In the past fifteen to twenty years, I’ve made an art out of avoiding anything that will give me regrets.
This evening, I’m living two decades’ worth of regrets in the span of under an hour.
“The damage will be minimal,” I tell Begonia as we taxi down the runway at JFK. “The paparazzi know my family will pay a pretty penny to squash scandal. My team is on it.”
She nods and stares out the window. “Of course. That makes sense.”
“We should get married.”
The words leave my mouth and I can practically see them traveling the short distance in Jonas’s private plane—not mine, since it’s still delivering Hyacinth home—from my lips to her ears. I want to snag them back before they register inside her brain, but I can’t, and I know it.
I’m also completely, selfishly thrilled with this turn of events.
I marry Begonia so that even if rumors swirl about what we were doing in public and why we disappeared from the gala, the scandal will be outweighed by the news of our wedding.
We were overcome with emotion at my proposal and didn’t want to wait another minute to tie the knot.
My family’s reputation will take a hit, but not as much as it would if we didn’t get married. People tend to forgive you when you do the right thing, even if the standards my family are held to are ridiculous.
But tonight, I don’t care.
Once I marry Begonia, I’m free.
Free in the sense of not having women swarming every time I’m at an event, even with my girlfriend, because wife is so much more permanent.
Rutherfords do not cheat.
And we can socially ruin anyone who dares to suggest that we should.
I’ll no longer be the last eligible billionaire in the world. The damage to my family’s name will be minimal.
And I get to keep Begonia.
We’re friends.
Friends with benefits.
I’ll provide her with a comfortable life and request in return a wife of convenience, at least for a while.
Surely someone else will have joined the ranks of the world’s billionaires within a year or two. I’ll be written off as that Rutherford who couldn’t hold his marriage together, convince my family I’m utterly miserable at the idea of having to date, and never have to worry about this again.
With the exception of the horrified gonging in my heart at the thought of letting Begonia go.
She gapes at me from the wide executive chair across from me. “We should what?”
“My lawyer will draft a prenup before we land that will provide a comfortable stipend for you regardless of what happens next. I require at least two full years of marriage in exchange for supporting you in whatever endeavors would make you happiest, from teaching to making your own artwork to exploring anything else that would fill your heart with joy, and at the end of two years, if you’ve found someone else you would rather be with, I’ll grant you a quiet divorce with assistance for transition back to a normal life.”
She doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t have to.
Her agitated green eyes are doing all of the talking for her.
But I wanted my next marriage to be for love, Hayes.
What I wouldn’t give to wrap my arms around her and make her all the promises that terrify me to my core.
I’ll love you, Begonia. I don’t know how not to.
There will never be another woman who affects me the way you do.
You are my one. You are my only one, the one I’ve waited my whole life for.
But therein is the problem.
Loving her is easy.
Being loved back by her?
She adores everyone.
Who am I to think I could be the man she would love above all others, when a woman like Begonia could have her pick of any man in the world?
Any man in the world. Someone who can love her fully without reservation or fear. Someone who could stand by her side and enjoy peopling, as she calls it. Someone who has more to offer her than money.
“I’ll do my best to charm your mother, though of course, it’s in everyone’s best interest if she abhors me. That will make our eventual split easier on you. And I work long hours, as you’ve clearly realized, so if you wanted to live and work in Richmond as you’ve been doing, I could commute back to New York during the week, keep my own quarters near you on the weekend, and be as little of an inconvenience in your life as you’d like me to be.”
Her chin wobbles, and her eyes go shiny. “That’s what you want.”
“It’s what must happen, Begonia. I can’t be the cause of scandal to my family, especially given my new position in the company, and I don’t know if my influence alone will be enough for you to keep your teaching job if those photos appear anywhere.”
It’s the best plan.
She becomes mine, for a solid reason, without me having to put my heart on the line.
I can live with knowing I’m not her one greatest love, so long as I get to live with her.
“Take me home,” she says quietly.
I blink. “Begonia—”
“Take. Me. Home.”
“This is the only clear way to—”
“I love you, Hayes. I. Love. You. And I don’t want to. I didn’t want to. I just got divorced. I don’t fit in your world. I’m still finding myself again. And I could roll with it. I could. You’re supposed to love people. That’s what makes the world a better place. And you’ve been nothing but everything I always dreamed I wanted in a partner, except for one thing. You don’t love me back. I’ve spent too many years sacrificing what I deserve for what I thought should’ve been good enough. I won’t do good enough with you. I won’t do easy with you. Or anyone. I will not settle for anything less than all-consuming, no-holding-back, nothing-else-matters, we-are-in-this-together, I-love-you-so-much-it-hurts love.”
A tear slips down her cheek, and she swipes it away as if it’s what’s committed the most egregious error of this evening.
It has.
That tear is single-handedly splitting my heart in two. And I have a choice.
I can tell her I love her back, risk that Begonia’s love is fickle, that she’ll fall in love with someone else as easily as she falls in love with the sunrise each morning, with a funny design on her toast fresh out of the toaster, or with someone’s hairstyle at a formal event, and try to do all in my power to keep her, all while never knowing for sure that I’m truly what she wants.
If I’m merely convenient.
The first man to give her a glimpse of better, but not necessarily the man who would be best for her.
Or I can stay safe.
Let her go.
Weather the scandal alone.
And know that I wouldn’t have been able to keep her. That this bright, vibrant angel of life couldn’t have ever been mine.
Not fully.
She’s the sunshine, hurtling about the universe bringing light to all she touches, and I’m the tree.
Solid and dependable. Rooted. With a few broken branches.
But the fact remains—while the tree needs the sunshine, the sunshine will never depend on the tree.
“Do you love me, Hayes?” she whispers. “Could you love me?”
For fuck’s sake. How could I not? “Begonia, I know very few people in this world who could know you and not love you.”
“But do you love me?”
Three words.
Three of the most damn impossible words in the English language.
That’s what it would take to keep her.
For tonight.
But what happens tomorrow?
I asked her to pretend to be my girlfriend so that she’d be a shield between me and anyone with an opinion about my love life after I became the world’s most eligible billionaire. How ironic, when she’s the one who should have men lined up around the block for a chance at her hand.
She’s loyal to a fault.
She wouldn’t cheat.
But she’ll find someone new—possibly someone I know—and she’ll be miserable, and then she’ll leave me too.
I thought I hurt when Trixie left me.
That grief would be nothing compared to watching Begonia go after convincing myself I could make her happy.
“Hayes?” she whispers.
I rise. “I’ll instruct the pilot to change course.”
