When her shift ended at two in the morning she hugged Garrett goodbye and left him to go home. Tired and sad, she walked out of the bar and headed for her car. She was looking down at the sidewalk and not looking around her, and she didn’t see the tall muscular figure leaning against the car parked beside hers.
“Good evening.” He said casually. “Or rather, good morning.”
Her heart nearly beat right out of her chest and her head jerked up as she heard the voice. She planted her hand over her heart and her wide eyes stayed fast on him. Blinking in surprise, she gave her head a shake and the corner of her mouth turned up slightly in the hint of a smile.
“Oh my god! You startled me!” She had stopped short and stood still where she was. “Ryder… what are you doing here?” she asked in confusion. He looked like something out of a dream; a hot guy in snug jeans with a button up shirt only partly buttoned up, leaning against his car with his fingers just barely tucked into his jean pockets, looking at her, waiting for her to come out of work. It was a scene from a movie playing out in real life right before her.
“Sorry,” He gave her a sort of shy and sweet smile, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She looked around them both and saw no one else there. They were alone, and she knew that she should feel a little worried. She knew that it wasn’t a safe situation, but even just looking at him as he stood there looking at her, she knew she was safe. It was a relief to her, though his presence there was still a complete puzzle.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, taking a few steps forward and stopping again, just a little closer to him.
He leaned forward, lifting himself from his car and started towards her, sort of meeting her halfway. “I came to talk with you. I was thinking that maybe we could go get a coffee at an all-night diner or something. You said that you were busy. It’s a time sensitive issue. I’d like to get it discussed as soon as possible, if we can.”
She lowered a brow and her tone somewhat, planting her hand on her hip. “Time sensitive? I didn’t know that you were in a rush to get married.”
Answering her back with a bit of a snarky tone, he smarted off to her as well. “If I wasn’t in a rush, I’d have settled for someone who wasn’t a cocktail waitress.”
Shock hit her like a brick wall and a wave of resentment washed through her. She furrowed her brow and raised her voice. “Listen, if you’re so set on having someone else, then you sure as hell don’t need to be here talking down to me. I have places to be and things to do. Get lost.”
Regina walked to her car and turned the key in the lock, pulling the door open as fast as she could. She was furious with herself for thinking that she ever could have considered a business arrangement, let alone a marriage no matter how brief, to a man who could be so cold and callous before it had even been arranged.
She was just yanking the door open when his hand flattened on the window and pushed, closing the door before she could get in. She turned and looked up at him angrily. “What are you doing? I’m tired. I just worked an eight-hour shift after a long day and I want to leave. I don’t want to sit here and argue with an egotistical, overbearing, self-righteous jerk!”
His jaw fell open slightly and he stared at her. “Wow… no one has ever said anything like that to me at all.”
“Well then everyone you know is lying to you.” She glared hotly at him.
With a sigh, he gave his head a shake. “Please don’t go. Listen, I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it and I shouldn’t have said it. I let my mouth get away from me. It won’t happen again. Just don’t leave. Please… Look, I really do want to offer you the job. I’m very sorry. Listen, there’s a diner right down the road. Just come with me and have a cup of coffee and talk with me. We can even walk there. If you have half an hour, even… just come talk with me and let’s see if this is something that we could work out. Please?”
His apology was genuine and she could see by the earnest look on his face that he meant every word that he had said to her. She thought about her dire situation and she realized that the moment she was in just then might be one of the defining moments of her life if she was careful with it. She knew that, though she was exhausted and what all she wanted just then was a hot shower and as much sleep as she could get before she had to get up in the morning to get to school.
But, she could go have coffee with him for half an hour without it costing her too much time. She could take a shorter shower and skip making herself lunch in the morning. There was a little wiggle room in her schedule, though not much.
She thought about how he had made the effort to go all the way to the club and to wait outside for her by her car so that he didn’t disturb her while she was working, and she realized that had been a thoughtful move on his part. She could try to meet him halfway and at least talk with him. He was making an effort, and though they were off to a rocky start, she could be a big enough woman to make an effort too, and try to find some middle ground.
“Thirty minutes,” she stated flatly. “That’s all the time you’ve got.” Her eyes were steady on his and as she stood there holding his gaze she wondered how many women had gotten themselves lost in it.
He smiled widely at her. “You got it. Thirty minutes. We’ll have this all figured out by then. I’ll make sure of it.”
With a nod and a tired sigh, she closed the car door and locked it. Together they walked side by side away from the bar and down the sidewalk to the all-night diner a block away.
