All I could do was look at my hands as Grace went over what this meeting would consist of however my brain wasn’t processing any of it.

It didn’t help my mental absence that my heart and soul was across the Atlantic either.

That and the fact that, between Harry and me, we had a grand total of four hours of sleep after catching a late night international flight back to my home state.

The goodbyes in the middle of the night to the children as we left them in the capable hands of Anne were difficult.

For one thing I had never been this far from my son. It killed me to know that it would take more than a drive to reach Jamie if he needed me, but I also understood that being here would keep me from having to experience this again… hopefully.

Darcy had taken it hard as well.

As much as I hoped I was wrong I sensed she was feeling the tension in the house after I was handed the papers on the adorable date night Harry had set up. She had been throwing tantrums, something she never did, and clung to Harry or myself. And when we started to pack it had been next to impossible keeping our clothes in our luggage as she angrily pulled them out. I didn’t even want to think about the screaming, teary goodbye.

I had tried my hardest to convince Harry to stay but he promised she would be ok and that he wanted to do this with me, he didn’t want me to be alone.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the words to tell him how much that meant to me.

In my already vulnerable emotional state from leaving my babies behind I damn near cried myself into a stupor. Something I felt I had been doing a lot of lately anyhow.

And after all that here we were, tired, emotionally drained, and still reeling from the flight and the whole damn situation.

My eyes flicked up from my fingers to view Harry’s face as he listened closely to what Grace was saying. He looked to the world as casual and relaxed as ever but the tightness around his eyes and the worry lines indented on his forehead let me know he was just as tense as I was.

I shifted around to look up at Grace as she stood off to my left, files placed in a neat pile in front of her on the large mahogany conference table in the privet room we were seated in waiting for Mark and his attorney.

She paused in her little speech taking a breath and smoothing her hands over her pristine cream pencil skirt, her over all look being professional and confidant. It gave me a little comfort to see her assured persona.

Her sharp eyes shifted over to Harry and me with a reassuring smile on her lips. “And most of all, don’t let this overpriced pompous attorney intimidate you. It’s his weapon of choice but I won’t let it work on me or you, ok?”

I really wanted to let those words sooth my nerves but from the moment I stepped out of the SUV with Harry and Grace I was taking inventory of the high rise building and its high priced local and luxurious furnishings.

I felt sick to my stomach knowing that without Harry I would have never been able to match this.
It seemed that, try as Grace might to convince me otherwise, Mr. Richard K. Daniels, Esq.’s scare tactics were working on me.

“Aria.” Grace spoke again, catching my unsure expression with her astute gaze as she took her seat beside me. “I have this under control.”

Her controlled eyes stayed on me even as we heard the door open just behind us letting us know the other half of our meeting had arrived.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Were the first words out of Mark’s mouth as he spotted a glaring Harry, who had reached a hand over to tightly hold my own.

If this had been a normal situation I probably would have snapped back, as it was all I could do was stare wide eyed as he, along with his rather large and slightly balding attorney, entered into the large office followed by the up turned nose of one Layla Winston who looked to all the world completely unfazed by the irate tone of her husband’s voice.

“Mr. Daniels I would greatly appreciate it if you would remind your client that any statements made towards my clients go through us.” Grace said not even sparing Mark a glance as she shuffled her papers around waiting for the trio to sit down.

“Mr. Winston, let me handle this.” Mr. Daniels said in an indulgent tone before turning to Grace who now smiled calmly at him from across the table. “This is a closed meeting Ms. MacDemera, between the two parental parties. Why is Mr. Styles here exactly? I don’t believe boyfriends where invited.” The older man chuckled as he pulled his own papers out of a briefcase.

Grace raised her eyebrow cutting Mr. Daniels chuckling at his own inappropriate retort off.

A slight tremor of panic shifted through me as I glanced over at Harry beside me. I would not be able to handle this meeting without him holding my hand, I just knew it.

Just as Grace was preparing to reply Harry’s had squeezed mine, and I swear the words that came out of his mouth as they cut right across whatever Grace was getting ready to say nearly had me fall on the floor.

Honestly it would have been funny if it wasn’t so… not funny.

“We’re engaged.”

The silence that followed was so thick it was almost unbearable.

Harry shifted his eyes towards me sharply trying to convey some message but all I could do was stare slack jawed at him.

Grace seemed to compose herself first as she turned towards the other side of the table to a skeptical Mr. Daniels and the slightly shocked faces of Layla and Mark. “Is it possible that I may I have a moment alone with my clients please?”

I was unaware of what ever words were exchanged before the three of them stepped out of the room leaving me, Harry and Grace alone. I’m sure that Grace needing a privet meeting with us after that bomb was dropped wouldn’t look good anyway.

“What in god’s name just happened?” Grace’s voice was low and calm but there was an undertone of slight anger there.

I had no words for her; all I could do was stare at Harry.

He told them we were engaged. Illogically and self-interestedly my heart overrode my mind forgetting the situation I was currently in for a moment.

Is that something he wanted? Was this some weird form of a proposal?

I mean, I knew… I knew he had only said it to get to Mark but was there any part of him that actually wanted that?

Did I want that?

Harry stared back at me silently almost daring me to say something, anything.

“Um…” I could take this either way. I could come clean and hope to hell Grace could dig us out of this or I could play along.

