’s not an ounce of doubt that you might regret this at some point?”

She wanted to tell him shewasthat certain. Maybe he even loved her the way she loved him, but the love they had for each other wasn’t enough to make a life together work. Their lives didn’t work together, regardless of love.

“Shouldn’t we be sure?” he asked, his hand closing over hers and giving it a squeeze. “If for nothing else, for the sake of the baby,” he whispered, as if he knew her parents were probably eavesdropping but wouldn’t hear that.

She pulled her hand away, placing both of them in her lap. He was mixing it all up and she should be stronger than this, but part of her wanted… Well, she wanted him to find a way to convince her otherwise.

She couldn’t think it was going to happen, but maybe she could hope. “Fine. Your five minutes starts now.”

Oh, she was going to regret this.

*

He’d expected herto agree, but he hadn’t expected her to jump right into it. He wasn’t quite prepared, but he couldn’t let her see that. He had to seem certain and sure of everything so she believed him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, because she didn’t look 100 percent. She was more put together than she had been the other day, but she seemed…off.

“Gross,” she said emphatically. Because Sierra was brash and not backing off and not worried about what she was supposed to say.

Maybe that’s what drew him to her. That she had an independence to her that he’d never be able to emulate, but was attracted to nonetheless.

But the clock was ticking and he had to figure out the answer. The fix. Five minutes even for thirty days wasn’t much, but it gave him till their anniversary to find the answer to why she wanted to leave.

And then he could fix it. Maybe he’d fail a few days along the way. Maybe it’d be hard and more of a challenge than he was used to, but Cole had been right. It was either stumble a little but keep trying, or lose her.

He wasn’t ready to lose her. Even if she pulled her hand away from him like they were strangers or enemies instead of man and wife.

He cleared his throat, willing himself to focus. “Who’s your doctor?”

“No. I’m not having you McArthur your way into that.”

He wanted to argue, even opened his mouth to lecture her about privacy laws and this and that, but what was the point? Making her mad wasnotthe point. “All right.” He thought about her hand under his and the glimmer of hope that he’d hold on to this entire thirty days…assuming it took that long. “Why are you still wearing your rings?”

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