The Marriage Sacrifice

“You have lunch?”

“Yes.” She pulled out her little plastic tub filled with a pasta salad she’d made for herself.

“I can settle for that.”

She didn’t want to go into a restaurant or allow herself to be in a room where he could charm her. There were many reasons why she had avoided spending time with Dom, and she wasn’t going to let him know there was a risk of her falling for him.

For a long time, she had found him attractive. What wasn’t to like about him? He was sexy. His short brown hair always looked like he ran his fingers through it, and it never looked perfect or in place. His brown eyes had this quality about them. She never believed his shallow, bratty, playboy ways. Yet, she’d seen them as clear and in color as they were printed in the glossy magazines.

She and Dom were chalk and cheese.

They were way too different, and that kind of difference wouldn’t make a good marriage. They were just wrong for each other.

It didn’t mean at any point she didn’t … wonder what it would be like to be his wife. She was a full-grown woman and not some virgin who hadn’t been with a man before. Admittedly, her last boyfriend, who she gave her virginity to, hadn’t exactly been adventurous. His idea of a party was doing it with the lights on. She did also have to be fully dressed for this event, and he’d push her panties to one side in order to accomplish that.

The sex had been awful, but she was forever hopeful that she’d find a man like she wrote about in her books. Someone who was filled with passion. Who would push her against the door and fuck her hard, having her screaming his name and begging for more.

To her, that sounded like heaven.

Still, Dom couldn’t be that man because he just couldn’t. This wedding would always be for show, and she couldn’t stand to have a man be with her for only the cameras.

****

Dom had a confession to make. In all of his years he’d never had a baked potato. This was a new experience for him, and glancing over at Sage, watching her get her pasta salad out, he knew he couldn’t suggest just going to a restaurant. To win her over, he had to step out of his comfort zone, and to do that meant doing this.

Ordering himself a baked potato with all the fixings was a new thing, entirely new. He was hungry though, so he did consider that a good thing.

Paying for his potato, which came in a cardboard food tray, he thanked them. This meal was a quarter of the cost of a regular lunch for him.

Walking back to the bench, he saw Sage had crossed her legs and smiled at him.

“You look completely out of your comfort zone right now.”

“I am. Is there any way I can convince you to go to a restaurant with me?” he asked.

“This food is good. How about we share?” She stabbed her fork into her pasta and held it up. “Come on, Dom, be adventurous. Isn’t that why you go jet-setting all around the globe? Looking for that spark of life?”

“You’re mocking me?”

“Maybe just a little bit.”

Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief, and he couldn’t help but be drawn to their beauty. Sage Boyle had always been a pretty girl, always the tomboy and full of life and love. She’d turned into a stunning woman.

She was curvy and to some, maybe too much. He knew her mother wanted her to diet more, and he’d overheard a couple of their hushed conversations where she wanted her to go in for surgery to have everything sucked out.

Sage always refused. Apparently, there was only so much ass-kissing she was going to do for her parents.

“So, what brings you here?” she asked.

“I thought it was a good thing to spend time with each other. We’re getting married soon.”

“Don’t remind me.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Would it be so hard to be married to me? I’m not that bad of a guy.”

“I don’t know. Will you be able to keep it all in your pants if we do?” she asked.

“Keep what in my pants?”

“Your dick.”

Okay, he was really getting a crash course in blunt Sage.

“You want to talk about that in the open?”

She laughed. “Does the dude from the paper worry you?”

“Dude from the paper?” She was speaking in riddles, and he was struggling to keep up.

She nodded her head to across the street. “I noticed him watching us back at the retirement home. You didn’t call him?” She grabbed his arm. “Don’t look. You don’t want to make it obvious.”

“I need to know if I recognize him.”

“Well, do it casually. We don’t want him to realize we’re onto him.”

“And that would be a bad thing because?”