by BWWM Club
Mike called his father immediately. “Hey Dad,” he said, “I wanted to tell you something. You shouldn’t come here with Madeline, it’ll be awkward. Why would it be awkward? Well that’s because I found someone else, that’s why I’ve been avoiding Madeline. I was thinking of the best way to tell you. Yes, I’m sure that I really love her, and that I really do want to marry her. I know, I know, I will call Madeline and tell her that I can’t be with her, and I will apologize to her. Flowers and everything, I know Dad. Thanks for congratulating me. Yes, I feel like I am going to be really happy with her too. Thanks, Dad. Yeah, you are going to meet her very soon, as soon as I can bring her to you.”
Mike cut the call and let out a long, painful sigh. He hissed the breath out from between his teeth as if he was trying to stop himself from throwing an angry fit. Kizzy had a feeling that if he had not calmed himself down immediately he would have probably ended up throwing his phone across the office to hit the opposite wall.
“Congratulations,” said Kizzy, “I had no idea that you had such an active love life. When do you get the time to even meet these women? Anyway, I’m happy that you found somebody. Who’s the lucky lady?”
Mike looked up at Kizzy. He had an uncertain look on his face, the sort of look that you get when you have to tell someone something terrible, or when you have to ask someone to do something that they probably would really not want to do.
“Well?” asked Kizzy. “Am I going to be invited to the wedding? I’d better be!”
“Oh you will be,” said Mike. He looked down for a moment, and that looked back up with a more cautious look on his face. “The girl I’m going to marry… is you.”
Chapter 6
“Excuse me?” said Kizzy. She had no other words, this seemed like the only thing that she could say that could even begin to describe how she was feeling in this moment. “This had better be some kind of joke,” said Kizzy after much careful consideration.
“Just hear me out,” said Mike. “Please. I know that I am asking for a lot, and I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I really am not trying to do what you think I’m trying to do.”
“And what exactly is it that I think you’re trying to do, Mike?” asked Kizzy. “Please tell me, because I really don’t know. Or maybe I do, but I’m just so terribly fascinated by what you are so sure of about me.”
“I have a problem,” said Mike. “I have been trying to keep it from you because it’s not the sort of thing that’s easy to talk about. It’s the problem that I have been struggling with for so long, the problem that I wasn’t telling you about. The reason I wasn’t telling you was that I was simply too embarrassed. Look, you already know that my parents don’t trust me. You already know they think I am some kind of irresponsible child. They wanted me to get on the right path in life, at least in their eyes, and that meant I would have to get married. I really didn’t want to get married, but I agreed to at least consider it for one reason: I want out of this company. I have never wanted to be here, I have never wanted to run this enterprise. That has always been what my father was wanted for me, not the other way around. I wanted to sell my part ownership of the company to my parents and use that money to start my own thing. I had always been more interested in the software development side of this company, but I had never been able to pursue my dreams because my father wanted me in the top seat running things from a business point of view rather than spearheading the software division. If my parents agreed to buy my shares of the company, something they can easily do, I can use the money I get to create a new company that will focus on app development rather than operating systems and mobile phones. It’s a smaller enterprise but it will be something that I made for myself by myself, something that I can call my own. And it’ll also be something that I would enjoy doing, as opposed to this hellhole that I absolutely hate.”
“What does this have to do with you basically telling me that I am going to be marrying you?” asked Kizzy. “None of this seems to be making a lot of sense, Mike.”
“I’m getting to that,” said Mike. “I’m sorry, I know this story must be extremely random when you first hear it, but I promise you that it really does have a point. So I want to sell my shares in the company to my parents to facilitate starting my own company. The problem with this is that my parents refuse to buy my shares. They think that I am too irresponsible, they refuse to see how much I have grown. In order to show them that I am not going to return to my playboy ways, I agreed to get married and settled down. This brings me to my next problem. My parents found a girl they thought I would like. That girl is Madeline. She’s a nice enough girl, I guess. I don’t love her, but I wasn’t marrying for love anyway, I was marrying to get out of this company. No, the real problem with Madeline was that her father owns a company that my father wants me to acquire. Marrying Madeline would have been for the business, so that her father would hand over control of both businesses to me since I would be his son and he has no other children that could handle it for him. Do you see what the problem is now? The problem is that after I marry Madeline, I won’t be able to sell my shares after all because my father would be expecting me to use the connections she brings to expand our own company. I would be trapped further in this rut, and there would be no escape for me at all. I didn’t know what to do. The first day in the office for you, the reason I was here so early was simply because I had not gone home the previous night. I had spent the night here because I knew that my father would try and visit me at home, and Madeline would be calling me incessantly to try and get my attention. I didn’t know what to do, until I met you.”
“Do you really think that I am going to marry you just like that?” asked Kizzy. “Do you really think my self respect is so low that I would marry the first guy that asks me?”