A few minutes later they were seated across from one another, him with a cup of coffee that looked as if it might be older than both of them, and her with a cup of hot tea. Up to then, neither of them had said a word about why they were meeting, up to then but after the waitress left, it was the only thing they both wanted to talk about.
He sipped his coffee and wished he could spit it back out without being rude. Instead he swallowed it and did his best to look nonchalant about it. She looked tired, but still very beautiful, and he found that he was grateful that someone so hard-working and good-looking with such a sharp tongue and a clever mind, had somehow become the one that he was talking to about the ridiculous idea that he and Taylor had concocted. He hoped that he had made a good choice, and that it would be a lucky situation for them both.
Taking in a deep breath, he spoke, hoping that somehow the right words would find their way to his lips and that they would come in just the right order to convince her to help him. He wished that he could tell his father to go to hell and lose everything and not care because none of it mattered, but the truth of it was that it did matter; it mattered more than everything, mostly because of Camille, and partly because of himself and his brothers.
“Is this really a serious deal that you’re talking with me about? This crazy deal you offered me about marrying you?” she asked him point blank. Her blue eyes were locked on his as she tried to look as deeply into him as she could.
He gave her a nod. “Yes, this is completely serious. Everything I told you is true,” he admitted earnestly.
She frowned slightly. “I don’t understand why you’d do this at all. What about love? Why wouldn’t you marry someone you cared about or loved?”
He pursed his lips a moment and began to explain. “I am at odds with my father, and I have been for a very long time. I’m the youngest of three brothers in a prominent and wealthy family. You have probably heard of our name around Manhattan. Everyone has.” He said it as if it was commonplace, though it was anything but.
“My father and I disagree on almost everything that can be disagreed upon, and we don’t get along. Lately things have grown more tense as some of the choices that I’ve made have been the quintessential antithesis of what he would prefer from me, and that’s led us…” He paused and thought about what he was saying. “That’s led him to an impasse with me. This impasse is one that in simple terms, basically means a permanent and complete break.
He thinks I’m wild and unruly, irresp
onsible and immature, and that I need to settle down with a wife and grow up. I don’t want to get married. I’m not in love with anyone. I never have been. It’s the farthest thing from my reality and I have no interest in it. What I do have an interest in is continuing my lifestyle and receiving my inheritance.” He felt a strong ire rise up in him and he steadied the emotions, keeping them in check as he maintained a level tone.
She watched him, listening to everything that he was telling her and reading him as he said it, trying to determine if what he was telling her was the truth and if there might be anything that he was intentionally hiding and keeping from her. She told herself that if she was going to even consider what he was proposing, she needed to be certain that he was someone that she could trust and believe in. She vowed that she would not tie herself to anyone who might hurt her or try to do her wrong in any way, not even for a job worth a million dollars.
“His solution to our current problem is that I can either get married within three months and settle down, or I lose my inheritance, I am ejected from and disowned by my family, and I’m kicked out of our family home.” He couldn’t believe the words were coming from him. Speaking them made them seem even more real and much closer to becoming reality in his life, and he didn’t want that at all.
“So, you want me to marry you so that you can get your inheritance, and then divorce you because you don’t want to be married?” she asked, keeping up with everything that he was telling her and more.
He sighed and nodded. “Yes, that’s about the extent of it.”
“Can he take your inheritance back from you? Like, if we got married and you got your money, and then we got divorced, could he take back everything and leave you on the street?” she asked, uncertain of the inner workings of the deal before her.
He shook his head. “No. Once I inherit the money and the business and my share of the home… everything that I’ve had coming to me all of my life, he can’t take it back. It’s mine and it stays mine. I just have to get to the point where he gives it to me. That’s where you come in.” He gave her a smile and she could see that he meant it.
Ryder leaned forward in his seat and spoke a little softer. “This is the job. We pose as a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, dating seriously. You meet my family. After a very fast whirlwind romance right in front of my family, I propose to you and I tell my family that I don’t want to wait to be married. I tell them I want you to be my wife right away. No time to waste. We get married even before the three-month mark my father set as a deadline for me. I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t want to risk anything backfiring with this. Are you with me so far?” he asked, pausing in his offer to check with her.
She nodded. “I understand what you’re explaining.” She still wasn’t sold on agreeing with anything. There were infinite holes in his plan and in his story and she wanted to be completely sure before she agreed to anything.
He gave a nod. “Good. So, we get married and when I receive my inheritance, then you and I will get divorced. Now, before we get married we will both sign a prenuptial agreement. We both agree that if we ever divorce, I will pay you one lump sum of one million dollars and you won’t ask me for anything else or try to get anything else from me, and it will be a clean break from that point.
