“How is this going to work? Are we going to keep this a secret again or what?”
He arches a brow. “Considering our friends and your brother were at the chapel, I think keeping it a secret has gone out the window.”
“Obviously, I just mean from our parents? From everyone else?”
He sucks in his cheeks and shrugs. “That’s up to you. I never wanted to keep you a secret before, but with Noah and Elias?—”
I lay my hand over his on the table. “I know. We made that decision together. They hated each other back then. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”
“Now that we don’t have to worry about them, I want to shout from the rooftops that you’re my wife, but I also understand that you might not be ready for that.”
I shake my head. Hearing him call me his wife is confusing, because a part of me loves the sound of it and another part of me wants to run in the other direction because I’m scared. I don’t want to get my heart broken again. I barely recovered the first time.
My silence must worry him, because he says, “If you can’t forgive me for not getting to the hospital in time, I understand. We’ll go get it annulled right this second. But if you think there’s even a sliver of a chance that you can forgive me then please let me prove to you what you mean to me.”
I’m stubborn. Not someone who gives second chances easily. But even I can see that I let my grief get the better of me.
“I shouldn’t have hated you for it for as long as I have, but I guess I needed someone to blame. But it wasn’t your fault, or even mine, but I was just so heartbroken. I know we were young, and our relationship was secret, but I was excited to be a mom—to raise a child with you.”
“I know.” His eyes fill with unshed tears. “I wanted that with you, too.”
Even though it’s been years, my hand falls to my abdomen.
“Six months,” he says suddenly, pulling my attention back to him. “Give me six months to prove to you that we’re the real dealand this marriage can last. Please, that’s all I ask. If after that you want a divorce, I’ll give it to you.”
It might be insane, but I find myself nodding. He looks so hopeful that I can’t bring myself to dash his dreams.
“Deal.”
CHAPTER 18
FISHER
“It’s onlytwo more weeks until the wedding,” I say under my breath to Noah. My feet are rooted firmly to the tarmac where the two private planes are waiting for us to say our goodbyes before we take off. “I want to spend that time in Miami with Ebba.”
He adjusts his baseball cap to better shield his eyes. “You’re really serious about this whole marriage thing?” he asks.
“I am. Oscar can handle the coaching on his own for two weeks,” I say of the newer coach Noah’s brought on. He’s a Spanish former tennis player in his fifties that’s been coaching for the past almost two decades. He knows what he’s doing, even if I know Noah prefers my method of coaching—but our relationship will always be different because we’re friends before we’re coach and player. “If I let her go off for these two weeks before the wedding, I know she’ll overthink it and spiral. I need to be there. I want her to know I’m willing to fight for her.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he asks, “You two were together before?”
“Yes,” I answer and a weight falls off my shoulders now that I no longer have to bear this secret. “We were together a little over a year.”
Noah shakes his head. “And you never told me.”
It’s a statement more than a question, but I reply anyway. “I didn’t want to upset you, and she didn’t want to upset her brother. We were going to come clean and then…” I clench my teeth, squinting into the Las Vegas sun. I’m always forgetting my damn sunglasses. “She was pregnant.” Noah rears back in shock. “And then she lost the baby, and it was the end of us.” I shrug like the memories of that time don’t still hurt.
Noah cocks his head to the side where Ebba—my wife—stands talking to Sabrina and Whimsy.
With a sigh, he says, “Go with her. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He gives my shoulder a shove. “Give me some credit. I can survive without you.”
I crack a smile. “Not well.”
Rolling his eyes, he says, “I’ll see you in two weeks.”