“There’s something bigger than asking me to stay married to you when we both know we’re completely wrong for each other?”
“Mom wants to plan a wedding.”
“Fuck that—”
“She said she can’t die knowing that I was married by a singing Elvis and she wasn’t even there to see me, or have my dad give me away. And it would be a really small affair, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone because we’re already married, right?” She pressed her lips in a thin line and flat-out begged. “Please, Cannon? Please?”
Those eyes. They were my fucking kryptonite.
But marry her again? This time for real? Just to turn around and annul it months later? Months of living with her? Struggling to keep my hands off her?
“Persephone, I don’t know. I really respect what you’re trying to do for your mom. You have no idea how much I respect you for it but do you really want her last months on this earth—her last months with you—to be consumed by a lie?”
She stood slowly and turned to face me. “I want her last months on this earth to be consumed by happiness, and if I have to lie to give her that, then I hope she’ll forgive me when I eventually join her. I hate having to ask you to lie. I’ve honestly never known you to even tell a lie. But I can’t give that kind of happiness to my mother without your help. I know it’s unfair of me to ask, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”
She raised her chin and stilled, waiting for my verdict.
“I need some time to think. Can you give me that?” I asked her.
Hope flared in her eyes again, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I can give you that.” She gifted me with a smile that would have knocked me on my ass if I hadn’t been sitting down. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She was almost out the door when I called her name.
“Persephone.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t hate you,” I assured her gently. Her posture softened. “I might hate everything your wealth stands for, but I don’t hate you. There’s a difference.” I needed her to know that. Why? Who the hell knew.
“Thank you. And don’t stress about the wedding thing. Really. I’ll even buy your tux. You know, a real one. Not like the tux and T-shirt you wore to the Vegas wedding.”
My eyes widened, and she waved her goodbye and ran.
Smart woman.
I headed home to Reaper Village, where the team all had houses in the same suburban neighborhood, and called the only woman I trusted.
My sister answered and filled me in on life with my nephew before dropping the bomb that she’d already seen the gossip sites.
“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”
She was seriously the best. I caught her up on everything, from waking up in Vegas to Persephone’s plea in the locker room.
“What do I do?” I asked as I pulled into my driveway.
“You’re asking me for advice on marriage?” She laughed. “God, I think mine lasted, what? Six months?”
“I’m serious, Lillian. I need advice, and you’re the only one who really knows me well enough to give it.”
She sighed. “Okay. All I can say is to follow your heart. And honestly, what would you give to go back and make Mom that blissfully happy during her last months?”
“Anything,” I replied. “I would give anything.”
I guess I had my answer.
4
Persephone
I paced the length of my foyer, my cream pumps keeping time with the ancient grandfather clock that decorated the space. The second hand ticked louder than it had when it was originally constructed, or so I’d been told, but I’d become accustomed to the steady click of it. And right now, that second hand felt like it counted down my very life’s breath.
Because Cannon Price would be here any minute.
My heart raced despite my efforts to calm it. Gerald—head of security and currently on gate duty tonight—had phoned down moments ago informing me Mr. Price would like to see me. Lord, bless Gerald. He’d been like a second father to me growing up, and he was just as protective.
I’d barely been able to manage a full sentence when Cannon had called me the hour prior, saying he wanted to talk. And rattling off my address had never been harder.
“You honestly think two people that different have any business sharing a last name?”
Cannon’s words echoed in my head, stinging just as much now as they had the first time I’d heard them. Of all the things I’d expected walking to the weight room in search of him, those cold words were the last. Cannon was many things—grumpy, guarded, and infuriatingly teasing—but he’d never been outright icy toward me.
And yet, when I’d told him about my mother, something in him had melted toward our predicament. That softness I sometimes caught in his hard, dark gaze had surfaced.