Page 102 of Impending Consent

“The same way Sail and I had a whole ass wedding and no engagement. The paperwork is one thing, the commitment is something else. I planned on proposing to Mesa, which she knew. The license was a promise that it would happen but we never actually got there. I swear I never actually proposed.”

“Sounds to me like you have a thing for unconventional ways of doing things.”

“Yeah but it’s not a pattern and she’s not anything to me.”

"Then why didn't you tell Sailor about her and about you almost being married before?"

It was a fair question, one I'd asked myself more than once over the past couple months. "I knew how it would look. Marrying a woman who superficially resembles my ex? Sailor would have assumed I had ulterior motives and be thinking the same damn thing you are right now, I was trying to replace Mesa. She would never have given us a real chance."

"Were there ulterior motives?" Skylar asked but I wasn’t offended. She was being protective of her sister.

"No. There are surface similarities, but in reality, they're nothing alike. Not where it counts."

"How so?" Skylar challenged.

I sighed and controlled my response because Sky was cool and I didn’t want to be rude. "No disrespect, but that's a conversation I need to have with Sailor first."

There was a pause but she gave in. "Fair enough. She's at her apartment. I tried to get her to talk to you, but she said she needed time."

I bet she fucking did. She was running and I was the one who gave her a reason this time.

"I'm not giving her time to build more walls."

"Good luck. She's hurt, Rival. Tread carefully and if you really mean what you say, I hope you can fix this."

"I’m going to fix this. Thanks for telling me where she is."

I hung up, grabbed my keys, and headed for the door. I still had the key to Sailor's apartment from when I was working at her place, which felt like a lifetime ago considering where we were now.

The drive to her building passed in a blur of rehearsed explanations and arguments I knew she would hit me with. I wasn't going to lose her over this shit, not when we finally found our rhythm.

I parked in the visitors' section and took the elevator up to her floor. When I reached her door I hesitated briefly before using the key.

The apartment was dark except for a single lamp in the living room. Sailor sat curled on the sofa with a nearly empty wine glass in her hand. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying and that fucked me up. The second I walked through the door those sad eyes were on me but her expression shifted from sadness to anger in a matter of seconds.

"Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

"Nah, can’t do that." I closed the door behind me. "Not until we talk."

"There's nothing to talk about. You lied to me."

"I didn't lie. I omitted something from my past that I knew would be misinterpreted, but I didn’t lie, Sail.” I moved closer but stopped when she tensed.

"Something?" She laughed bitterly. "You were engaged to be married, Rival. To a woman who could be my professional twin and you didn't think that was worth mentioning during our heart-to-hearts about trust and vulnerability?"

"I was never engaged. We discussed marriage, we obtained a license, but I backed out before it was officially filed."

"Semantics," she snapped. "The point is, you have a type and I fit it perfectly. Was that the plan all along? Find another ambitious attorney to replace the one who got away?"

"Is that really what you fucking think of me? You really think I could be on some shit like that?”

Something shifted in her eyes but she stood her ground.

"I don't know what to think. I opened myself up to you. I told you things I've never told anyone. I let myself believe this was real, that you saw me, the real me, and now I find out I'm just a replacement for another woman."

"You're not a fucking replacement. Stop saying that shit."

I felt myself getting angry and moved closer. “Anything similar is superficial and not fucking relevant."

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