His hair was down today, blond locks that fell to his shoulders, and he wore distressed jeans and a simple black shirt that he’d jazzed up with a couple of his many necklaces. When he caught me giving him the once-over, he arched his eyebrow.
“Like what you see?” he asked.
“Do you not own anything that doesn’t look like you just came from Hot Topic?”
“Good morning to you, too, love.” He stepped inside, and his hand went to my waist as his lips came for mine. I turned my head in time for his aim to hit my cheek, and then I pushed him away, scowling.
“You owe me eight hundred bucks for keeping my lawyer waiting,” I said.
“You know what traffic’s like this time of day.”
“Traffic? You live down the street.”
When he gave me a grin that I supposed he expected to serve as an apology, I groaned and headed back to the dining room. I only managed a couple of steps, though, because Dawson grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to him.
“Paige,” he said, rubbing his thumb against the inside of my arm in a gentle sweep.
“What are you doing?” I said, and then held up my free hand to glance at my nonexistent watch. “It’s going to be nine hundred if you don’t let go in the next five seconds.”
“Pita.” His voice was soft and low this time, bringing my attention back to him. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I looked at him with wary eyes. “Why are you asking me that?”
“It’s just a question. I thought I’d give you one last chance to back out.” The words were casual, but the meaning behind them seemed like anything but.
“You’re not hoping I changed my mind, are you?” I asked.
He kept his gaze on mine and gave me a soft smile. “Paige Dawson is less of a mouthful than Paige Traynor-Ashcroft, don’t you think?”
I didn’t answer right away, too taken aback by the turn in conversation. He couldn’t possibly want to stay married…could he? No. No, that was too mind-boggling to even think about, and I didn’t have time for that luxury. My lawyer was waiting.
Straightening my shoulders, I said, “You want to know if I’m sure I want to do this, and the answer is of course I do. You and I both know this was a mistake. Let’s fix it and move on already.”
His hazel eyes searched mine, as if trying to find the lie or some indication that I was at all hesitant about what I said, and he must have found my truth there, because he let go of my wrist. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I took a step back and pushed down the unsettled feeling burrowing in the pit of my stomach. Turning on my heel, I wiped my sweaty palms on my pantsuit and headed back to the dining room, leaving Dawson to follow after me.
“All right, he’s here. Let’s get this show on the road,” I said, taking my seat as Dawson entered and pulled out the chair to my right.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sitting down. “Traffic.”
That would always be the universal excuse when you were late, no matter if it was the truth or not. It was the only thing that would get you out of anything. Late for a job interview? The traffic on Wilshire was terrible. Been outside watching your blind date and debating whether you should go inside or not? So sorry to keep you waiting. I thought I’d never get off the freeway.
Case in point:
“Understandable,” Ms. Thomas said. “The 101 was atrocious this morning.”
Aaaand there you go.
I picked up my pen and flipped to the first page of the paperwork. “I won’t hold you two up, then. Can you let us know where to sign and we’ll—”
The chimes for the front door sounded again, and I threw down my pen.
Who the hell is that?
“Nobody go anywhere,” I said, and then made my way down to the foyer, where—
My father had let himself in and was standing in the entryway, looking perfectly polished in a suit that cost more than most people’s first cars. When I stopped in my tracks, he gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Hello, Paige.”
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s good to see you too,” he said, pushing the door shut behind him.
Blinking away my surprise, I moved toward him to usher him back out. “Excuse me, I didn’t invite you in.”
“No? Not even to apologize for your behavior over the weekend?”
“My behavior?” I scoffed. “I’m definitely not apologizing for that. You can exit the way you came.”
“Oh, I think I’ll stick around. That’s Dawson’s car out front, is it not?” Then, as Dawson came around the corner, he said, “Ah, here he is. I’m not too late, am I?”
“Too late for what?” I asked.
“You don’t think my only daughter could get married and I wouldn’t find out about it, do you?”
With hitched breath, I whipped around to face Dawson. “You told my fucking father?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why is he here?” I said.
“He,” my father said, picking invisible lint off his sleeve, “is here to make sure everything gets taken care of.”
My brows shot up. “Wow. I’m not sure why you felt the need to come oversee things, since you’ve never cared before, but at least we can agree that this unfortunate…situation needs to be taken care of, stat. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I owe my lawyer the title to my Tahoe by now.”
I swept out of the room and then retook my seat at the table.
“I apologize for the delay, but it seems we have an audience,” I said, picking my pen back up. “Where were we?”
“We’re nowhere,” my father said from behind me, snatching the papers in front of me and ripping them in half.
My eyeballs almost fell out of my fucking head.
“Have you gone mad?” I said, leaping to my feet so fast that my chair fell backward onto the floor.
“On the contrary, dear daughter, I’m completely sane. You, on the other hand, seem to need some parental guidance, and I’m here to offer it.”
“You can take your offer and—” I said before Dawson shot up out of his chair, and his hand went over my mouth.
“Let’s all take it easy,” Dawson said, scooting his chair behind my ass and forcing me to sit down before slowly removing his hand.
“Take it easy?” I snapped, and then pointed at my father. “You can’t come waltzing into someone else’s house uninvited, and you sure as hell can’t go ripping up legal documents.”
“I can if they’re deemed unnecessary.”
“Uh, newsflash: they are very necessary. Don’t you understand? I disgraced the family name by getting married in a drive-thru ceremony that I can’t remember to a guy I haven’t said more than two nice words to since I was twenty.”
“Then I suppose you two should start making nice.” His tone was firm and unapologetic, and then he turned toward my lawyer. “Sorry I was late, Ruth. Traffic.”
