The Favor

I nodded. “Gotcha.” I slipped it on my finger, surprised my hands weren’t trembling. “It fits.”

“Of course it fits,” he said, seeming offended that I’d assume he’d struggle to correctly guess my ring size. “From now on, you wear this wherever you go.”

Well, shit just got serious. “Can I make the story of your proposal all romantic?”

“Only if you don’t want it to sound realistic.”

I snickered. “Okay, let’s just keep it simple and say you slipped it on my finger while I was half asleep, informed me that we’re getting married, and then told me I wasn’t ever allowed to take the ring off?”

He pursed his lips. “People would buy that.”

Admiring the platinum band once again, I found myself recalling the last time I’d worn a ring on this finger. The one Owen bought me had been cheap and cheerful—all he was able to afford back then. But I hadn’t cared, because it hadn’t been about the ring; it had been about what it represented—that he loved me and wanted to forever be with me. Or so I’d thought.

Now here I was wearing another ring. It was pristine. Sparkly. Breathtaking.

And meaningless.

I felt a momentary pang of sadness. The ring didn’t really belong on my finger. It didn’t signify that there was someone who loved and was committed to me. It was just a prop.

“What’s wrong?”

Wiping all emotion from my face, I lifted my head. “Not a thing. I’m just bowled over by the level of bling.”

That steady, unblinking stare narrowed on me. “Hmm.”

Hoping to distract him, I was about to ask how much the ring cost, but then he spoke again.

“I want you to move in with me this weekend. No later than Sunday.”

My lungs seemed on the verge of seizing up. I coughed. “I don’t think I can make it happen that soon, Dane. I’ll need time to pack everything. I won’t get home until Thursday, and I’ll be at work on Friday. There’s no real rush, is there?”

“Travis is going to go into a blind panic when he hears we’re married. He’ll step up his game in an effort to make you divorce me. He already showed up at your building once. The security around my home is tight, so he can’t pester you there. Plus, I’m possessive of what belongs to me, and I have enough control issues that I’d want my wife close—my family knows that about me.”

Well, at least he was honest. “You don’t lack in self-insight, do you?”

“A person should always be self-aware if they wish to succeed in life. Knowing your strengths and blind spots is important.”

True. “Back to the whole me-moving-into-your-house thing, what about all my stuff?”

He sank into the nearby sofa and draped his arms over the back of it, claiming the space in that dominant-male way of his. “I have storage space you can use to store anything you don’t wish to place in the room I’ve allocated you. It has all the furnishings it needs. But if you’d rather put your own things in there, it’s not a problem.”

I shrugged. “I’m not fussed about furniture.”

“Then yours can be stored in my outhouse with anything else you don’t want to keep close at hand.”

I nodded, biting my lip. Although it made sense for me to move into his house, I wasn’t looking forward to it. For one thing, I liked to have my own territory. A space where I could relax and unwind and just … be. It wouldn’t be so easy to do that in a place where I was pretty much a lodger.

Also, I’d miss my apartment. As I’d told him, it wasn’t anything special, but it was my home. And it sucked balls that I wouldn’t be able to go back there after the divorce. If I continued paying the rent, the landlord might agree to hold it for me, but it was highly unlikely. Even if he did agree to it, I couldn’t really do such a thing. It would look odd to my family and friends that I was reluctant to give up the apartment.

“You knew this would happen at some point, Vienna. I made it clear in the beginning that you’d need to move in with me eventually.”

“I know. I was just thinking that there’s no way I’ll be able to keep my apartment on hold. I really like that building. I like being close to my friends.”

“If you keep the apartment, people might think you’re not 100 percent sure of me, in which case it would look strange that you’d so readily agreed to marry me this soon. Or they’d wonder if this relationship is truly real. It’s the sort of thing Travis and Hope will look into, because they’ll want to believe that this is all a lie and they’ll be desperate to find proof. She’s as greedy and money-centered as he is.”