“You know when Wyatt and I did it, we were actually legally married but I was resistant to having a real marriage, you know? I wasn’t sure I could trust him to stay since he’d left so abruptly last time. I even kept the fact that Alyssa was his from him and did my damnedest not to fall for him.”
“That’s not what happened though.”
She smiled sweetly. “No. It was hard not to love Wyatt, back when I was eighteen and now. It was wrong for me to keep Alyssa from him. But also, had we talked, really talked, I’d have understood him better, and not been so afraid of losing him again.”
“It’s different for me and Tucker,” I said. “I mean…we don’t have a history or a child.” So why was I here?
“You know, Ryder and Trina tried to tell me and Wyatt that fake marriages are easy, but they’re not.” She cast a knowing glance at me. “Not if the feelings are real, anyway.”
My heart stalled in my chest. Was that it? Was this really more than just attraction and wanting not to be alone?
“Is that what’s happening? Feelings mucking up the plan?” Her smile was sympathetic.
“I can’t speak for him, but…maybe. Even before this, he showed interest in me. He asked me out a couple of times. I turned him down.”
“Why?” Sinclair looked truly baffled by my answer.
“Because he’s only twenty-four.”
She stared at me like she wa
s waiting for me to elaborate.
So I did. “I’m thirty-seven.”
“So?”
I gaped. “That’s thirteen years! When he’s thirty, I’ll be forty-three, with wrinkles and gray hair and he’ll be in his prime.”
She rolled her eyes. “First, I know you wear a lot of sunscreen to protect your fair skin, so chances are you’ll retain your youthful beauty well into your forties. Second, your hair coloring is such that it will likely hide the gray, but if not, you can get it colored. But this can’t just be about looks can it?”
“It’s about the age difference. How would it look?”
“You do realize that you look young for your age, right? I mean, it’s not like people are going to see you two and think, look at that cougar.”
I looked down because that’s part of what I thought.
“And if they did, so what? Look at Mo and Brooke. He’s nearly twenty years older than her,” Sinclair argued.
“That’s different,” I said looking down into my tea.
“Why?”
“Because he’s a man. Men can do that.”
She studied me. “You did this to encourage Meredith Reynolds to donate to the library, right?”
“Right.”
“Because she thinks married people are more stable.”
“Yes.” I wondered where she was going with this.
“And she’s quite set in her ways about what’s appropriate and not appropriate.”
“She’s vocal about it,” I agreed.
“Uh huh, so, has she said anything about the age difference?”