Emma opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“What about you?” Alex asked into the silence.

“I’m pretty upset,” she answered, in the understatement of the century.

He rolled his eyes. “Your emotional state is irrelevant. Do you have a steady boyfriend?”

“No.” And what did that have to do with anything?

“Problem solved.”

“Huh?”

“You marry me.”

Emma reached out to grip the back of a leather chair, afraid she might lose it right there. “What?”

Alex stood there, looking for all the world like a rational person, while tossing out the most outrageous proposal she’d heard in her life. Marry him? Marry him?

“It doesn’t really matter which sister,” he continued without a thread of emotion in his voice. “I only picked Katie because she’s-”

“The pretty one,” Emma finished, straightening away from the chair and squaring her shoulders. For some reason it killed her to have him of all people say it out loud. Not that everybody didn’t think it. It was just that Alex cut to the heart of the issue with such dispassionate accuracy, that it hurt more than usual.

“That’s not-”

“I am not marrying you, and Katie is not marrying you.”

Alex’s voice took on a soft warning note. “Option three is calling your loan. Then you get nothing.”

Emma tightened her arm on her shoulder bag. “Option three is me working out the finances first thing tomorrow morning.”

His mouth crooked in another half smile. “In that case, I’ll leave my offer open for twenty-four hours.”

She turned and stalked toward a side door. Her exit was all bluff and bravado, and they both knew it. For that alone, she’d never forgive him.

“No need, Mr. Garrison,” she said tightly.