Daddy finally found the sheet he’d been searching for and drew it forward, passing it across so Hunter and John could see it. “This one is more specific to finances. I set up a trust fund for Tallie years ago. It allows her to have access to the funds upon her marriage at a set dollar amount per year, so that should cover all her living expenses during the course of your marriage. In other words, while she’ll be living in your house, she won’t be touching your money. There won’t be any need for it. Additionally, I’ll be paying for the wedding since you’re buying the house.”
“The wedding shouldn’t cost too much, though,” Hunter said, narrowing his eyes. “Not like a house. I mean, maybe if we were waiting a few months and could plan it properly—”
“I promise you,” Daddy interrupted, “my wife can spend money like you wouldn’t believe, on short notice or otherwise.” He passed over another sheet of paper and pointed toward a line so he could explain the terms outlined on it, effectively putting an end to that part of the conversation for the moment.
John took each sheet of paper as Daddy discussed it, poring over it with a fine-toothed comb while the explanation continued. For the most part, it was just Daddy talking. Every now and then, either Hunter or John would pipe up with another question, or John would point out a section of wording that he wanted to have changed before he would advise Hunter to sign on the dotted line. I decided to leave them to it. Daddy and I had already gone over every single detail in these documents even before my husband-to-be had been decided upon, so there wasn’t much for me to contribute.
The basic gist of the rest of our meeting was that Hunter and I would publicly play the parts of a loving couple, putting off the impression that we were exuberantly happy newlyweds. The story we would feed the press was that we’d met at an event while Hunter was in town to meet with his new team, and we’d both been so instantly smitten that we knew this was it. We couldn’t wait, so we’d dropped everything and married as soon as it could all be arranged. In that way, we were revealing things as truthfully as possible without letting the whole truth out. Once we decided to go our separate ways after the requisite year, we would simply state that we’d rushed into things and hadn’t thought it through, that love at first sight had turned out to be just a myth, not reality.
Everything about this marriage business felt cold and calculated, which I supposed it should. That was the truth of it. It was all being decided and arranged in an almost mercenary manner. The craziest part of it all was that Daddy—the one who was most in line with the idea of Hunter Fielding being the man I married for this farce—was also the one who was most able to keep emotion out of the arrangements. Maybe that was to be expected since he was a lawyer. I supposed it came with the territory.
Anyway, once everything was hammered out, the contract was drawn up, agreed upon, and signed by all parties involved. Hunter pushed back his chair and stood, his agent following suit. I glanced up to find Hunter’s eyes trained on me. I’d never seen eyes quite like his. They were light, and on first glance, they seemed to be some sort of blue, almost too crystal clear to be human. But when I looked closer, I realized they were a silvery sage green unlike any I’d observed before, both magnetic and impenetrable. Every time I’d caught him looking at me, his expression had been unreadable, but it grew more and more heated with each glance. Not an angry sort of heat but more along the lines of sexy and sensual, causing tingles to race to every nerve in my body.
“So you’re coming to dinner with me tonight then,” he said.
“Dinner?” That was enough to take me by surprise, and I sat back in my seat, eyes wide. “Why do you think I am coming to dinner with you?”
“Because we’re supposed to be putting on a show for everyone,” he said, aggravation coming through in his tone. “If we wait until after the wedding to start that, there are going to be even more questions than there already will be. Might as well get started now. See and be seen, right?”
I took a gander at Daddy, but he was no help. At the moment, he was gathering up all of the documents that we had just gone over and sorting them into stacks. Traitor. “Maybe we can start in a few days. Mama expects to go over wedding details with me tonight.” I honestly didn’t know if Mama expected anything of the sort, but there were a lot of details that needed to be seen to, and she wouldn’t want to put them off any longer than necessary. Not to mention Lance, but I didn’t see any reason to bring him into the equation right now. The less Hunter knew about Lance’s involvement, the better, at least for the time being.
“How many wedding details can there be? There are only so many things that can be put together at the last minute like this.”
At that, Daddy snorted in laughter. “Son, you’ve got a lot to learn about Southern women and what they can accomplish on short notice.”
I was sure that Hunter was about to gripe that Daddy had called him son again, and I was prepared to interject, but John beat me to it.
“We should really get out of here,” he said. He took Hunter by the arm and started guiding him toward the door. “We still haven’t had time to check in at the hotel, let alone change clothes. Hunter needs to get a rental car. We can work the rest of this out tomorrow, can’t we?”
Hunter would not be deterred so easily. He stopped and turned, narrowing those silky green eyes at me. “Seriously, dinner?”
“Pick her up at six thirty,” Daddy said. “My secretary will give you the address, and she’ll make reservations for you at Giovanni’s Trattoria.”
I did a double take. “Giovanni’s?” Not only was my father blatantly ignoring everything I had said about needing to work on wedding details with Mama but Giovanni’s was one of the swankiest restaurants in town, easily one of the most expensive places we could possibly go. Getting in there at the last minute was next to impossible. I loved their food as much as I loved anything, and I wasn’t worried about the cost, but it seemed like a bit much for the first time we went out together.
