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Good Girl Gone Plaid(61)

By:Shelli Stevens


“Ian…”

“A moment to finish my thoughts, doll. You’re struggling financially, and I’m doing quite well right now. How can this not be a win-win solution? We should do it. Let’s get married.”

She stared at him, eyes narrowed again. “This is your idea of a proposal?”

“I, er, guess?” He chuckled at the thought of what his brothers would say if they could see him now. “It’s funny, actually. I used to tell Colin that marriage was for suckers and that I’d never throw myself under that bus. But I would do it for you.”

“Throw yourself under the bus?” she repeated with slow deliberation. “Marrying me would be equivalent to throwing yourself under a bus?”

“Yes. Wait, what?” Ian blinked and ran back in his head what he’d said. His excitement faded instantly.

Ah shite. He’d completely fucked this up.

“Um, would you believe that came out a bit wrong?”

“Yeah, I really would believe that.” Her eyes flashed with anger, but there was a hint of amusement beneath. She pushed away from him and folded her arms across her chest. “Look, clearly you suck at proposing—not that I’d marry you anyway.”

“You won’t?” Why did that make his heart sink a bit? “Why not?”

“Because we’re not going to make good sex the foundation for marriage.”

“Okay, but I gave a few other reasons.”

“Emily, yes.” She snorted. “And the other one basically being an offer to be my sugar daddy.”

Hmm, yes, he’d blown the marriage topic completely.

“I have money, it’s just tight right now with paying off a divorce.”

Right. Of course she was right. About everything. But getting married had seemed to make perfect sense. And yet marriage did need more than all the asinine reasons he’d just listed, didn’t it?

Not that he was one of those romantics who demanded love. You could make yourself love anybody. Which made another random thought race through his head.

“Out of curiosity, is that what you did before?” he asked. “When you married that Neil guy? Confuse good sex for love?”

Her irritation visibly faded into dismay, and then wariness flickered in her eyes before she answered. “No, not at all. I didn’t even sleep with him until we were married. And after that it was just a handful of times.”

Mind blown.

Ian watched, completely flummoxed as she turned to stare back out over the water.

Only a handful of times? How long had they been married? Seven or eight years? That had to be one of the reasons why the marriage had ended.

“You rarely had sex? But why? Was he terrible in bed?”

With the flow of conversation, it had been a natural question. Until he’d realized he didn’t want the image of Sarah in bed with another man. The idea of it kind of made him want to punch something. Or someone.

She was silent for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. I’d rather not talk about it, okay?”

Actually, that was quite fine with him. “Okay.”

They fell into another silence. Who knew where her mind had gone, but his had managed to jump right back into the marriage idea.

Maybe it wasn’t for the right reasons, but they had some compelling reasons, didn’t they?

If he hadn’t fucked up when they were first together, they would’ve probably been married by now anyway.

Guilt, heavy and familiar, gripped him at the thought of that night. It had become exhausting all the countless times he’d played it back in his head, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. When he’d made that choice to throw away everything he’d had with Sarah.

“I’ll see if I can borrow Mom’s rental car tomorrow, and drive up to Bellingham to see you guys.”

Relief slid through him as he glanced at her—found a tiny smile playing around her mouth now.

“Aye?”

“Yes. Emily will love it. I always enjoyed the Highland Games.” She met his gaze. “When we were dating I was so excited for summer to arrive so that I could hang out and watch you guys at all the games.” Her lashes fluttered down. “And I would know half the girls in attendance would be jealous of me, because I was Ian McLaughlin’s girlfriend.”

His heart kicked up a notch at her soft admission, and the tiny seed of hope inside him grew an inch.

“I’m sorry we didn’t make it ’til summer, because I would’ve loved having you there as my girl watching me, doll.”

Was it his imagination, or did she blush at his last words? It was difficult to tell in the darkness.

“I hope you and Emily will cheer me on tomorrow.”