Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“I bet you would too,” I say, climbing up. She stands off to the side, glaring hot death. I test the screw, confirming that it’s hitting something hard, and take it back out. “Got to move it.”
“No, it needs to be there.”
“Then I need a drill. A good drill.”
“I don’t have one,” she says, throwing her hands up. “All I want to do is hang a stupid shelf so I can start putting this stupid kitchen together for this stupid donut shop that’s not even going to happen because you’re blackmailing me into marrying you. Why can’t anything be easy?” She’s breathing hard, pacing back and forth.
I get down off the stool. “Want some water? You look like you need water.”
She lets out a frustrated growl, hands clenched at her side, then takes a few deep breaths to calm herself. “No, Nolan, I don’t want water.”
“Why aren’t the guys working today?”
“We can’t afford them anymore, that’s why.” She gives me a hard look. “Because of you.”
“If you took my money, you could afford whatever you wanted.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So you say.” I lean back against the table. “Are you always this stubborn?”
“Uh, yeah, when it comes to marrying total assholes, I am pretty stubborn.”
“We’d be good together.”
“What about our dynamic makes you think we’d be anything but horrible?”
I run a hand through my hair, considering. “That first night.”
“That first—” She rubs her face. “Okay, yes, we had a good night together. I had fun with you. We even had, you know—”
“Really good sex?” I offer.
“Right.” She clears her throat. “But one night isn’t the basis of a marriage.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You don’t—” She sighs, leaning her head back. “That’s because you’re delusional. Or insane. Maybe both.”
“People get married for all sorts of reasons,” I say, watching her carefully. “Arranged marriages. Marriages of convenience. Marriages for health insurance. Marriages for green cards. Marriages for love, for lust, for everything in between. Marriages between strangers, between cousins, between siblings.”
“Gross,” she says, wrinkling her nose.
“I agree, but the point is, marriage doesn’t have to look like the white picket fence and the little white yappy dog. It doesn’t have to be angels trumpeting as rose petals fall from the sky and true love’s arrow strikes you in the chest. It doesn’t even need to be a guy standing in the rain pronouncing his undying romantic love. It can be whatever we want it to be.”
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t want it to look like this.” She gestures between us. “I don’t even want your money. I want you to leave me alone.” She stalks away again, stopping when there’s some distance between us.
I don’t blame her for feeling that way. This whole marriage idea, it’s bizarre, even for me.
But the moment she was standing in my house looking at me with those big eyes of hers, I felt it.
How right it was.
I’m not the kind of man that can ignore that intuition.
I’ve made my fortune going by my gut. Now, I’ll make my family.
“Maybe it won’t work,” I admit, speaking softly. “Maybe we’ll try, and it’ll be terrible. Maybe you’ll nag—”
“Don’t be a prick.”
“Or I’ll be an asshole.” I give her a lopsided grin. “Any number of ways we can fuck it up. But maybe it’ll be great, like that night.”
She softens. Only a touch, but she’s not looking like she wants to drive a knife into my chest. “I never imagined you’d be this romantic, Nolan Crowley.”
“I’m so jaded, I’ve gone full circle.”
She laughs, tugging at the hem of her shirt. “There has to be some other deal we can make.”
“There isn’t. You’re not the only stubborn person in this room.”
“Why are you doing this? You know I’ll be miserable if you force me to be your wife. I’ll just divorce you the first opportunity I get.”
“That’d be fine with me.”
She hesitates, eyebrows raised, and a pang of excitement runs down into my chest. “Seriously?” she asks.
We’re negotiating now.
“Seriously,” I say, moving toward her. “I wouldn’t force you to stay my wife forever if you really hated it. I’m gambling that you’d decide to stay on your own.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“I’ll happily let you leave. Only I ask you stay with me for at least a year.”
Her lips tug down, eyebrows knitted, like she’s thinking hard about something.
She’s picturing us together.
What a life by my side would feel like.
But she doesn’t have any clue how much I can give her.
How deeply I’d worship her every move. How I’d gladly crawl on my hands and knees to make her happy.
She has to take the plunge to find out.
“A year’s too long,” she finally says. “Three months.”
“That’s too short. Eight months.”
“Can’t do it.” She moves away, shaking her head.
“Eight months isn’t all that long in the grand scheme of a life. Be my wife for less than a year, and in the end, you can walk away with your donut shop intact.”