by Maisey Yates
It was the man.
Her man.
It was how much she wanted it that scared her. That was the real problem. She wanted to wear his ring more than she wanted anything in the world.
And she was going to take it.
“Are you ready to go to dinner?”
She swallowed hard, looking down at the perfect, sparkly rock on her finger.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”
* * *
Isaiah felt a sense of calm and completion when they pulled into his parents’ house that night. The small, modest farmhouse looked the same as it ever did, the yellow porch light cheery in the dim evening. It was always funny to him that no matter how successful Devlin, Joshua, Faith or Isaiah became, his parents refused to allow their children to buy them a new house. Or even to upgrade the old one at all.
They were perfectly happy with what they had.
He envied that feeling of being content. Being so certain what home was.
He liked his house, but he didn’t yet feel the need to stop changing his circumstances. He wasn’t settled.
He imagined that this new step forward with Poppy would change that. Though, he would like it if she dropped the sex embargo.
He wasn’t quite sure why she was so bound by it, though she had said something about white weddings and how she was a traditional girl at heart, even though he didn’t believe any of it since she had happily jumped into bed with him a few weeks earlier.
It was strange. He’d spent ten years not having sex with Poppy. But now that they’d done it a few times, it was damn near impossible to wait ten days, much less however long it was going to be until their wedding. He was fairly confident she wouldn’t stick to her proclamation that whole time, though. At least, he had been confident until nearly three weeks had passed without her knocking on his bedroom door.
But then, Poppy had been a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. Her commitment to celibacy was much greater than his own. He might have spent years abstaining from relationships, but he had not abstained from sex.
They got out of the car, and she started to charge ahead of him, as she had done on the way into the office that first morning after they’d made love. He was not going to allow that this time.
He caught up with her, wrapping his arm around her waist. “If you walk into my parents’ living room and announce that we had sex I may have to punish you.”
She turned her head sharply, her eyes wide. “Punish me? What sort of caveman proclamation is that?”
“Exactly the kind a bratty girl like you needs if you’re plotting evil.”
“I’m not plotting evil,” she said, her cheeks turning pink.
He examined her expression closely. Knowing Poppy like he did, he could read her better than he could read just about anyone else. She was annoyed with him. They certainly weren’t back on the same footing they had been.
But she wanted him. She couldn’t hide that, even now, standing in front of his parents’ home.
“But you’re a little bit intrigued about what I might do,” he whispered.
She wiggled against him, and he could tell she absolutely, grudgingly was intrigued. “Not at all.”
“You’re a liar.”
“You have a bad habit of pointing that out.” She sounded crabby about that.
“I don’t see the point of lies. In the end, they don’t make anything less uncomfortable.”
“Most people find small lies a great comfort,” she disagreed.
“I don’t,” he said, a hot rock lodging itself in his chest. “I don’t allow lies on any level, Poppy. That, you do have to know about me.”
He’d already been in a relationship with a woman who had lied to him. And he hadn’t questioned it. Because he’d imagined that love was somehow the same as having two-way trust.
“I won’t lie to you,” she said softly, brushing her fingertips over his lips.
Instantly, he felt himself getting hard. She hadn’t touched him in the weeks since he’d spent the night in her bed. But now was not the time.
He nodded once, and then tightened his hold on her as they continued to walk up the porch. Then he knocked.
“Why do you knock at your parents’ house?”
“I don’t live here.”
The door opened, and his mother appeared, looking between the two of them, her eyes searching.
“Isaiah? Poppy.”
“Hi,” Poppy said, not moving away from his hold.
“Hi, Mom,” Isaiah said.
“I imagine you have something to tell us,” his mom said, stepping away from the door.
Isaiah led Poppy into the cozy room. His father was sitting in his favorite chair, a picture of the life he’d had growing up still intact. The feeling it gave him... It was the kind of life he wanted.
“We have something to tell you,” Isaiah said.
Then the front door opened again and his brother Devlin and his wife, Mia, who was heavily pregnant, walked into the room.
“We brought chips,” Mia said, stopping cold when she saw Isaiah and Poppy standing together.
“Yay for chips,” Poppy said.
Then Joshua, Danielle and baby Riley came in, and with the exception of Faith, the entire audience was present.
“Do you want to wait for Faith?” his mom asked.
“No,” Isaiah said. “Poppy and I are engaged.”
His mother and father stared at them, and then his mother smiled. “That’s wonderful!” She closed the distance between them and pulled him in for a hug.
She did the same to Poppy, who was shrinking slightly next to him, like she was her wilting namesake.
His father made his way over to them and extended his hand; Isaiah shook it. “A good decision,” his dad said, looking at Poppy. And then, he hugged her, kissing her on the cheek. “Welcome to the family, Poppy.”
