“I said I wasn’t marriage material for that kind of marriage.”

“The regular kind?” she asked.

His head dropped forward with a laugh. “You are really not making this easy.”

“You’re not being particularly clear,” she countered.

Fine. She wanted clear? He’d give it to her:

“I think we should get married.”

He braced himself, half expecting the sky to fall or the ground to split open or Audrey to bust up laughing. But strangely, the moment the words were out there, he knew it was the greatest idea he’d ever had, the best thing he’d ever said.

Audrey said nothing, so he pushed forward.

“You’ve said yourself that Brayden ruined the idea of marriage for you, and I’ve never particularly wanted it myself. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get married our way.”

“Which is…?”

His heart pounded harder. She wasn’t saying no.

He forged ahead, desperate to convince her. “We enjoy each other’s company. We don’t get on each other’s nerves. We understand each other. We look out for each other. We care about each other. Not to mention, neither of us would have to deal with friends pushing us into blind dates or parents setting us up with family friends, and Scandal Boy would be completely thrown off his game.”

Audrey laughed. “I’m not going to get married because some Internet troll has it out for me.”

“Why not? You got engaged for that reason.”

“That’s different. Temporary.”

She was right. It was very different. But he wasn’t ready to back down. If she said no, fine. It’s not like he’d walk away with a broken heart, which was kind of the point. With Audrey, there’d never be a risk of that.

Except… there was.

With the old Audrey/Clarke dynamic, their hearts had never been on the line, but now? Now he’d never wanted anything as badly as he wanted this.

“We’re social people, Dree. We may have sworn off fairy-tale romance, but we’re not meant to be alone, either. Tell me it wouldn’t be fun to have someone to eat with every night. To have a built-in date to all these damned events we get invited to. To have a partner in life.”

“We can be all of that without being married. We’re already halfway there.”

Clarke’s heart sank slightly at the skepticism in her tone, but he smiled. “You know you can just say no, right? You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

Please don’t say no.

“I’m thinking,” she said, sipping her champagne. “I’m trying to figure out why it’s somehow the craziest idea I’ve ever heard in my life, and yet it doesn’t feel that crazy.”

His heart lifted once again. “And… wedding at the Plaza?”