“You can’t tell anyone. They aren’t out at all. They’re from a different generation and a different culture. It might ruin my mother’s catering business.”
“No, I won’t say anything to anyone, but I’d like to discuss this with you, no matter what you decide. Not now, though. Now we need to address this because I think you would be the perfect wife for me. Even your lack of desire for love is ideal. I don’t want to have to play those games. I want to be totally honest with you as my partner. No love. No drama. Just a mutually beneficial partnership in business and life.”
I chewed on my lip. “And what about when we’re alone. Are we going to have sex?” I couldn’t believe I said that. I was never the person to bring up sex. It had been over a year since I’d even had sex, and I thought I’d turned that part of me off, but standing there in front of William made it come back to me. I moved on quickly. “I assume you’re going to want children from a fake marriage.”
“Arranged marriage,” Suzanne said again.
I rolled my eyes. “Or are you not the children kind of guy.”
“No. I love children. I want children. But we don’t have to have intercourse to have children. Not if you’re not interested.”
He didn’t want to have sex with me? I was shocked by my disappointment. Did I want to sleep with this man? I hadn’t wanted to sleep with a man in years, it seemed like. Was this the one I wanted? And he wasn’t even interested? I scoffed.
“What is funny about wanting children?”
If he thought that was what I was scoffing over, I would let him think that. “I just never expected you would be the kind of guy who wanted children.”
“Well, I am. Do you not want them?”
I blinked. A sweet pang went through my heart. I did want children, but I had almost given up on them. “No. I do want children, but having children together seems like something done in a real marriage.”
“Arranged marriages are real marriages. They’re not fake.” Thank you, Suzanne.
“You would move into my apartment with me,” William said.
“That sounds real, too.”
“You would have your own room. We would be like roommates. Roommates who were business partners. Maybe even friends.” He cocked his eyebrow at me questioningly. “How about it?”
I shook my head and turned my back on him. It was all too much.
He put a hand on my shoulder, only a light touch. “Take some time to decide. Don’t turn me down yet.”
I wanted him to hold me tighter, and that was the deciding factor in my choice. “The answer will be no, anyway,” I told him. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t look at him.
“She has a week to make her decision.” I could see Suzanne out of the corner of my eye.
“I don’t need a week,” I said.
“Nevertheless, I understand why your first instinct would be to decline.” William held out a business card. “If you change your mind in the next seven days, this is my personal phone number. Call me. We won’t move on to the next candidate until then.”
The problem was that my first instinct was to agree to this, and that frightened me. I didn’t need a man. I didn’t want a husband. Except what if I did and it was just fear making me refuse?
I didn’t turn around. I nodded once and left the office. My heels clicked down the marble hall to the elevator. I stopped on my floor to get my bag, then kept going. I had to get out of there. I had to get outside, but once I was outside, I didn’t know what to do or where to go or what to think.
Married? To a stranger? A gorgeous stranger, though. He wasn’t quite a stranger. I did know his mother, and our families were connected, and I was technically his employee, even if he wasn’t my supervisor in any way. But married?
I flagged down a taxi before deciding where I was going or what I was going to do.
“Where to?” the driver asked, and before I was able to think of a location, I’d given him my home address.
Yes. Home. That would be good. I felt a bit like I was in shock. It wasn’t real shock, real shock was a serious medical condition, but I couldn’t believe this. The concept that I could be married was shocking. To a billionaire! I began to laugh.
“Everything okay back there, miss?” the driver asked.
“No, yes. I’m fine.” Perhaps my laughter was a bit hysterical. I ran a hand over my hair and tucked a stray strand back in.
I could be married to a gorgeous billionaire who wanted to change the world. I’d actually seen his apartment. It was in one of those high-end design magazines. It was beautiful and masculine and luxurious but not pretentious at all. Would that be my home?
All of a sudden, I realized that I was still thinking about his offer. I had turned him down, but all sorts of possibilities were running through my mind. Was I thinking of agreeing?
The taxi pulled up to my apartment, and I paid the man, barely noticing riding in the elevator, walking down the hall, or even opening the door. It was only when I closed the door behind me and kicked off my heels that I felt free to actually process what had just happened.
It was crazy. It was crazy, no matter how he tried to say that it was an old custom. Arranged marriage—he wanted to marry me and have me act like the perfect wife.
“What a joke.” My cat, Ophelia, twined around my ankles and meowed. “I know Phe. It’s crazy. Thinking I could just…get married.”
I tossed my bag on the white couch and picked up my white cat. The floors were pale oak, and the windows were wide and undressed. There was a large photograph of a misty sea, and the only color in the room was the sculptural green plants. It was small but stylish, and the neighborhood was great. I felt free here. Did I really want to give that up?
When I’d moved into this apartment a year ago, I had loved that it could be this clean, this pale. It was a way to start over. I had no need for a man then, and I had no need for a man now. I had gotten Ophelia because I could and because I could never have a cat before since Eddie didn’t like cats. This apartment was a way to assert my independence and build myself back up. I didn’t want another man. I’d had enough of men.
“I’m not getting married,” I said to the empty apartment. “Certainly not to Willliam Jeffries, the bad boy extraordinaire.” I turned on some music, then went into the bedroom to take off my clothes and run myself a bubble bath.
I was finally feeling settled, calm, and back to myself—no, I was not getting married—when I heard a chime from my phone between one song and the next.
“You can wait,” I said to the phone. “I’m in the bathtub pampering myself because I had a ridiculous day.”
But as I relaxed with cucumber slices on my eyes and a glass of merlot, I began to wonder if maybe it were an important text. Then I began to wonder if maybe it was William Jeffries. Did he have something else to tell me? Did he want to ask me to marry him again? Did he want to rescind the offer because I was too much trouble?
“Ugh.”
I climbed out of the bath with my red wine and wrapped myself in a fluffy towel—white, of course—and went to check my phone, which was on the glass coffee table. I sat and took a sip of wine to steady my nerves before looking at the text.