Poppy made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a sob, but she stayed rooted next to his side.
This was what he wanted. This feeling. There was warmth here. And it was easy. There was closeness.
And now that he had Poppy, it was perfect.
* * *
Poppy didn’t know how she made it through dinner. The food tasted like glue, which was ridiculous, since Nancy Grayson made the best food, and it always tasted like heaven. But Poppy had a feeling that her taste buds were defective, along with her very soul. She felt...wonderful and awful. All at once.
The Graysons were such an amazing family, and she loved Isaiah’s parents. But they thought Isaiah and Poppy were in love. They thought Isaiah had finally shared his heart with someone.
And he didn’t understand their assumptions. He thought they wanted marriage for him. A traditional family. But that wasn’t really what they wanted.
They wanted his happiness.
And Isaiah was still... He was still in the same place he had always been, emotionally. Unwilling to open up. Unwilling to take a risk because it was so difficult. They thought she’d changed him, and she hadn’t.
She was...enabling him.
She was enabling him and it was terrible.
After dinner, Poppy helped Nancy clear the dishes away.
“Poppy,” she said. “Can I talk to you?”
Poppy shifted. “Of course.”
“I’ve always known you would be perfect for him,” Nancy said. “But I’m hesitant to push Isaiah into anything because he just digs in. They’re all like that to a degree... But he’s the biggest puzzle. He always has been. Since he was a boy. Either angry and very emotional, or seemingly emotionless. I’ve always known that wasn’t true. People often find him detached, but I think it’s because he cares so much.”
Poppy agreed, and it went right along with what she’d been thinking when he’d given her the ring. T
hat there were hidden spaces in him he didn’t show anyone. And that had to be out of protection. Which showed that he did feel. He felt an awful lot.
“He’s a good man,” Nancy continued. “And I think he’ll be a good husband to you. I’m just so glad you’re going to be the one to be his wife, because you are exactly what he needs. You always have been.”
“I don’t... He’s not difficult.” Poppy looked down at her hands, her throat getting tight. “He’s one of the most special people I know.”
Nancy reached out and squeezed Poppy’s hands. “That’s all any mother wants the wife of her son to think.”
Poppy felt even more terrible. Like a fraud. Yes, she would love Isaiah with everything she had, but she wasn’t sure she was helping him at all.
“I have something for you,” Nancy said. “Come with me.”
She led Poppy back to the master bedroom, the only room in the house Poppy had never gone into. Nancy walked across the old wooden floor and the threadbare braided rug on top, moving to a highboy dresser and opening up a jewelry box.
“I have my mother’s wedding band here. I know that you like...old-fashioned things. It didn’t seem right for Danielle. And I know Faith won’t want it. You’re the one it was waiting for.” Nancy turned, holding it out to Poppy.
Poppy swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll save it until the... Until the wedding.”
“It can stay here, for safekeeping, if you want.”
“If you could,” Poppy said. “But I want to wear it. Once Isaiah and I are married.” Married. She was going to marry Isaiah. “Thank you.”
Nancy gave Poppy another hug, and Poppy felt like her heart was splintering. “I know that your own mother won’t be at the wedding,” Mrs. Grayson said. “But we won’t make a bride’s side and a groom’s side. It’s just going to be our family. You’re our family now, Poppy. You’re not alone.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said, barely able to speak.
She walked back out into the living room on numb feet to find Isaiah standing by the front door with his hat on. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
She got another round of hugs from the entire family, each one adding weight to her already burdened conscience.
When they got out, they made their way back to the car, and as soon as he closed the door behind them, Poppy’s insides broke apart.
They pulled out of the driveway, and a tear slid down her cheeks, and she turned her face away from him to keep him from seeing.
“I can’t do this.”
Eight
“What?”
“I can’t do this,” she said, feeling panic rising inside her now. “I’m sorry. But your parents think that I’ve...transformed you in some way. That I’m healing you. And instead, I’m enabling you to keep on doing that thing you love to do, where you run away from emotion and make everything about...”
“Maybe I just don’t feel it,” he said. “Maybe I’m not running from anything because there isn’t anything there for me to run from. Why would you think differently?”
“Because you loved Rosalind...”
“Maybe. Or maybe I didn’t. You’re trying to make it seem like I feel things the exact same way other people do, and that isn’t fair. I don’t.”
“I’m not trying to. It’s just that your parents think—”
“I don’t give a damn what my parents think. You were the one who wanted them to believe this was a normal kind of courtship. I don’t care either way.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“This is ridiculous, Poppy. You can’t pull out of our agreement now that everybody knows.”
“I could,” she said. “I could, and I could quit. Like I was going to do.”
“Because you would find it so easy to leave me?”
“No!”
