“We both know I’m not a jewelry kind of guy.” Griffin lowered his hand. “I don’t even wear a watch.”
“But we aren’t married yet,” I said with a chuckle. “You’re supposed to do that after we get married.”
“After?” he asked, not caring about having this conversation in front of my father. “We are married. I asked you last week, and you said yes.”
“That’s not how it works.” His ignorance was adorable at times. “There’s no way you don’t know that. We’re supposed to have a wedding and—”
“That’s not us.” He silenced me with his ferocious look. “Our bond started long before I put that ring on your finger. Signing a piece of paper isn’t going to make that more true. This ink represents a lot more than matrimonial love. It represents my eternal commitment to you. So I can get this ink anytime I want, whether I’m your husband or not.”
My father’s eyes shifted back and forth as he looked at us, clearly uncomfortable with the intimate conversation we were having. It was something he shouldn’t stand there and witness. He cleared his throat then slowly drifted away. “I should get back to the winery…” He let himself out, his shoes tapping against the floor until he was gone.
Bones never took his eyes off me. His chest rose and fell with his deep breaths, and he looked at me like he’d never been angrier with me.
“Griffin, I’m not angry that you got that tattoo. It’s sweet, actually.”
His breathing decreased slightly, along with his aggression.
“I just thought you did it prematurely. We may not have a wedding for a year…”
Now he was pissed off all over again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“It takes time to plan a wedding, Griffin. My family knows a lot of people, so there will be a ton of guests.”
He looked like he could pick up my desk and throw it out the window. “I don’t want any guests at our wedding. I want it just to be us and a few people. There’s no goddamn way I’m waiting a year to marry you. Is this a joke?”
“Then what were you expecting?”
“Tomorrow.”
Both of my eyebrows rose up my forehead. “Tomorrow?”
“Or the day after. What about today?”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, baby. You’re the one who’s crazy. How could you possibly want to wait a year to be married to me?”
“It’s not that I want to wait,” I argued. “It’s just… It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.”
Like every other woman on the planet, I’d dreamed of how I wanted my wedding to be. “I’ve always wanted to wear a wedding dress. If we do it at the court, I can’t really do that. And I know my father wants to give me away. So…we need to have a wedding, Griffin.”
His eyes watched me for a long time. “We can still do that.”
“Then we need to wait.”
“You can get a wedding dress in a day or so.”
“But then it needs to be fitted—”
“What the hell is Conway for?” he snapped. “That’s what he does for a living.”
Sometimes I forgot my brother actually had talents besides being annoying.
“And we can have a small ceremony—just family. We’ll do it on Saturday.”
That was only a few days away, but when Bones described it that way, it actually sounded pretty perfect.
“You wanted to start a family right away?” he asked, the tension in his eyes slowly dying away now that he was getting his way.
“Yes…but I thought we would talk about that later.”
“Well, we need to be married first.”
I rolled my eyes. “Our relationship has never been conventional, so let’s not start now.”
“When I asked your father if I could marry you, I promised I would take care of you. So if you want to start a family, I want to do it the right way. I want to be your husband. I want to get you pregnant in our bed, our rings on our hands.”
It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever heard him say.
“And don’t expect me to wait a year for that to happen.”
“So…you really want to start a family with me?” I knew I wanted children. I’d known since I was a little girl. But when I mentioned it to Griffin, he didn’t seem interested at all.
“I thought I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“But I would hope that you would have changed your mind on your own…”
He looked down for a moment, considering his answer carefully before he gave it. “I love you more than anything else in the world, and the idea of something happening to you…is my worst nightmare. So the idea of having babies…having a daughter who looks like you…just scares me even more. The more people I love, the more I have to protect. The more I have to lose. That’s what scares me.” He grabbed my hand and surrounded it with both of his palms, like he was protecting my hand with his. “In that regard, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”