The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

Maybe she had misunderstood him. “You mean, uh, you’re telling me that sex is not that important to you?”

“Sex. Love—what you call man-and-woman love, anyway. When it comes to that, well, I’m pretty much dead meat.”

Dead meat. How sad. Joleen had known that what had happened with Stacey had scarred her friend in a deep way. But she’d been telling herself he was slowly getting over the pain of that time.

Not so, evidently.

He went on. “I’d rather be with you than with a lover anyday. And I never planned to marry again—at least not until I thought of marrying you tonight. I’ve got to tell you, Jo. I like this idea. A marriage to you sounds damn good to me. Hell. To be legally a part of the family—of your family, and Sam’s—sounds pretty terrific, as a matter of fact. Until you brought it up, I didn’t even think of the sex issue. It didn’t seem important. I guess I had some idea that, since Bobby Atwood did a number on you, you felt more or less the same way I do about love and romance and everything that goes with it.”

Joleen found herself wondering, did she feel the same way—emotional dead meat when it came to man-woman love?

Well…

Not really.

“Oh, Dekker…”

He was sitting very still. “I’m listening.”

She strove for just the right words. “I, well, I can see how you would think I don’t want anything to do with love. The family drives me crazy, always after me to find someone, always telling me my turn for true love is comin’ right up. Lately it seems like every wedding I go to, I’m the one who gets the bride’s bouquet tossed in her face.”

“They do it because they want the best for you,” he reminded her gently.

“I know they do. I know all their hearts are in the right places. But still, it aggravates me no end. It’s like the old saying goes. Once burned, twice shy. Bobby did burn me. Bad. I just don’t want a thing to do with it—with love and romance—not right now.”

“But?”

“Well, to you, Dekker, at this moment, because of the seriousness of what we are considering, I am willin’ to admit something.”

“Do it.”

“Even on the day that Bobby turned his back on me, even then, when I had to face the fact that I’d made a worse mistake in judgment than my mama and my sisters ever made. Even then, I knew deep in my heart that someday—maybe not for years and years—but someday I would try again.”

He looked at her levelly. “Years and years, Jo. Do you hear yourself? You are talking about a long time.”

“Maybe so. But still. Someday, I can’t help but hope, I will find love—and I mean the real and lastin’ kind.”

“Too bad you need a husband right now. A husband with a fat wallet, a husband you can count on.”

“Well, okay. You may be right, but—”

“Let me put it this way.” He leaned closer. They’d been talking quietly, but right then, he lowered his voice even more, as if they were a pair of conspirators, as if he were about to suggest the most dangerous conspiracy of all. “You could marry me now. We could deal with the Atwoods together, present a united front. And eventually, once the Atwoods are no longer a threat to you and Sam, if you feel you’ve got to have more than I can give you, well then, we’ll end it.”

She hated to say the ugly word, but it did require saying. “Divorce, you mean?”

He nodded.

She found herself leaning toward him as he leaned toward her. “So. We could marry…” She was whispering, too, keeping her voice way down low so that only he could hear, though it was nearing two in the morning and they were alone in her mother’s dark backyard. “We could marry and live together and be just what we are—friends, and that’s all. But we’d also stay true, to each other. Respect our vows. And then, if the time comes when one of us wants more than the other can give, we would get ourselves a divorce.”

He nodded again. “That’s exactly right.”

She thought of the family. “What would we tell everyone? Would we try to make them think that all of a sudden the two of us discovered we were in love?”

“However you want to handle it. Maybe calling it love would be the best way to go. You’ve got some pretty big talkers in your family.”

He had a point there. She said, “Aunt LeeAnne comes immediately to mind.”

“That she does. And it’s possible, if we let it be known that this marriage is really for Sam’s sake, the Atwoods might get hold of that information. They could twist it to make it look as if there’s no real commitment between us, as if it’s only a marriage on paper, entered into so that you wouldn’t lose Sam to them.”

“Well. And that would be the truth, more or less, wouldn’t it?”

His gaze did not waver. “There is, always has been and always will be, commitment between us.”

Oh, he was so right. They did share a very deep commitment. She swallowed, gave a nod.

He said, “Let me put it this way. If you think the Atwoods have a right to that particular truth, then we probably don’t need to be having this conversation.”

She took his meaning. “Because we might as well not be married at all, if Robert Atwood is going to be able to call our marriage a sham. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” She flopped back against the cushion and stared up through the trees at the starry night sky. “So we’d need to make everyone think it’s a real marriage, in every way. We’d need to—”

He chuckled again. “Jo. Settle down.”

“Well, I want to get this all straight in my mind. I want to know exactly how we would manage everything.”

“And I’m trying to tell you that we don’t need to ‘make’ them think anything. We’ll just say we love each other and we’ve decided to get married. I don’t see why we have to go into any big explanations about what kind of love it is.”

Easy for him to say. She sat up a little straighter. “Maybe you won’t. You’re the man. The women in my family will not be askin’ you why, all of a sudden, you’re getting hitched to your best friend.”

“You can handle them.”

“How?”

“Let them ask. Answer with care.”

She knew he had the right idea. But she did hate evading and telling lies. If she and Dekker did this, she would have to lie at least a little and evade a whole lot.

She told him, “The family will have to know that the Atwoods are after Sam. Eventually, when we get to court, I don’t see any way we could hide it. And then there’s the babysitting issue. I’m going to have to tell my mama and my sisters why they suddenly can’t watch my child.”

“Our getting married will make that easier.”

“How?”

“We’ll tell them about the money I’ve got now, money that means you can start paying for day care, so you won’t have to take advantage of them so much anymore.”

For the first time since they’d started this particular discussion, Joleen felt a smile curving her lips. “Hey. When you say it that way, it doesn’t sound bad at all.”