“No. I thought you knew me better than that,” he said.
She had made him angry but she needed to know if he was the kind of man who’d cheat on her. “We don’t have anything official between us. I...are you a one-woman man?”
He leaned in toward the camera, so close she could see the green and dark brown flecks in his hazel eyes. “I am.”
“Then stop having your picture taken with foreign blondes,” she said.
He sighed. “It’s not that easy. She keeps showing up everywhere I am.”
Emily was tempted to go to Alma and—
Do what?
She was Rafe’s baby mama, not his fiancée.
This was something she had no idea how to handle. But she wanted him to be hers. For the world to know that he belonged to her. But she didn’t want to say that to him. Admit that all these late calls had made her start to fall for him.
“How was your day?” She toed off her socks and grabbed a second pillow to prop her head up.
“Interesting. My baby sister is worried about me.”
“Why?”
“She said I don’t seem happy,” Rafe said.
“Are you?”
“Happy isn’t exactly something I aspire to. I think that is a path to crazy,” he said. “I’d like to be content.”
“Happiness equals crazy?” she asked. “I’ve never thought that.”
“I mean trying to be happy all the time. Life isn’t about always being happy. There are quiet moments and the normal grind. That’s what makes the happy times memorable.”
“So is this a quiet moment?”
“It’s so much more than that, Red. You’re my reward for being the good son and doing what’s expected of me here in Alma.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it warmed her up and made the feelings that had been dogging her all night dissolve. She realized that she’d been edgy and mopey because she didn’t like seeing Rafe with that blonde woman.
“I was jealous.”
“Of?”
“That blonde.” She made a face and put her thumb over the part of her phone that showed her end of the video chat. She didn’t want to see her own face.
“Don’t be.”
“I want this to be light and easy, Rafe. But it’s not. It hasn’t been for a while.”
“You want the truth, Red?” he asked, rolling to his side and propping his phone up on something so that he wasn’t holding it any more.
“You know I do.”
“This hasn’t been light or easy since the moment I first kissed you. I’m not a one-night-stand guy and we both know you don’t take guys home all the time. We’ve both been trying to pretend that it was nothing more than a moment, but I think it’s time we stopped pretending.”
She swallowed hard. Had she been pretending? Was that why she’d been jealous and lonely?
“What do you suggest?”
“That we figure out what we both want. I know I want you. Not just for sex.”
“Me, too.”
Six
It was somehow easier to talk to her when he saw her face. She looked good, with that smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the weary hope in her blue eyes. She seemed to want him to be the man he wasn’t sure he could be.
He wanted to be a man of his word, but that was complicated. Making promises to her was out of the question because he had to figure out a solution that would take care of his family’s future. Or did he? He was tired of walking on the tightrope between what he wanted and what he should do.
He thought of his mom, who’d divorced their father when Bella turned eighteen. It was as if his mother had served her time raising them and was ready to do something for herself. He didn’t want to wait like that... Besides, assuming the throne was for life.
“What are you thinking? You got all intense all of a sudden,” Emily said.
“I was thinking about my mom,” he admitted quietly. “How she raised us until Bella was eighteen and then moved on with her life. What kind of mom will you be?”
“Not that kind. But I’m independent,” she said. “I imagine my child will be too.”
“It’s our child.”
“You’re going to be ruling Alma, Rafe. I’m the one who will raise our child.”
He didn’t like her point. But he knew better than to argue it. He wasn’t in a position to win. And he was tired of losing.
“You look nice. No sign of the pregnancy yet,” he said.
“Thanks. A Shady Harry’s T-shirt and jeans aren’t exactly haute couture but they suit me.”