A Heart for the Holidays

by Dana Volney

  Good. Crisis averted. She focused on her computer screen, hoping she hadn’t made a fool of herself by keeping eye contact with the could-be GQ model so long. Well, he’d looked like he was going to talk to her, so whatever. She’d probably made his day.

  Snow flew by the window on the other side of her as the Casper, Wyoming, December wind started to pick up. The trees down by the river were still white from the snowfall a couple days ago.

  She clicked on her travel and food blog, Made to Wander, to upload a post she’d written earlier that day on what it was like to return home after being gone so long—the city seemed bigger; she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed being near her family and how good her old haunt restaurants tasted. Her emotions were all over the place these last couple weeks. Writing about stabilizing subjects had helped her feel normal again and not like her world was falling apart. She was personable in her writing but left family stuff out of it. If she didn’t, there’d probably be tons of posts she could write to deal with the sadness tearing at her over her dad’s recent diagnosis. But she wasn’t ready to talk about that experience so far—putting it out there would make it too real.

  “This isn’t a surprise.” The older gentleman had a stern voice. “You know the terms of the will.”

  Mr. GQ just got a lot more interesting—certainly more entertaining than trying to think of her next topic to write about.

  “There’s got to be a way to change it.” Her chair neighbor, who had gently sun-kissed skin, kept a cool voice even though it sounded like things weren’t going his way. “Or another clause.”

  “This is the same conversation we’ve been having for a year.”

  “And I’ve tried diligently for a year to make it go away.” The cute one sat back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his other knee.

  She’d normally put in earbuds and click on iTunes, but this was by far the most interesting thing to happen in the last two weeks. Interesting in a good way, not the bad reason she’d come home.

  “Unless you’re married, you cannot maintain control.”

  “But it’ll just cost more money in the long run with a divorce. This entire situation is asinine. Tell me you didn’t encourage his idea.”

  “Your father was of sound mind when he decided on this clause years ago. He didn’t want you to live just for work. He wanted you to have a life, a family.”

  “My life is perfect the way it is.” Mr. Suave was losing patience.

  The hottie needed a wife. It was hard to believe that would be an issue for him. He wasn’t her type, but surely with that smile he was someone’s. She preferred her men a little more exotic, more like Zenzo, her Italian boyfriend—ex-boyfriend.

  “Be that as it may, if you’re not married by New Year’s Eve, I’ll be forced to start the paperwork to give the company to your uncle.”

  “I don’t want to get married because I have to.”

  “No one said you had to.”

  “But then I lose everything.” Resignation was loud and clear in his quieter words.

  Sucks to be you, man. Her predicament wasn’t great, but this guy’s sounded like a rock and a hard place. Not that she’d ever admit this, but hearing someone else wrestle with bad luck was oddly comforting. Turned out not everyone else’s life was all rosy.

  The bearer of bad news checked his watch and stood. “I have a meeting on the East Side. Let me know what you decide.”

  Lilia clicked on her email, trying hard not to look at the stranger and give him a knowing frown to commiserate with his situation. He needed a wife, but she needed the impossible. She couldn’t just pick up the next person she saw and make her troubles go away. She had to figure out how to make a miracle happen. But she would. There was a way to get her dad the treatment, and she was going to find it.

  She opened a message from her contact at a travel magazine. The subject line was “READ ME NOW” so something was happening.

  She scanned the email and her heart rate kicked up with each sentence. “Holy crap.” She sat up straighter and tried to read slower from the beginning. “Holy crap.”

  “Everything okay?” Her eavesdropee swiveled in his chair toward her.

  “Yeah. More than.” Her smile could not be tamed. “My latest blog post was just picked up by a fantastic magazine, and they loved it so much, they are offering me a contract for the next year.” All twelve issues, with online exposure for the full twelve months as well. They paid top dollar and were well respected in the industry. This was huge. And why she was rambling to this stranger, she did not know.

  “Congratulations.” He sipped from his white cup.

  “Thank you.” It was probably rude to crow about her triumph to a guy who had just been kicked in the nuts from the sound of it. “I couldn’t help but overhear.” She glanced at his friend’s vacant seat. “Bum deal, man.”

  “Yeah. It is pretty much ruining my life.” He reached behind him for the jacket he’d shed at some point when she wasn’t prying and stood. “Your day is going much better. Congratulations again.”

  She nodded, her smile still intact. “You just need to bite the bullet and pay for a wifey to get what you want.” She chuckled and pulled up the calculator on her computer as he reached for his to-go cup. Damn, this new contract was a sweet paycheck, but in her reality, it meant she could afford dinner at the pub a few nights a week rather than fixing Cup-a-Soup after visiting her father, who’d just been released from the hospital again. Not even good news solved her true problem. “Heck, I’d marry him for the right price.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her head shot up, and she looked right into his vibrant blue eyes, embarrassment sucking all of the moisture from her mouth. And here she’d been trying to avoid this type of moment again.