Daddy raised a brow in my direction, continuing to sort his papers into stacks. “The goal is to start putting it out there that you two are an item, isn’t it? There’s no better place for that in Tulsa.”
Hunter quirked up a grin, a rarity in the brief time I’d known him and an action that made my heart go pitter patter, and he winked at me. “I’ll see you at six thirty.”
“With a ring, like we outlined earlier,” Daddy said. “Size five. Make sure it’s big enough to draw notice.”
“Got it,” Hunter said, catching John’s eye and jerking his head toward the door. With that, his agent preceded him out of the board room, and Hunter snaked his way out behind him, leaving me with a stunning view of his very tight ass, my jaw nearly hitting the floor at the perfection of it. His jeans hugged every blessed inch of him, defining all the muscle there and in his thighs.
Daddy chuckled after the door closed. “Just be glad your mama isn’t around to see you gawking at him like that.”
“She’ll be seeing plenty of it soon enough,” I muttered. If all went according to plan, everyone in Oklahoma would soon be seeing a lot more than me gaping at Hunter as he walked away. I picked up my purse from the floor, tossing my copies of the pre-nuptial agreement inside before pushing my chair back from the board table. “Daddy, tell me something,” I said as I stood.
“What’s that?”
“Why is it that you’re so hunky dory with all of this? Why aren’t you getting worked up?” Lord knew worked up didn’t even begin to cover it where I was concerned.
The entire structure of my life until this point had been ripped away from me, just because of one night’s worth of poor choices. Now my future looked so different than it had only a few weeks ago that I couldn’t even recognize it. I’d been so close to achieving the goals I’d been working toward since before I’d understood what they were, but that was all gone. No chance. I couldn’t be Miss USA. I couldn’t compete for Miss Universe. At this point, I didn’t even know who I was anymo
re, or what my life should be about. I’d always had direction and a narrowly defined purpose. Now, all I could do was go along with what I was told. That wasn’t much different from any other time in my life, really. I was good at doing what I was told. That was how I’d gone as far as I had in the pageants I’d competed in over the years, so it came naturally to me.
Still, even with everyone agreeing that I was going to have to marry in order to help my misadventures in Cancun wash over, Mama and Lance were spitting mad over Hunter being the man we’d settled upon. They hadn’t had any better suggestions, and Daddy’s firm had run a thorough background check on him and come up with nothing worse than a brother with some drug and legal issues that had nothing to do with Hunter, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to them. They thought I deserved better for my fake husband and short-term marriage. They thought he should be someone who Oklahoma loved, not someone the people in the state hated with the fire of a thousand suns. They wanted him to sweep in on a white charger and save the day, not be dragged in kicking and screaming like Hunter was. They wanted the impossible.
But Daddy? I wasn’t at all sure what he wanted, and that left me feeling as if I stood on shaky ground. He’d always been my rock, my safe place amid the colliding fronts of Mama and Lance.
Those two pushed me harder and told me I was never going to be good enough if I didn’t do exactly as they said; he smiled and told me he loved me just as I was. They plucked and waxed and airbrushed me, obsessing over my every flaw; he looked at me when I had bedhead and a seaweed mask covering my face and told me I was beautiful. They regimented everything I ate, putting me on fad diets that only allowed for canned tuna and green vegetables one week and hard-boiled eggs and steamed carrots the next week; he brought home Subway sandwiches and cupcakes and sneaked them into my room, winking as he backed out with his finger pressed to his lips.
He winked in that same way now, shoving the stacks of paper aside and placing his entire focus on me. “I’m not getting worked up because, for the first time since you were six months old and your mother informed me she was going to enter you in a baby pageant whether I liked it or not, I’m not worried about the damage she’s going to do to you. You’re going to get out from under her thumb, and you’ll be all the better for it.”
“Out from under Mama’s thumb?” I repeated after him, dumbfounded. It was Lance who had always ruled every aspect of my life as far as I could figure it, dictating everything to Mama from my diet to my bedtime, and even the electives I should sign up for in school. He had determined that I should be in Delta Delta Delta. He’d been the one to decide that I should major in communications at the University of Oklahoma. He’d hired and fired the various designers, makeup artists, and coaches I’d had over the years. It had always been Lance, not Mama, making those decisions for my life. She’d just been the one to enforce my compliance.
Daddy smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Tallie, I tried to fire Lance at least a dozen times over the years, but your mother wouldn’t have it. He’s been the one deciding how you needed to do things, but it was your mother who insisted he be in your life at all. She’s ultimately the one behind it, and I couldn’t be happier to have you finally coming to a point where the two of them can’t dictate your life.”
My life.
But if I went along with the plan and married Hunter, just as I’d been told to do, it wasn’t really my life, was it? I’d just be going along with what they told me to do, and maybe instead of Mama and Lance dictating everything now, it would be Hunter taking on that role. Or maybe they would find a way to wheedle their way in to keep going as they had been.
It wasn’t my life. Or at the very least, it wasn’t the life I wanted. Now I needed to figure out what to do about it.