“You’re doing this because you feel guilty? I don’t believe it. I think you’re running away. You accuse me of not dealing with my feelings. But you were a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. You’ve refused to let me touch you in the time since we first made love, and now that you’ve had to endure hugs from my entire family suddenly you’re trying to escape like a feral cat.”
“I am not a feral cat.” The comparison was unflattering.
And a little bit too close to the truth.
“I think you are. I think you’re fine as long as somebody leaves a can of tuna for you out by the Dumpster, but the minute they try to bring you in the house you’re all claws and teeth.”
“No one has ever left me a can of tuna by a Dumpster.” If he wanted claws, she was on the verge of giving them to him. This entire conversation was getting ridiculous.
“This isn’t over.” He started to drive them back toward his house.
“It is,” she protested.
“No.”
“Take me back to my house,” she insisted.
“My house is your house. You agreed to marry me.”
“And now I’m unagreeing,” she insisted.
“And I think you’re full of shit,” he said, his tone so sharp it could have easily sliced right through her. “I think you’re a hypocrite. Going on about what I need to do. Worrying about my emotional health when your own is in a much worse place.”
She huffed, clenching her hands into fists and looking away from him. She said nothing for the rest of the drive, and then when they pulled up to the house, Isaiah was out of the car much quicker than she was, moving over to her side and pulling open the door. Then he reached into the car, unbuckled her and literally lifted her out as though she were a child. Holding her in his arms, he carried her up the steps toward the house.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted.
“What I should have done weeks ago.”
“Making the transformation from man to caveman complete?”
He slid his hand down toward her ass and heat rioted through her. Even now, when she should be made of nothing but rage, she responded to him. Dammit.
“Making you remember why we’re doing this.”
“For your convenience,” she hissed.
“Because I can’t want another woman,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes blazing. “Not now. And we both know you don’t want another man.”
She made a poor show of kicking her feet slightly as he carried her inside. She could unman him if she wanted to, but she wouldn’t. And they both knew it.
“You can’t do this,” she protested weakly. “It violates all manner of HR rules.”
“Too bad for you that I own the company. I am HR.”
“I’m going to organize an ethics committee,” she groused.
“This is personal business. The company has nothing to do with it.”
“Is it? I think it’s business for you, period, like everything else.”
“It’s personal,” he ground out, “because I’ve been inside you. Don’t you dare pretend that isn’t true. Though it all makes sense to me now. Why you wanted me to stay away from you for the past few weeks.”
“Because I’m just not that into you?” she asked as he carried her up the stairs.
“No. Because you’re too into it.”
She froze, ice gathering at the center of her chest. She didn’t want him to know. He had been so clueless up until this point.
“You’re afraid that I’ll be able to convince you to stay because the sex is so good.”
Okay. Well, he was a little bit onto it. But not really.
Just a little bit off base, was her Isaiah.
“You’re in charge of everything,” she said. “I didn’t think it would hurt you to have to wait.”
“I don’t play games.”
“Sadly for you, the rest of the world does. We play games when we need to. We play games to
protect ourselves. We play games because it’s a lot more palatable than wandering around making proclamations like you do.”
“I don’t understand games,” he said. He flung open the door to his bedroom and walked them both inside. “But I understand this.” He claimed her mouth. And she should have... She should have told him no. Because of course he would have stopped. But she didn’t.
Instead, she let him consume her.
Then she began to consume him back. She wanted him. That was the problem. As much as everything that had happened back at the Grayson house terrified her, she wanted him.
Terrified. That wasn’t the word she had used before. Isaiah was the one who had said she was afraid. And maybe she was. But she didn’t know what to do about it.
It was like the time she had gone to live with a couple who hadn’t been expecting a little girl as young as she was. They had been surprised, and clearly, their house hadn’t been ready for a boisterous six-year-old. There had been a list of things she wasn’t allowed to touch. And so she had lived in that house for all of three weeks, afraid to leave feet print on the carpet, afraid of touching breakable objects. Afraid that somehow she was going to destroy the beautiful place she found herself in simply because of who she was.
Because she was the wrong fit.
That was what it had felt like at the Graysons’ tonight. Like she was surrounded by all this lovely, wonderful love, and somehow, it just wasn’t for her. Wasn’t to be.
There was more to it than that, of course, but that was the real reason she was freaking out, and she knew it.
But it didn’t make her wrong.
It also didn’t make her want to stop what was happening with Isaiah right now.
She was lonely. She had been a neglected child, and then she had lived in boisterous houses full of lots of children, which could sometimes feel equally lonely. She had never had a close romantic relationship as an adult. She was making friends in Copper Ridge, but moving around as often as she had made it difficult for her to have close lifelong friends. Isaiah was that friend, essentially.
And being close to him like this was a balm for a wound that ran very, very deep.
“You think this is fake?” he asked, his voice like gravel.
