Flash Burned (Burned 2)

“Wow. That’s so romantic. Oh, but … tragic, too.” Considering Dane’s aunt had passed a few years ago.

“Yes, it is. But I’m happy they’d found each other.”

I couldn’t help but think, once again, of Dane’s neighbor and friend. “Did Mikaela spend holidays with you all?”

“Yes, she did. Her mother sometimes, too, when she wasn’t otherwise engaged.”

I eyed him curiously. “So, while Dad was away being an ambassador, her mom was…?”

“They had an open marriage.”

I stared at Dane. “How does that work, exactly?” I shook my head. “I mean, I grasp the concept, but … What’s the point in even getting married? If you’re not committed to each other, want outside relationships, want to sleep with other people, then why bother?”

“I don’t know,” he told me with a pointed look. “It’s not anything I’d ever be interested in or would ever agree to. I’d never let another man touch you.” He said this with grave conviction.

The very reason he was so fixated on Kyle’s attraction to me, and precisely why I constantly reiterated with my friend where he really stood.

“I suppose,” Dane ventured, “it had a lot to do with the fact that Ambassador Madsen was rarely in the country and his wife and Mikaela didn’t travel or live with him, as I’ve mentioned previously. It’s not quite like your parents’ situation.”

“That was just plain screwed up,” I lamented. “He gave her everything. Those tournaments were meant to provide her with all the material things she wanted—thought she deserved—as much as they were to appease his passion for golf.”

“Ari,” Dane said. “Baby, you can’t think that every marriage is destined for that sort of betrayal, whether the cheating is consciously discussed and agreed upon or done behind someone’s back.”

I knew he spoke the truth. But it was an extremely sensitive subject for me. I’d witnessed—lived through—the devastation of that sort of deception. For me, that was a red flag with relationships. One of the biggest issues that had precluded me from actually having any … until I’d met Dane.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t get mired in other people’s drama, baby. Focus on what we have.”

I smiled up at him. “Right.” He was absolutely right.

He took my hand and we strolled down the hallway to the dressing room we shared. It was wall-to-wall rich, polished wood, with a standing three-way mirror and chairs and tables strategically placed. A chandelier hung over the marble-topped bureau in the center of the room. Sconces were mounted between the cutouts that housed the racks and shelves.

“So, what was the second reason you didn’t mention our engagement to your dad?” Dane asked, not letting me clear the minefield.

I hauled my golf shirt over my head and tossed it in the laundry bin. My skirt followed. As I toed off my tennis shoes, having changed out of my spikes before we’d left the club, I said, “I guess I’m not certain that’s what it was.”

My brows knitted. So did his.

“I’m not sure what that means,” he told me.

“Yeah, I know. Sorry. It’s just that … I thought you were asking me sort of generically—like would I marry you someday? Down the road.”

“Ah.” He stripped off his polo. Dropping it on the bureau, he rested his forearms on the marble and pinned me with a serious look. “So when you agreed, you were thinking marriage would be a long time off.”

I pulled in a deep breath. A rush of contradictory feelings I’d somehow kept at bay all day long made my nerves jump. “This is going to get complicated,” I surmised as I dragged on one of his Henleys, my favorite sleepwear aside from the nightgown he’d brought from Paris.

“I’m listening,” he prompted in a measured tone.

Standing at the opposite end of the dresser that stretched almost the length of the room—and recognizing the safety zone it created for what it was—I said, “We didn’t discuss a time frame. I figured you were doing what you always do. Present the issue at hand and give me the space to process it.”

Now his brow rose. “The issue?”

I sighed. “Call it whatever you want. I’m just saying that you know how I feel about marriage, so it’s going to take a little while for me to adjust to the idea of it. But I do want to marry you,” I assured him.

“In what … four, five, ten years?”

“Now you’re just being pissy.”

Shoving away from the bureau, he dumped his shirt in the hamper, removed his shoes and socks, and peeled off his Dockers.