  “I … ” She shrugged, and her gaze darted around the little shop. Shoot. He wasn’t supposed to hear her half-serious, half-joking words. When she was on her game, she might have had a clever comeback, but the truth was she was too tired. “I was talking to myself.”

  “About marrying me?”

  “No.” She pointed to her screen and shrugged. “Something else.” Heat threatened her cheeks, but she absolutely refused to get embarrassed. It wasn’t her fault he had great hearing. He was the one who should’ve felt awkward.

  He peered over her shoulder at her calculator and email window, and then raised his eyebrows.

  She crossed her arms over her black sweater. Was this fool really standing here judging her? “It was a joke.” Men were so irritating sometimes.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Dating anyone?”

  “No.” She’d asked Zenzo to come with her to Wyoming. Apparently he had no intention of living anywhere other than Italy.

  “Jokes are funny because they are a version of the truth.” He pulled out the chair across from her and sat.

  “I’m not laughing.” Did this guy really think she would marry for money? It would solve all my problems. No, focus, you aren’t a gold digger. Well, so far she hadn’t resorted to that.

  “So then you are serious.”

  It wouldn’t be the craziest thing she’d ever done—running off to Europe on a whim and then staying for a year still topped that list. “Tell me how this is something you are actually asking about.” She moved her palm up and down, showcasing his face. “You have a problem dating?” The problem wasn’t his looks. Maybe it was his personality.

  “I’m not looking to date. I need a wife.”

  “Yeah, well, we all need something.”

  “I’ll help you if you help me.”

  “I think that deal would be a little one-sided.” Her brow furrowed. This guy looked serious. Too serious. And he wasn’t walking away. Had she accidentally proposed to a stranger?

  “How much?” He unbuttoned his peacoat and revealed a baby-blue button-up.

  She had his full attention. And, holy crap, was this something she could do? Could he afford he
r? Yeah, she definitely sounded like a prostitute now. “You can’t be for real. Listen, I’m sorry I listened in on your conversation.”

  “Then you’re well aware of what is going on.”

  “I got the gist. It’s not my problem.”

  “So I’ll ask you again, what’s your price?”

  She should shut the conversation down right there. Or try to again. They were talking about falsifying a marriage. The thought made her skin feel dirty. This wasn’t right. But if this guy was for real and had enough money, all her dad’s problems would be solved.

  She sipped her coffee. The insurance company was refusing to cover an “experimental treatment,” and the estimate was seared in her brain. “A lot.”

  “Okay, how much?” His nicely defined cheekbones made her a little angry—he probably could have anything he wanted and thought she was just another easy deal to be made. She was also steamed that she was entertaining his ridiculous offer.

  “Two hundred and forty-two thousand.” She rounded to the nearest thousand. Why the hell not? She was already on the train to Crazytown; she may as well get the highest figure her dad would need. That should cover the hospital stays past, present, and future, and a nurse to give her mother a break, on top of the treatment itself. One of the first things Lilia had done after his diagnosis was figure out the full financial strain pancreatic cancer caused.

  “Done.” He extended his palm for a handshake. “I’m Vincent Morgenstern.”

  She stared at his hand and blinked. “Just like that, huh?”

  “You seem like a decent person.” He returned his hand to the table.

  “What if I’m not?”

  It was no longer a joke. He was completely serious. Marriage had always been a great idea but not really for her. Not at this point in her life.

  “Then my intuition has failed me.”

  What the hell? I’m not going to raise that money any other way. This is Dad’s only shot.

  She needed a mute button for the little voice nagging at her sensible side.

  “What exactly are we talking about here?” She uncrossed her legs and sat forward. Butterflies danced in her stomach, and adrenaline made her palms a little shaky.

  Vincent was desperate, that much was clear from the fact he’d taken her up on a whisper. But before she got anywhere near a white dress and a priest, she wanted to know all of his expectations. And lay out hers.

  Maybe this time she could make a commitment since she knew it wasn’t real. Like training wheels for the future when she met the guy she really did want to marry—or traveled back to Italy with the courage to tell Zenzo yes.

  • • •

  “Can we start with your name?” Vincent should’ve ordered a larger coffee.

  Marriage shouldn’t be mocked—and that was exactly what his dad was making him do. His views on marriage had always been clear to his father—if he was ever going to get married it would be because he’d fallen so helplessly in love he couldn’t live without her. He’d yet to come across that woman—Rachel, Kiera, Laney, and certainly the blond across from him didn’t fit the bill.

  “Lilia. Lilia Carrigan.” She made no advance to shake his hand so he kept his palms on the table.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Lilia. My dad died a year ago.” The words were automatic, but the pain remained. “He was the sole owner of Morgenstern Fabrication. He willed the company to me, but only if I married within a year of his death.”

  He’d been trying to beat the clause since he’d first learned of it—he was officially out of any legal options. The clause was staying. The reality of what he had to do to keep a company he loved so much had ground down his teeth.

  “Is this real? I mean, this is a thing you’re serious about?” Her eyes were intense and discerning. “Because I need this money, and I don’t want to get my hopes up if this is a line or sick joke.”