EVEN AFTER SHOWERING and changing clothes, I still felt like I was going to melt and drip down the drainage system on the Tulsa streets. I didn’t know how anyone could live in heat like this, and I wasn’t even remotely thrilled about the fact that I was going to have to figure it out, and soon. After my fuckup, I’d thought that I was only going to be here for a week or maybe two right now, long enough to work out a plan with the team for dealing with the media, and then I would go home for the rest of my off-season. That was all I had planned for when I’d packed for this trip. I should have been able to head back to Prince George for a month or so to finish up my summer training regimen before settling in here in preparation for the new season, but I was quickly learning that life didn’t always turn out the way I’d planned or expected. I wasn’t supposed to have to stick around in this heat—not with the way I’d mapped everything out in my head—but here I was.
Not only that, but I couldn’t exactly run to Canada if I was getting married this weekend and making a show of being unable to keep my hands off Tallulah. I was going to have to suffer through this heat—both the literal and the figurative versions of it—while I trained for the new season. That meant I’d have to find a good gym and a personal trainer here, and I’d have to cancel with my usual guy back home.
And then there was the small matter of filling in my parents about all of this. I hadn’t even picked up the phone yet because of all the running around I’d been doing since leaving the Thunderbirds offices, but I could already hear the dismay in Mom’s tone. What do you mean, you’re getting married? Who is she? What’s her family like? What kind of name is Tallulah? What about Carrie? There wasn’t a chance in hell Mom would leave Carrie out of it. And then there was the fact that I would have to break it to Carrie, too, which was no small matter.
She and I had been in an on-and-off relationship for the last decade or more. We had spent a lot more time in the off phase than in the on phase, especially in the last five years or so. Our relationship was complicated, made more so because of issues between her sister, my brother, and our niece. More than anything, Carrie was the girl I knew I could hook up with when I went home if I needed a release for some pent-up frustration. We’d been friends with benefits since just after high school, a relationship that had worked well for both of us. She had a career of her own. She’d never wanted to leave home, and I’d had to for my career. And now she had Kaylee to think about, too.
The only problem was that our mothers didn’t want to accept it. They’d been trying to get the two of us together since we were about seven years old. I was pretty sure Mom thought I was going to come home after I washed out of the NHL and marry Carrie, maybe make some babies with her. Carrie and I had never wanted that, but it didn’t stop Mom and Mrs. Schuster from trying to make it happen.
Anyway, talking to either Mom or Carrie would have to wait until tomorrow. Whether I wanted plans or not, I had them for tonight.
After renting a car, buying a fucking ring that would meet Mr. Roth’s requirements, and getting cleaned up at the hotel, I didn’t have a lot of time left before the Roths would expect me to pick up Tallulah for dinner. Besides, I hadn’t sorted out what I wanted to tell anyone, and it might not be a bad idea to work that out with my bride-to-be in advance of breaking the news to everyone at home.
So instead of picking up my phone, I put some gel in my hair to tame it somewhat, pulled on a pair of slacks and the only shirt and tie I’d brought with me for this supposedly brief visit, and headed out to pick her up.
I followed the directions dictated by my GPS and drove into a gated community. It was full of big, old houses, the sort that made me think they must be part of a historical district. As Mr. Roth’s secretary had informed me, there was another gate at the driveway to the house. I put my car in park and rolled down the window to identify myself on the speaker. A beep sounded and the gate opened.
By the time I pulled up to the circular drive in front of the main entry, Tallulah was halfway down the steps, hurrying toward me. She had on a turquoise sundress made out of some fluttering material that whipped around her legs in the wind. She held down her skirt with one hand, a designer bag in the other. I put the car in park and un
fastened my seat belt, but she yanked the door open before I could get out to assist her.
“Let’s go before Mama and Lance realize I’m already gone,” she said, slamming the car door behind her.
I ground my jaw at the mention of that asshole’s name, but I refastened my belt and put the car in gear. I’d thought we agreed he would take no part in our marriage? But then again, that had only been decided upon earlier today, and she would have to have time to tell him to butt out. Since I hadn’t informed my parents about any of this yet, I supposed I’d better bite my tongue for now. Sure enough, I glanced in my rearview mirror as I drove toward the main street to find Lance waving wild arms in the air and shouting after us, Tallulah’s mother hot on his heels with a scowl that seemed permanently affixed to her face.
“I take it they aren’t happy you won’t be taking part in wedding planning tonight,” I murmured.
She tucked her bag between her thigh and the center console and sighed. “Among other things.”
I chuckled at the resignation in her tone. “Still not warming up to me, huh?”
“You could say that.”
My guess was that I could say a lot more without hitting too far from the mark. The next year of my life was going to be quite the ordeal, and I got the sense that Mrs. Roth would only be the tip of the iceberg as far as daily frustrations were concerned.
The GPS instructed me to turn left at the next light, so I moved into the turn lane and dug the jewelry box out of my pocket. The light was red so I stopped the car and handed the box to Tallulah. “Here. You might as well put that on now so it’ll be noticed by anyone who matters.”
She took the box, her perfectly manicured fingers curling around the velvet-wrapped casing, but she neither opened it nor took the ring out. She just held it out in front of her, staring down at it as if it were alive.
[Tulsa Thunderbirds 01.0] Bury the Hatchet Page 3