“Of course not,” said Mike. “This is not going to be a real marriage, it is going to be a marriage of convenience. Look, I need someone that I can marry so that I can show my parents that I am responsible now. Once the marriage is done with, I can sell my shares off to my parents. It will take a little convincing but me being married now will give them the impression that I will not blow all of the money I get on booze and women and drugs. Once I have sold my shares, we can get a divorce and go our separate ways.”
“Why the hell would I do that?’ asked Kizzy. “I’m not some whore that you can ask to marry you just because you need to get out from under your parent’s thumb. That’s not how life works, Mike. You can’t just expect people to do things for you like this.”
“Of course not,” said Mike. “And I really don’t expect people to do things for me just like that. There is something in it for you. And before you ask, I am not going to insult you by offering you money, at least not directly. You are in a fix too. Your father needs a medical procedure that you can’t afford right now. You are going to end up in debt paying for it, and it’s going to take you years to pay off this debt. Besides, there is no guarantee that you would end up getting the loan in the first place. I can take all of this stress away from you. I can give you the money you need to treat your father, and I can give you the time off to go and be with him and your mother. You can relax over there for as long as you want, and when you come back, your job will be waiting for you. Even after our divorce, your job is not going to be affected. Just think about it. All you have to do is go through a ceremony and sign a piece of paper. Once we have both gotten what we have wanted, we can get a divorce and then get the marriage annulled so that it will be like it never happened. And in exchange for something so easy to do, you will be able to get your dad’s healthcare sorted out without having to worry about dealing with banks of any kind.”
Kizzy thought about it so hard that one could almost hear her brain whirring. This was a good deal, she had to admit, but there were so many things that could still go wrong with it.
“It’s not as simple as you are making it out to be,” said Kizzy. “When we get married, the whole company is going to k
now. I am not going to be able to continue working for you because everyone will think that I managed to stay in the job for as long as I will because I’m your wife. And after we get divorced it’ll be even worse. Everyone in the company will know about it. It’ll be so embarrassing. I don’t want everyone at the office to know me as the girl you dumped.”
Mike inhaled and then exhaled a thoughtful sigh. His brow was furrowed as he thought hard about how this problem could be solved.
“Okay,” said Mike, “I think I’ve got it. You can quit your job, and I will sign a letter of recommendation that will get you a job at any company in the city. We can schedule the marriage for three months from now, by that time people will have forgotten that you even worked for me. It could be like we met while we worked together and fell in love, and then cemented our relationship after you left the company. This would be a good idea for me too, since I am pretty sure that my father won’t be too happy that I am marrying my own personal assistant.”
“Three whole months?” asked Kizzy. “I am going to have to keep the façade up for three whole months? I… I don’t think I am going to be able to do that and keep my sanity.”
“Don’t think of it like that,” said Mike in what he obviously thought was a soothing voice. “It’s not going to be so bad. You will have to pretend like you’re engaged to me just in front of my parents. They are going to want to meet you, of course, several times. As long as we manage to push through these meetings we are going to end up being just fine, so don’t worry about any of that. As for the rest of the time, we are going to move in together after the wedding and you will, of course, have your own room. We can stay married for a couple of months and then after my parents have bought my shares we can get a divorce and it’ll all be back to normal.”
“You’re basically asking me to dedicate half a year to this lie,” said Kizzy. “Do you have any idea how difficult that is going to be for me?”
“I understand,” said Mike. “Think of it like this. Your father needs treatment, and you are playing a role for five or six months to get him that treatment without drowning yourself in debt or delaying it to the point where it becomes too dangerous for your father. Over these six months you are going to have to meet my parents a few times but apart from that there is nothing that you are going to have to do differently with your life. You will have to adjust to a new job but I can assure you the job you do is going to be far better than the one you have with me right now. You are not going to be a personal assistant ever again, I am going to make sure that you are hired in whatever department you choose. You have the qualifications and your experience assisting the heads of department of pretty much everything this company deals in will make you a great candidate for pretty much anyone out there.”
Kizzy thought about it some more. It all sounded well and good on paper, but she just couldn’t get past the fact that she was going to be living a lie for six whole months. She honestly was torn between living a lie and being in debt for a few years. Both of these prospects were equally unappealing.
“What about my parents?” asked Kizzy. “I’m their only child and they love me with all their hearts. There is no way that they are going to miss their own daughter’s wedding, but I don’t want them to be there. They are not going to understand when we get a divorce, it’s going to make them feel like something bad happened. I really do wish that things could be different, but that’s just the way it is.”