That’s the arrangement. Then, when we get divorced, you will be paid the million dollars, it’s in the contract and it’s legal and binding for both of us. No more and no less. You take your money and go your way, I take my inheritance and go my way, and we’re done. Clean cut.”
She bit at her lower lip as she wondered just how much his inheritance was. If he was willing to pay her a million dollars to get it, it must be a really big inheritance. She wanted to know how much it was, but she didn’t want to be rude and ask, and she didn’t want to make him change his mind about hiring her for the job of being his wife, if he was of a mind to give her that job. Still, she thought to herself, it was going to make her wonder.
“It must be quite an inheritance if you’re willing to marry a complete stranger and pay a million dollars just to get it.” She eyed him closely to see what his response would be.
He nodded and spread his hands out on the table with his palms downward, as if he was smoothing rough wrinkles out of it. “It’s more about family legacy. I don’t want to be out of the family,” he told her evenly. It was partly true. He didn’t want to be out of the family. On the other hand, he also didn’t want her to know that he was inheriting a billion dollars and all of the other things that went with it; business, property, and much more.
Regina knew that he wasn’t telling her everything, but she also knew that she didn’t have to know it all. If he was willing to sign a legal document that gave her a million dollars upon their divorce, then she was willing to take it and she wouldn’t have to know all of the details.
“Okay fine. I’ll do it,” she said, lifting her chin and trying to make her voice sound more convincing than she felt. She wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to do it, but she wasn’t in a position to turn down any money, let alone money in an amount that would make her independently wealthy.
He looked at her curiously and gave her a half smile, his blue eyes alight with intrigue. “Why did you change your mind? When I asked you before, you weren’t interested at all. You said that you couldn’t be bought. What changed?”
She hated that he had brought it up. It made it seem as if she could be bought, and that was the last thing that she wanted him to think. Honestly was the best policy, and she knew it. “I need the money.”
Ryder had supposed that without her telling him, but he refused to be indelicate with her, especially if she was willing to help him out of his massive predicament. “Do you make enough money working at the strip club?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. It’s rare that I get a tip of a hundred dollars.” She gave him a pointed look. “I don’t like working there and I don’t want to work there, but I have no other choice.”
He felt badly for her as he listened to her talking about her situation. He hadn’t considered that her situation could be vastly improved by his job offer, other than that just about anyone would be doing better with an extra million dollars.
“What do you mean? Why don’t you have another choice?” He leaned forward a little more, keeping their conversation private.
Regina liked that they were talking about everything, and she was glad that he was being respectful with her about it. “Well, it’s a night job where I make enough money to live on, at least barely, while I’m going to school.”
Nothing she could have said would have surprised him as much as what she had shared with him. “Really? You’re in school? What are you studying?” He felt awful to hear that she was barely making it with the money she was earning at the club while she was trying to get an education.
“I’m studying business. I’m getting my master’s degree.” She told him with some small amount of pride. At least he’d know that she wasn’t planning on always remaining a cocktail waitress. “It’s just that the bar is open at the right hours for me to go to school and still be able to work, and it’s the most money I can make at a night job. I mean, if I was waiting tables here I wouldn’t be making near as much as money as I make now, and what I make now isn’t nearly enough for what I need. So, it’s not enough but it could be worse.” She looked over at their waitress near the counter with great sympathy.
She had surprised him again. He gave his head a little shake and smiled, looking at her in astonishment. “I understand. I do.” He told her kindly. “Listen, if you do this, I’ll have you quit working at the club so that you can focus solely on your studies. I’ll take care of all of your needs right away even before we’re officially engaged publicly.”
Regina wasn’t entirely certain that she knew quite what to make of what he was offering her. She frowned a little. “What are the parameters of this deal? What exactly will it be like?” She wanted to be sure. She
had to be sure.
He spoke clearly and plainly to her. “We’ll spend time together in front of my family for a few weeks so that we can show them that we’re serious about each other. They’ll pick up on that pretty quickly, especially since I never bring any women around for them to meet. Then once we’re married, you’ll move into the family home with me and my family.”
She frowned again. “Won’t that be really crowded?” She asked, disliking the idea of marrying him and living with his whole family.
He shook his head. “No, you’ll hardly notice it. It’s a very large home in the Hamptons. We each have our own wing, actually, so we only really see each other in the common areas of the home. We eat meals together in the dining room, we visit in the entertainment room or discuss business in the library or the study. There’s plenty of room.”
Her heart picked up its pace as she tried to imagine herself fitting into the kind of world that he was describing. “You’re clear out in the Hamptons? I don’t think my car will make it that far.” She looked at him worriedly.
The Billionaire's Secretly Fake Bride (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 3) Page 7
