Page 48 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
"Kramer."
"I'm serious. If you're going to marry someone for practical reasons, the physical compatibility needs to be part of the equation."
My cheeks burned. "It was… intense."
"Good intense or terrifying intense?"
"Both."
He nodded as if this made perfect sense. "And you're actually considering this."
"I don't know. Maybe. I can't stop thinking about it." I twirled a strand of hair around my finger and bit my lip. I really couldn't stop thinking about it now. Before, it was just a potential means to an end, but after last night—who knew?
"What does your gut tell you?"
"That I'm insane for even entertaining the idea."
"And what does your heart tell you?"
I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug, letting the warmth seep into my palms. "That I've never felt more trapped in my life."
Kramer reached across the table and covered one of my hands with his. "Tell me what you want, Sadie. Not what you need, not what makes sense, not what would solve your problems. What do you actually want?"
His question laid my heart bare. When was the last time someone had asked me what I wanted? When was the last time I'd even considered it?
"I want my mother to be okay," I said finally. "I want to stop worrying about money every single day. I want to be able to buy groceries without calculating the cost of every item."
"Those are needs. What about wants?"
I closed my eyes and tried to reach deeper. "I want to matter to someone. I want to be chosen instead of needed. I want to stop feeling like I'm drowning."
"Do you think Harrison could give you those things?"
"I don't know him well enough to answer that."
"But you slept with him."
"That was…" I struggled for words. "That was different. That was chemistry and wine and bad timing, and raw emotion."
"Was it?" Kramer tilted his head. "Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you responded to something real."
I thought about the way Harrison had looked at me across the dinner table, the gentle way he'd pulled me into his arms when I started crying. There had been something real there, hadn't there? Or was I just desperate enough to imagine it?
"I have to give him an answer today," I said.
"What happens if you say no?"
"He finds someone else to marry, I go back to substitute teaching and hoping Mom doesn't drink herself to death, and life continues as it is."
"And if you say yes?"
"I marry a man I barely know, become a stepmother to a nine-year-old, and spend the next five years pretending to be someone I'm not."
Kramer finished his croissant and brushed crumbs from his fingers. "You know what I think?"
"Tell me."
"I think you've been taking care of other people for so long that you've forgotten how to let someone take care of you. And maybe that scares you more than the marriage contract."