“I see,” said Mike, stroking his stubble and leaning back in his chair. “I do agree that this is a pretty serious problem. But at the same time, I also think that the problem can be dealt with pretty easily if we are smart about it. You see, we don’t have to have a big ceremony. We can make sure that the paparazzi stay away from the wedding, and we can keep the guest list small. A few people from the company would know along with some of my friends and my parents. That’s it. It’s possible for us to do this without your parents ever even finding out about it. After it’s over, the marriage is going to be annulled and we are not going to have to worry about them finding out ever again. We can put this behind us and pretend like none of this ever happened. Doesn’t that sound like a really appealing deal?”
“You’re asking me to lie to my parents for half a year,” said Kizzy. She was utterly annoyed. “My parents have loved me and cared for me my entire life. Lying to parents may come easily to you, but it’s not the same with me at all. I have never lied to my parents, not even once, not even about something seemingly small. I don’t think I am going to be able to do this if it means that I am going to have to lie to the only two people that have loved me unconditionally my entire life.”
“Don’t look at it as lying,” said Mike. “You are not going to be lying anyway. It’s just going to be… keeping certain things from them. They don’t have to know every little detail about your life now do they? And besides, you are not doing this for your own gain, you are doing this to save your father’s life. I think that is an extremely noble pursuit, and that even if you were lying to your parents, which you are clearly not, you would be doing the right thing by doing this since it would allow your father to live a carefree life. You would be able to spend time with your parents while you are doing this, a whole month. And your mother would not have to worry about doing this all on her own as a result. Also, you told me that your father was really worried about how you were going to come up with the money for the surgery. You told me that he really didn’t want you to get into debt because of this. I can make sure that doesn’t happen. You can say you got an advance on your bonus or whatever you would like to say to them, and at the end of the day it’s going to mean that everything works out perfectly in the end.”
Kizzy was quiet. This was all too much, she felt like she needed time to process it. However, she knew that she had to make a decision quickly.
This was the best way to make her father all better. She didn’t mind getting into debt, but she knew that it would worry her father a great deal. He would recover a lot better if he knew that his daughter had not been forced to borrow money in order to help him get his illness treated, and that was extremely important. She would be able to share the load with her mother, and would also be able to put her mind at ease as well by telling her that the money she had used for the surgery had been money that she already had.
On the flip side, she considered lying to her parents to be a really big deal, the sort of thing that she had never expected she would have to do.
“It’s for a good cause,” said Mike, “and I am going to make sure that you don’t have to put any significant effort into this. You can just enjoy the perks of being my fiancé and when it’s all said and done you will have a great job, a healthy father and your whole future ahead of you. I will have the same, thanks to you I will be able to start my own business and break free of this prison that I have been trapped in for over half a decade.”
“What am I going to have to do?” asked Kizzy. “How will I have to behave around your parents?”
“I think you are going to have to meet them no more than eight times before the wedding,” said Mike. “After the wedding you can avoid them all you want, it can improve our story and show them that we are not really working out all that well. It’ll help them swallow it better when we eventually get a divorce.”
“Eight times,” said Kizzy. “I don’t know how to behave. I don’t know how rich people act.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Mike. “There is no specific code. My parents aren’t all that stuck up when it comes to stuff like this. You see, they don’t care about what kind of woman I eventually end up with. All they really want for me is that I end up with a woman who will keep me grounded. That’s all that matters. Just be yourself. You’re a good person. You’re smart, beautiful, witty, you know how to talk to people. If you just act like yourself you are going to end up pleasing my parents no matter what because they are going to be so happy about the fact that you are improving my life.”
Kizzy buried her face in her hands. Was this what her life had come to? She had been thinking of all of the possible ways her future could improve, of all of the possible ways in which she could expand her interests and build something for herself. And yet, in spite of all of that planning, here she was considering marrying some rich guy so that she could use his money to fund her dad’s operation.
She then decided to look at it another way. She was still going to be firmly in her mid twenties after all of this was done. She would have a long career ahead of her, and she would not have to worry about debt holding her back when she eventually started her own business. Her father would be healthy and happy, and with the money she would be earning from her new job she might be able to shift them to the city and thus visit them more often. The glass was half empty, but this only meant that it was half full as well.
Six months of her life, and then the rest of it would be hers to do with as she pleased. That wasn’t all that bad a deal, all things considered.
“Okay,” said Kizzy. “We can do this. But I want to do my dad’s surgery immediately. I mean I want you to transfer the money today, and I want to drive home tomorrow. I live in Westfield which is a couple of hours away from the city. Is this okay?”
“Of course,” said Mike. “I will transfer the money into your account now, just give me your details.”
“Aren’t you worried that I’ll run off with it?” asked Kizzy. “I mean, there is nothing stopping me from just taking this money, getting my father treated and then quitting my job, never to be heard from again. What would you do if that happens?”
“I know you’re not going to do that,” said Mike.
“Oh?” asked Kizzy. “How so?”
