“When I saw that Kaleb and Aleena got engaged, I knew she’d bring it up, and I don’t know what to tell her.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. She overheard you and Kaleb talk about it. She thinks she’s never been good enough for you and that she’s just a plaything.”
“Everything you just said is total bullshit, Brylee. If anything, she’s too good for me.”
“Then why won’t you ask her to marry you?”
“Fuck, I don’t know,” he burst out and stood. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for years. The closest I’ve come is thinking if she was truly mine and I lose her, I’d never recover from it.”
“Well, it looks like you lost her anyway,” Brylee said.
Gabe growled. “Baby, you’re pushing it.”
Brylee turned to Gage. “Daddy, I want him to feel a fraction of what she does.”
“I already do.” Darian sat back down.
“Have they put you on suicide watch?”
“God.”
Brylee sighed. “I guess I’m so angry because I would have paid a million dollars to bet that woman is way too strong and vibrant for anything to break her. Now, I know I would have lost.”
“Brylee,” Gage said in a stern voice.
Darian held up a hand. “No, don’t get mad at her. I deserve everything she says and more.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“Darian, does it matter if you’re married or not if you lose her anyway? If you lose her by death or her leaving?” Brylee asked. “Either way, you’ve lost.”
She said it gently, but it was enough to set him on his ass. She was exactly right. He’d just been thinking something along those lines, but the way she said it seemed to hit home with him. Fuck, he was a smart guy, and he hadn’t been able to figure it out on his own until earlier. Because he let his emotions and fear get in the way of logic.
“No, Brylee, it doesn’t matter. I just want her any way I can get her.”
No one said the thing they all had to be thinking. He might not have her ever again.