Page 87 of My Fiancé's Brother

After I changed,we started our walk. Usually, it was just me walking her, but Chloe seemed extra excited that Jackson was with us. She kept stopping and sticking her nose in his hand.

“Is this your usual route?” he asked, looking around.

“Yeah, I usually walk her down to the river. There’s lots of grass there.”

“I run down here.”

We walked in compatible silence for a time.

“How are you and Matt doing?”

“I don’t know. He’s never around. And it seems like neither of us wants to make the first move to talk about stuff.”

“You still want to get married?”

I paused for so long that Jackson looked down at me.

“I'm hoping that if we can just make it to this wedding, everything will just sort itself out.”

“Is that how it works?”

I gave a short laugh. “God I hope so. We need to get past this.”

“What’s this?”

I looked down at my sneakers. “Things used to be easy. He was busy, but he made an effort to see me. I would do my stuff and be excited to see him. Life was easy. Now everything just seems hard.”

“You seem pretty determined to get married.”

I didn’t want to talk about marrying Matt because it stressed me out. “I want what my parents had.”

“What was that?”

“I don’t know. We were a family. We were happy. Right now, I don’t have any family left.”

We walked in silence for a long time. “That’s why you want kids. You want a family again.”

“Is that so awful? To want a family?”

“No.”

I sucked in my breath. “But you don’t want that. You don’t want a family.”

“No.”

Again my stupid heart impaled itself on his words.

“Well, I guess there are lots of women who don’t want that either.”

We stood along the riverbank and watched as Chloe moved with determination, her nose to the ground.

“If Matt told you that he didn’t want children, would you still want to be with him?” His question came out of nowhere.

My heart pounded. If Matt told me he didn’t want children, it would feel like a get out of jail free card. It would mean I didn’t have to go through with this wedding. I slammed my mind shut on that thought, feeling immediate retribution.

I paused and looked up at him. “No. I would not want to marry him.”

My words hung awkwardly between us.

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