Page 107 of An Unexpected Love

“I agree, marriage is a serious step,” his father went on calmly, “but if you’re in love with Charlotte and intend to marry her anyway, I don’t see the harm in your mother getting the ball rolling.”

The ball rolling.She’d started an avalanche. “Don’t you think Mom’s just a tad premature?”

“Perhaps,” his father agreed amicably enough. “But you can’t really blame her for that. She got caught up inthe excitement of the moment. Once she talked to the yacht club, everything sort of fell into place. It makes sense once you analyze it. You’ve been a bachelor a long time, Jason. If you’re as serious about marrying Charlotte as you claim, my advice is, just do it. If you wait, you might talk yourself out of it.”

“Do it,” Jason echoed. “You make marriage sound like taking up an exercise program.” He could see he wasn’t going to make any more headway with his father than he had his mother.

“Think about it, all right? That’s all I ask.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Charlotte might say no.”

His father laughed. “Charlotte’s as much in love with you as you are with her. She’ll marry you in a New York minute and we both know it.”

“But, Dad…”

“Just think about it overnight. That’s all your mother and I are asking. If you decide you’d rather not go through with this, then phone us in the morning and we’ll put a stop to everything.”

“I don’t need to sleep on this,” Jason argued. “I can tell you right now that I’m not going to agree. I’ve never heard anything more absurd in my life. A wedding in a few weeks! I was thinking more along the lines of two or three years!”

A heavy silence followed his words. “Then you must not be as much in love as your mother and I assumed. Give us a call in the morning,” his father said and hung up the phone.

Jason was too furious to stand still. He paced his living room, jerked his baseball cap off his head andslapped it against his thigh. He tried to smooth out the crease in the bill, realized he couldn’t and tossed the hat on top of the television.

Earlier that evening, he’d been talking to Charlotte about this very thing—people manipulating and controlling others. Well, he wasn’t about to fall prey to it now. Especially not with his parents.

If he allowed his mother to schedule his wedding, there was no telling where she’d stop. The next thing he knew she’d be meddling inallhis personal affairs. She’d be deciding when it was time for him and Charlotte to have a family.

He drew in a deep, calming breath to clear his head.

His assessment of his mother was unfair, he told himself a few minutes later. His parents hadn’t interfered in his brothers’ or sisters’ marriages. From what he understood, they’d suggested Leah and Paul get married, but that was common sense. Leah and Paul should have seen it themselves. He knew his parents had debated long and hard about confronting them and had done so reluctantly, after much soul-searching.

But arranging his marriage to Charlotte was an entirely different matter. They’d stepped over the boundary there—although…although he did understand how easy it must have been to get caught up in the heat of the moment. Getting the date at the yacht club had set everything in motion, and before either of his parents were aware of it, they’d planned the whole wedding.

As he recalled from his dinner conversation the day before, Jason had told his mother that Charlotte would welcome her assistance in planning the wedding. She’d done a bit more than suggest what type of flowers to use in the bridal bouquet, however.

No, it was out of the question.

Jason flatly refused to be a pawn. When he was ready to marry Charlotte he’d…

Married. He and Charlotte.

He needed at least a year just to get used to the idea. A man his age didn’t surrender his freedom without plenty of serious thought.

Then he remembered the phenomenon of holding Charlotte in his arms, of loving her, and the simple pleasure he found in spending time with her. He tried to imagine what his life would be like without her and discovered he couldn’t. So his belief that he wasn’t ready flew out the window.

But marriage, he told himself, would take away his freedom. He’d never watch another game on TV again without feeling guilty—a wife would make sure of that. Women nagged and controlled, didn’t they?

Charlotte was a woman, but she wasn’t like the others he’d known. She’d been controlled and manipulated herself; she’d fought against it. Jason couldn’t in all honesty believe she’d try the same tactics on him.

Once again his argument wouldn’t hold.

All right, maybe there were more things to consider besides his freedom. But here, too, he was losing ground. He’d found freedom in Charlotte, freedom to be himself, freedom to look toward the future.

Charlotte wanted children.

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