“You said you’d need to clean out her room if you moved in, but when I cleared the house today—” My mouth went dry at just the memory of that terrifying moment when I’d thought Maisey might be there. “Her room was completely empty. Nothing there but the furniture.”
Maisey’s mouth dropped open, and she forced herself out of my arms.
“Empty, empty? Like, no old clothes? No movie posters on the wall?”
“Not even an empty mascara tube.”
I went to draw her back, and she swatted at my hands. I shoved them into my pockets to keep from reaching for her as she returned to her restless pacing.
“Why would Chelsea take everything now?” Maisey’s brows furrowed together. “Anything she thought was of value, she would have taken with her a long time ago.”
Unless she was going to set the place ablaze and wanted a few more mementos of her childhood.Wait. Did I really think Chelsea would set fire to their house? Or was the idea just a leftover of my wounded past, knowingmy mother had done just that?
Subconsciously, Maisey twirled one long strand around her finger.
Every fiber in me hated that these new traumas were breaking open old wounds she’d done all the hard work to put behind her. Maisey deserved a future that left behind those pained moments. That gave her the forever after and the permanence she craved.
I certainly hadn’t helped her along that path with my lie today.
But hell, it might actually end up helping us both. I wouldn’t ever be able to give someone forever—not after what I’d lived through and not after what I’d done to Del—but I could help Maisey temporarily, and she could help me. What did they call it in romance books? A fake-engagement trope. It never worked in the books, but it could work for us.
I could keep my new and uncomfortable obsession with the way her hips swayed to myself. I could keep my dick in my pants. I wasn’t some fictional character.
“You can’t move into that house right now,” I told her truthfully. “The inspector will have to clear it, and the water restoration people need to dry things out. I boarded up the back door before I left today, but I don’t think the house will be livable for months. You and your dad can move in with me while the repairs are made.”
Her feet froze so fast that she stumbled over them. “Wh-what?”
“Look. If you insist on helping your dad, you’ll need a place to live free of charge. I have two extra bedrooms that aren’t being used. I’ve painted them and refinished the floors, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
She was shaking her head before I’d even finished.
“No. Absolutely not. We’re not taking advantage of you like that.”
Everything in me zeroed in on her response. “How is one friend helping another taking advantage?”
“Beckett, you could rent those rooms out and offset your own expenses.”
“Please. You know I don’t have a mortgage. Dad put me on the title, saying it was going to be mine when he kicked the bucket anyway. I’ve paid for the remodel as I had the money and time to do it, so I don’t have any real debt.”
She was still shaking her head, her entire body moving with the ferocity of it.
“Look. The truth is”—I swallowed hard—“if you moved in, you’d be doing me a favor.”
She snorted in disbelief. “How do you figure that?”
I ran a hand through my hair, scratched the back of my neck, and thenshoved my hands back into my pockets. “Well…things happened today at the station. Things I reacted to in ways I probably shouldn’t have and had me saying things I had no right to say. But after some thought, it still makes a hell of a lot of sense.”
Her brows furrowed.
I rocked on my heels. “Seems the chief isn’t going to consider me as his replacement because he thinks I’m too single.”
The confusion on her face grew more pronounced. “What in the world does that mean?”
“Means Nattingly, and the entire city council, wants a married man for the job.” Suspicion flitted over her, but I plowed forward. “And then Delilah showed up, offering herself up as some sort of sacrifice, suggesting we should get married, as if it would help both our careers. And I sort of panicked. Sort of let my tongue wag before my brain caught up with it.”
“Oh, Beckett…what did you do?” she breathed out, as if already starting to realize, as if knowing me for the majority of my life had given her the inside track to the way my brain worked, which it had.
I finally recovered my balls from where they’d been hiding and told her the truth. “I said I couldn’t marry her because you and I were already engaged.”