Liars Like Us

31

“If you insist.”

“I do!”

“Then here it is. I’m going to give you ten million dollars to do with as you wish. Ten million dollars. In return, you’ll marry me and give me your word you’ll never leave me. I require a wife to get my inheritance. If I divorce, that inheritance goes away. That’s it. That’s the bottom line. Everything else is just details.”

“So your father’s going to keep this inheritance thing hanging over your head forever, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t tell me that before.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“What else have you been leaving out?”

He sighs heavily.

“We might as well put it all on the table now. You can’t expect me to make an informed decision if I don’t know where all the skeletons are buried.”

“You know what I find interesting?”

I mutter, “I can hardly wait to hear.”

“Aside from your caustic under-the-breath comments, of course, is that you have any hesitation at all.”

I laugh long and loud at that. “Gee, love yourself much?”

His voice hardens. “You misunderstand. This isn’t about me. It’s about the current position you’re in. It’s about the state of your life. Or should I say, the sad state of it. I’ve known felons with better prospects than you.”

I grimace at the poster of Jamie Fraser. He smolders back at me, all Scottish and heroic. He’d never been such a d**k.

“Wow, that was cutthroat, billionaire. I see you’ve been sharpening your knives.”

Callum breezes right past that. “I also find it fascinating that if you find me so narcissistic, arrogant, and irritating, why you don’t simply ask to have separate bedrooms so you won’t be bothered by my presence at all.”

Strangely deflated by the idea, I sit slowly back in my chair. “Separate bedrooms?” I repeat uncertainly.

“I told you I’d give you whatever you wanted. All you need to do is ask.”

He’s giving me an out on the s*x thing. I can’t decide if that’s what I wanted or not.

Wait, does that mean I’m supposed to be celibate for the rest of my life just to pay my bills?

I’m outraged until I remember that he’s not the one asking me to be celibate. He’s saying I can have whatever I want, including separate bedrooms if I decide he’s too aggravating to f**k.

I should test him.

“What if I asked to have a boyfriend on the side?”

“As I said, you can have anything you want. As long as you were extremely discreet, of course.”

There’s an unfamiliar edge to his voice that I can’t identify, but he sounds sincere. More testing is in order to be sure.

I make my tone flippant. “I guess we don’t need that a******y clause after all.”

“Then I won’t have the attorney include it.”

His answer is crisp and businesslike, and I’m completely unsatisfied with all of it. What kind of man wouldn’t care if his wife found herself a boyfriend?

A man who doesn’t love his wife, that’s who.

We’ve arrived at the biggest catch in the whole scenario.

If I marry him, my future will be free of financial worry, but also devoid of love. There won’t be any hand-holding or romantic dinners, no date nights, inside jokes, or special songs. I’ll be entering into a business agreement that will solve every one of my problems, with the price of admission being loneliness.

Which, let’s be honest, I already am.

Except I could cry in my Lamborghini instead of my beat-up Volkswagen, which sounds a lot better.

I sit thinking for a moment, until Callum’s patience comes to an end. He growls, “Emery!”

“Oh, hang on to your hat, Cal. I’m thinking.”

A dangerous noise rumbles through his chest. “What did I tell you about calling me that?”

“Something I ignored, obviously. So would you have girlfriends on the side too?”

He hesitates. “I think it’s best if we adopted a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy about that. Just to keep things businesslike.”

I say tartly, “Then I guess you won’t be calling me darling after the wedding. You’ll save that for your girlfriends.”

“Is that a tone of jealousy I detect?”

“No, of course not.”

Translated, that means yes, definitely. I’m giving myself whiplash over here. I’m about to set a personal record for number of lies in one conversation.

“You can rely on me to be discreet. I have no desire to embarrass you publicly, nor do I wish to cause any problems that might endanger my inheritance. As long as we conduct ourselves with respect for the other, we’ll have no problems. Quite frankly, I think the arrangement is ideal for us both.”

He sounds so confident. So clearheaded and logical, as if this whole thing makes perfect sense, and I’m the one being unreasonable with all my silly questions and concerns.

It makes me crazy, but if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit…

Maybe I am being unreasonable.

He’s offering me everything I could want. Money, power, protection, a way to fix everything that’s broken in my life and start over again. Not only for me, but for everyone I love.

Business? Saved.

Lawsuit? Settled.

Huge tax bill? Paid.

Dani and Ryan moving? Canceled.

My employees’ problems caused by being out of work? Solved.

He’s offering me a magic wand that would make all my problems disappear with one wave.

Bottom line, what he’s really offering is salvation.

And never again would I have to deal with the anguish of heartbreak like I did with Ben. Never again would I get my hopes up and invest all my time and energy like I did with my two boyfriends before him before having my heart trampled when they left.

Never again would I get so horribly hurt.