Jamie’s tiny little face popped into my head and, once again, selfishly I realized that weather or not I wanted this or even if Harry did that I would walk down the damn aisle with him right now if it meant keeping my son. Especially since at this moment going along with the lie seemed like a better option than admitting it to not only Grace but Mark and his attorney also.

And, a little voice began to whisper in my mind, because you love him and would gladly marry him if he actually meant it too.

“We’re engaged.” I repeated Harry’s earlier words without stuttering. Harry almost looked surprised at me going along with it but he was much better at covering it then I was.

“And now is when you decided to say anything?” It was clear that Grace wasn’t buying it but Harry was quick to jump in before she could shoot holes into this newly developing falsehood.
“We were going to keep it a secret until everything calmed down a bit. It’s my fault really, Mark and his lawyer got to me. And I wasn’t about to leave Aria-”

Grace raised her hand cutting Harry off as she pinched the bridge of her nose stressfully. “Yea well you could have let me know.” She breathed deeply before sitting up straighter and looking at us both like she was just seeing us for the first time. “But if this isn’t real, if you guys just-“

“It’s real.” I surprised myself by cutting her off, too afraid to hear what the consequences maybe now that I was all in.

“Ok.” Grace nodded after studying my face as I tried to hold a firm look of confidence. “We can make this work, this can work.” She laughed humorlessly and shook her head. “Actually this is good news. This clears up the issue Daniels was sure to bring up about stability. If you are married that makes that argument a lot easier to counter.”

Harry and I just sat quietly listening to Grace mumble to herself about how she could work with this new development. I wondered as I snuck a sideways glance at Harry while he blankly stared out the window if now that the tension had settled if he was regretting his little outburst.

I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t take it back, not when Grace was happily rescanning her notes and making adjustments that were, hopefully, in our benefit. She seemed optimistic.

So it was somewhat surprising to me when he did finally speak again only to ask Grace for a moment alone with me.

I stared at the wood grain as I listen to Grace politely excuse herself promising to keep the others away for at least a few more minutes.

“Are you ok with this?” He breathed out beside me, still not looking at me.

Was I ok with this?

He asked me now. After we had already both dedicated ourselves to some spur of the moment lie that had my son’s life in the balance. Now?

I wasn’t sure if it was the hint of regret I was sure I heard in his voice that caused a sharp pain in my heart unexpectedly or the fact that he asked me after the fact, but a sudden anger built up in me that I wasn’t even entirely sure was directed at Harry to begin with.

But both my selfish and selfless side were pissed.

“It’s kind of too late to ask that question now, isn’t it?” I snapped.

There was just too much stress, too much pressure, too much…. Too much.

“Aria-“

“Why did you do that? Why would you lie about that?” I needed this answered because my heart was aching to know. I needed to know if this was all out of some misplaced need to fix my life Harry felt or if maybe, deep down, this was something that he actually wanted.

Because I wanted this, but not if he didn’t want it too.

I didn’t want to be Harry’s charity case.

My god where was this coming from?

I was talking about marriage.

It hit me so suddenly and just as suddenly I realized that it didn’t matter. That maybe I hadn’t known Harry for even a year yet but if he honestly wanted to marry me I would marry him right now and not only because it would help me keep my son.

Harry stared at me silently, a war clearly being waged in his head as he thought out his next words.

Please tell me you want to marry me. Please don’t say it was all to save my messed up life.

“I-“ He ran his hands through his hair still staring me down like I held the answers to my own question, a question I very desperately needed him to answer. “I did it to help. You… you heard Grace, this works out. This can keep Jamie with us.”

And just like that my hopeful bubble was popped. It was his need to save me not his need for me.

I nodded and sighed. “And you didn’t happen to think this out at all did you? What’s going to happen when we don’t actually get married?”

Please say that it doesn’t matter; please say that you would still want to be engaged to me. I desperately begged even as I could see him panicking at the flaw in his plan.

“It won’t get that far. We’ll just say we are holding off, waiting for a bit. People have long engagements all the time, and then when this all blows over we can just… ” He glanced at me again with those searching eyes, but I found myself losing the urge to even look at him as he continued to speak, my heart slowly breaking. “We can say we changed our minds.”

I nodded and bit my lip.

Silly, stupid girl. You don’t live in a fairy tale. Did you really thing your prince was going to want to be with you forever just like that? Honestly when did I even want this to be a real thing?

I laughed at my own ridiculousness. Of course it was only said to help my case. Surprisingly a very large part of my heart ached as the realization set in.

“Alright.” I managed to say in a steady voice, still not looking at him but I could feel his eyes on me.

I managed a small grateful smile up at him, even if my eyes didn’t quite reach his face, because after all he was helping me keep Jamie.

Jamie.

This was for him. Everything was for him and I didn’t have a right to want more than my son staying with me.

“Alright.”

And finally my eyes did met his because although it was said as a statement I couldn’t help but to wonder if that was a slight questioning tone in there.

Notes

Hello again….
So if you haven’t heard I’m back.
Thank you for the people who stuck around and to the new people (if there are any) hello I hope you like my silly little story.
So I’m a bit out of practice and honestly if I don’t post this now I’ll probably keep it forever trying to edit it since I am psyching myself out since it’s been forever and I want to post a perfect chapter. Problem is I never feel any of my chapters are perfect so I’ll post this now and not risk going into another ear long hiatus.
If it seems a bit irratice, its meant to be. Aria's thoughts are a bit irratice under stress.
Anyway enjoy and as always please tell me what you guys think or you know just let me know you’re still there.
Love you guys.