“We’ll talk about it later,” he assured her.
They parted with a few exchanged kisses, and then he watched Taylor as she walked down the path in the opposite direction of him. Even tired, there was a sweet little rolling motion in her stride that made him feel a surge of lust all over again. Whatever they had between them, there were no problems on the physical end at least.
It was just his head that had been messed up lately. He turned and went jogging again.
By the time he was done with his run, he was sweaty but still not settled. On his walk back to the hotel, he saw Rex sitting on the sidewalk, his plastic bag of stuff parked next to him. Loch paused. “Want lunch, mate?”
Rex squinted up at him, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Where we going?”
“You pick. I’m just here for the company.”
The older man snorted and got to his feet. “You must be pretty hard up if I’m the best you’ve got.”
They headed down to the same diner as before, and ordered the same things. This time, Loch knew better than to eat the greasy food, and simply picked at it. He’d give it to Rex when they were done, and besides, he wasn’t all that hungry. “So I got engaged.”
“You did, huh? Should I give you congratulations?” Rex squirted a massive pile of ketchup onto his fries. “’Cause you don’t seem all that happy.”
“She’s great. I just . . . worry we’re getting married for the wrong reasons.”
“Says every man with cold feet ever.”
Loch smiled. “I do suppose it’s a bit like cold feet. I just worry that I’m using her.”
One of Rex’s brows went up. “How so?”
“I’m fifth in line for the throne in my homeland and there’s a small group of insurgents who don’t like the idea that our princess married an American. So I figured if I married a very inappropriate American myself, I could take myself out of the running.”
“Ah. And your sweetheart, she’s the inappropriate American?”
“Yes.”
“So you both went into it knowing that it was for business. What’s the big deal?”
Loch was silent.
“So she doesn’t know it was for business,” Rex guessed. “And that’s what’s bothering you.”
He nodded. “I do like her. She’s smart, funny . . .”
“Good in the sack?” Rex guessed. “Else I suspect we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He didn’t answer that, though Rex wasn’t wrong. “I feel like I should have said something, but now it’s too late. Anything I try to say at this point to correct the matter will just make it seem worse. I know I’m going to hurt her, and that bothers me. It’s the last thing I want.”
Rex shoved two ketchup-covered fries into his mouth and chewed noisily. “So don’t tell her. Fuck her for a while, set up house, have some fun, and then get a divorce. She never needs to know the truth.”
That didn’t sit well with Loch, either. “There’s another problem—I don’t plan on setting up house. I have a home back in my home country. I plan on returning there.”
“She invited?” Rex continued to eat between questions.
“If she wants to go. It hasn’t come up in conversation.”
He grunted.
“The entire situation bothers me,” Loch admitted.
“Don’t see why,” Rex said, then gestured at Loch’s plate. “You going to eat that?”
Loch pushed the plate toward Rex. “What do you mean, you don’t see why it bothers me?”
Rex picked up Loch’s hamburger. He lifted it to his mouth, then paused. “Do you really want to know what I think, or are you just looking for sympathy and a pat on the back?”
“I really want to know what you think. Most people just tell me what they think I want to hear.”
“I think you shouldn’t have any guilt at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, what’s the point?”
Loch frowned. “But Taylor—”
“You haven’t thought about her or how she feels since day one,” Rex said. “Why you starting now?”
Stung, Loch straightened in his seat. “That’s not true. I—”
“You want what you want, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else wants,” Rex said bluntly. “So you left home because you didn’t want to be a king. That’s a damn first-world problem if there ever was one. Then you go after a girl that your family will hate so they won’t consider you to be king material. And you offer to marry her because it suits you. And you’re going to go home and leave her here because it suits you. Tell me which part of that is the part where you were thinking about her feelings?”
Loch was silent.
Rex ate. “It’s real easy to use people when you don’t care if you hurt them.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, and then shoved the napkin in his pocket. “That’s when it becomes a problem.”
He wasn’t wrong . . . about any of it. He hadn’t gone into this situation considering Taylor’s feelings. He’d plowed ahead with his own plans and never stopped to think about how she would feel. And Taylor was a sweet, lovely person who gave herself wholeheartedly. And now that he knew that . . . it bothered Loch that he’d used her. “So what do I do?”
“You either figure out that you don’t give a shit and carry on your merry way, or you figure out that you do give a shit, and you fix it and hope she forgives you.”