  Did she owe a bookie this money? Was she involved in some sort of backward pyramid scheme?

  “I’m as serious as the heart attack that killed my father.”

  He couldn’t go to lunch without wondering if he could bring himself to say, “I do” to the girl behind the bar at Olive Garden. And the ironic twist was that he and his family were rich enough without the company, so he could drop this nonsense—if he wanted, he could wander around aimlessly from one cocktail party to the next for the rest of his boring life.

  But Morgenstern Fabrication was his life—he’d grown up watching his grandpa and dad work in the office that overlooked the machine floor, he’d landed big contracts in the last two years that meant he continued to provide jobs to people who’d become his friends, and he couldn’t stand the thought of the company going to his loser uncle. He wasn’t going to start over. He was willing to pay the price to stop that from happening. All other avenues had failed. It was marry or be proof that third-generation businesses were the most likely to fail.

  “What are your expectations here?”

  “Actually getting married, license and all. Preferably soon. Like tomorrow.”

  “And people believing we really met, fell in love, and got married so quickly?”

  “Yep.” There were people close to him-- his mom and sister, to start-- who would guess he hadn’t meet the perfect girl so close to the deadline, but the charade had to stay intact. “For a year.”

  “What else is required in this will? We’re not sleeping together, and I’m not having your baby.”

  Yeah, that was just what he needed out of the deal—child support payments for the next eighteen years.

  “Whoa.” He put his palm out to slow her down. “We live together, you’ll have your own space, we’ll be seen at events throughout the year, you change your last name. Nothing else.” Then she could stay on her side of his house and he’d stay on his, and the year would fly by.

  “My name?” She slowly twirled the cup sitting on the table.

  Her big, round, dark brown eyes were almost too much because her face was already like a porcelain doll. Long, blond hair fell down the back of her petite frame.

  “Everything has to seem legit. And for that amount of money, it better.” The words gold digger kept flashing in his mind. “I’ll have Dean, my lawyer, draw up a prenup so the divorce in a year will be clean.” And he’d keep his business and money, and she could keep whatever weird crap she probably had.

  “I don’t know. This might be a bad idea.”

  It was. She was right. He could feel the urge to run all the way down to the tips of his toes. But he couldn’t. He had let time run out instead. This woman sitting in front of him was his chance to keep the life he’d built. “This is real.”

  “I need the money up front.”

  “Logically, you’d get half on our wedding day and half a year later when we divorce.”

  “Then I’m out. I’m more of the instant-gratification type.”

  Not shocking news—he didn’t get an “I have my life together” vibe from her. From her innocent, lost look, he’d guess when she woke up in the morning she had no idea what she was going to need to do for the day.

  “That was a specific amount ready on the tip of your tongue. What do you need it for?”

  As long as the money wasn’t for something totally in left field, he would stay in his seat. If she said something like buying studio time, distribution, and advertising for a new band she shacked up with at Burning Man, then he was out. His life had no room for impracticality.

  “It’s personal. I’d rather not share.” Her chin jutted out, and she gazed down at her keyboard.

  The woman wanted almost a quarter of a million dollars. His bank account could take the hit, but it would still hurt. “Then I’m not going to pay.”

  She shut her laptop and reached down for her bag on the floor. There’ll be a contract, don’t let her leave. Let her have the money now. He couldn’t let another woman get away—this time he had to follow through.

  As it was, he was a little embarrassed at
how his love life was turning out. He’d never imagined it would be hard to get married—not until he’d tried. What kind of person had to pay someone to marry him? This was a low point.

  If he’d done this right after his dad died, he’d be almost divorced now and on his way to putting his life back together the way it was before.

  “Hold on. Are you from here?”

  “Yep. Born and raised. I actually just came back from Europe. I’ve been there for the past year.”

  “What were you doing over there?”

  “Living life while I can.” She held her coffee cup now with two hands and sipped. “I always wanted to pick up and travel, no plans necessary. Along the way, I had to teach English as a second language to fund my extended trip.”

  “You speak other languages?”

  “Enough to get by, and then I learned as I taught. They were basic classes.”

  “Very cool.”

  “I write for my blog too. I’ve been blessed with a lot of popularity this year. Hence the magazine interest.”

  “My frat buddies and I had a bit too much fun racing cars in London once and nearly landed in jail.”

  “I didn’t make it there. I meandered around the southern countries, trying to hit each one. My magnet collection about covers an entire fridge. Italy was my favorite.” She stared behind him for a second before gazing back at him with guarded eyes.

  “Magnets?”

  “I collect them when I travel and write the dates on the back.”

  “How long were you over there?”

  “About twelve months.”

  “Why didn’t you stay longer?”

  “Wanted to come back to see my family. I missed them.”

  Family values. Good. There was a chance she was going to get along with his family.

  “Are you from Casper?”

  He nodded. “Same as you. I love Wyoming as my home base, but traveling is always high on my priority list.”

  “Good. Glad that’s settled.” She chuckled, and he could hear her nerves.