A Family for Christmas Read Free Page A

to convey her
surety through her words and her expression. “It feels like the perfect
solution to my life just fell in my lap too. There’s a reason that Daniel
wanted us to get together.”
    “I
don’t think he had a marriage of convenience in mind.”
    “Of
course not. But there’s a reason. Sometimes God works in inexplicable ways. Why
not a marriage of convenience?”
    His
posture had relaxed, and he was almost smiling as he shook his head. “You know
this is insane, right?”
    “Of
course, it is. But think how perfect. We could work out all the details of how
the marriage would work beforehand, so things wouldn’t be awkward. The only
thing that’s important to me is that we’re faithful to each other. I don’t
believe in taking marriage casually.”
    “Me
either,” he said in a low voice. “I would be faithful.”
    She
felt a strange sort of shiver at the words, but she didn’t know where it was
coming from, so she just ignored it. “Good. Me too. If we agree on that, then
there’s no reason we have to be in love to get married. We can set up the
arrangement in a way that works for both of us. If you’re not going to be in India
all year round, then there will be a lot of time when we won’t even be living
on the same continent. That should make things easier. I really think it could
work.”
    “You’d
be okay with doing some sort of pre-nup? I need to think about Ellie and—”
    “Of
course. We’d get everything squared away so there are no surprises.”
    He
was smiling now too, and still looking faintly amused. “All right. If you’re
sure, then it definitely works for me.”
    “Great.”
She was suddenly so excited she wanted to hug herself. It was like her entire
life was finally moving toward the end she’d been dreaming of. “Maybe I can
actually get out there by next summer.”
    “That’s
when I’m hoping to go too.”
    She
grinned at him. “See? It’s like it’s meant to be. Will your daughter be okay
with it?”
    “Why
wouldn’t she?”
    “I
don’t know. It will just be a surprise that you’re getting married.”
    “Ellie’s
a smart girl. She’ll be fine.”
    “Okay.
Good. Where are you living now, anyway?”
    “Raleigh.
But I’ll be moving to Willow Park eventually. You’re back there, right?”
    “Yeah.
I’m just living with my parents as I raise support. I could always move to
Raleigh for a while, if that would make things easier.”
    “I’m
selling the house in Raleigh anyway, since it’s way too big to keep up if I’m
not in the States all year. I’ll just move up the timeline and move to Willow
Park over the next couple of months.”
    “Okay.
Well, that would work well with me. It’s a really nice town. Ellie will
probably enjoy going to school there.”
    “Yeah.
I hope so.”
    “Are
you selling out your business then?”
    “Not
entirely. But I’m stepping way back in terms of my role so I can focus on the
business center.”
    “It’s
a lot of big changes,” she said, looking at the man across from her—handsome,
successful, reserved—and wondering if it was possible that she was going to get
married to him soon.
    “I
know. But good ones. Ellie is getting older, so I need to be there for her
more, and there’s no flexibility in the role I had in my business before.
Besides, I just…”
    “You
just what?” It was another nosy question, but Lydia had never been reticent
about asking what she wanted to know.
    “I
want to do something different.”
    She
wondered what had happened with his ex-wife, but she wasn’t quite comfortable
enough with him to ask about it.
    Even
she had a few social boundaries.
    “We
should probably be engaged for a month or two, or no one will believe the
relationship is real.”
    “Yeah,”
he said. “And that will give us some time to change our minds, if we want to.”
    “Maybe
we can get married before Christmas. That would give us plenty of time to plan
for getting to India over the