“It’s fine.” She picked up her briefcase from the floor, set it on the table, and went about putting her things back inside.
What the fuck? Seriously, have I just stumbled into some sort of alternate universe?
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said to her, before glaring up at my father. “What is this, some kind of arranged marriage thing? You and Mom are friends with his parents and you think it’d be cute for your kids to legally bind you guys into familyhood?”
“Like you’ve said many times, you’re a responsible adult now, and as such, you have to be accountable for your actions. Marriage is a binding agreement, one that shouldn’t be entered into lightly. I think it’s only right that you try to make it work.”
“Actually, as a responsible adult, I do take accountability for my actions, and I’m rectifying my wrongs.”
“Paige, I’m not giving you friendly fatherly advice right now. I’m telling you. You’ll give this marriage a chance.”
“This is unbelievable. Dawson—” I glanced over at where he stood, still as stone, beside m
e, and it looked like Dawson was just as gobsmacked as I was. When he met my eyes, I said, “Please…” Surely if anyone could talk sense into my father, it would be him—the son he never had and always wished for.
After a moment, Dawson gave me a nod and then cleared his throat. “With all due respect, sir, Paige wants—”
“Son, I know my daughter, and I think if her home was at risk, her wants would change.”
My brow furrowed as I let what he said sink in. “Why would my home be at risk?”
“Because at the time of purchase, you were eighteen and I signed on as your co-owner. A legality that has not changed in the time you’ve lived here. And, as co-owner, I can see fit to sell the property at my discretion.”
“What. The. Shit.”
“But should you and Dawson here decide to maintain your legal relationship, I’d be apt to reconsider.”
“Hold on… You’re blackmailing me to stay married? How is that… I mean…” I faltered, and then looked over at Ms. Thomas. “Can he do that?”
“Sell your home? I don’t know the specifics of your agreement, but if both of you are listed as co-owners…” She trailed off and avoided my eyes.
“No…no, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is some kind of joke.”
My father gave a curt shake of his head. “I can assure you it’s not.”
“So, it’s stay in this fraud of a marriage or lose my house? You would really do that?”
“I am doing it.”
“Of course you are.” My face fell into my hands. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Stay married to Dawson? Why the ever-loving fuck? The only benefit I could think of was getting close to the Dawson Global business, but my father didn’t need me to do that, and it wasn’t like we were lacking for money. It didn’t make any sense, but I’d be damned if I lost my house. It’d been my dream home for as long as I could remember, and as soon as I’d been legally able and it’d come on the market, I’d jumped on it. Obviously with my father’s help, but that was before I made my own money. Fuck me to hell, why hadn’t I changed the agreement? Bought him out? It hadn’t occurred to me that he was still on there. For all intents and purposes, this house was mine.
“What are the terms? How long are we talkin’? A couple of days? A week?”
“A minimum of six months,” he said.
I gawked at him. “Six months?”
“You’ve got to give this a real shot, Paige. Otherwise it goes up to a year.”
“A year?” I wanted to say more, but then it occurred to me that I wasn’t alone in this. It wasn’t just my life he was mucking up, and I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “You may want to ruin my life, but you can’t force this on Dawson too. He’s got a say in the matter, and I don’t think he’ll be too pleased about you forcing his hand.”
“You’re absolutely right. He does have a say.” My father’s gaze went over my shoulder to Dawson. “So, what’ll it be, son? Care to be married to my pain in the ass of a daughter and save her from a life of…what’s the word for it? Spinsterhood.”
I gnashed my teeth at his words, and then turned to watch Dawson tell him to go to hell. Or at least that was what I was hoping he’d say, and in those exact words.
But when Dawson’s eyes met mine, and he spoke again, it was the last thing I ever expected. “Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I think I would.”
My heart dropped to my feet.
“What?” I looked between him and my father, unable to hide my panic. “Why, why, why would you do that? I’ll make your life a living hell. This is self-sabotage.”
“I prefer to think of it as a challenge.”
“People don’t stay married because it’s a challenge, Dawson. There’s gotta be something else there.”
To that, Dawson put his finger to his lips and gave me a smile.
“Uh-uh. No. If you think staying hitched is going to somehow make me fall in love with you, then your brain cells have rotted out.”
He leaned down over me, his hands going on either side of my chair. “And if there’s one thing you know about me, Pita, it’s how much I love to make you eat your words. Guess we should think about ring shopping after all, hmm?”
CHAPTER SIX
Here a Slutbag, Everywhere a Slutbag
NUMB. THAT WAS pretty much the only word that could begin to sum up the way I was feeling at that moment, as I stepped on the gas and made my way to West Hollywood. Wait, I’d found another one—horrified. I knew the relationship between my father and me was strained, but I never thought he’d resort to blackmail. And to keep me married?
This was so ass-backward. Why would Dawson agree to this? He didn’t even like me very much. Maybe he was getting some sort of under-the-table payday from my father. Not that he needed the money, but what other reasonable explanation could there be?
As if the parking gods knew not to mess with me today, a spot opened up right in front of Licked, and after feeding the meter, I pushed my way inside.
The scent of sweet cream and candy filled my nose, and I stopped just inside the door to take in a deep lungful. Even if Ryleigh wasn’t the owner, this would still be my happy place. A bright decor that would make even Grumpy Cat crack a smile, the most glorious heaps of ice cream you’ve ever tried to put in your mouth at one time, and do not get me started on the boozy shakes, which were like nectar from the gods—how could you not love this place?
When I opened my eyes, Ryleigh was staring at me, one of her brows arched as she shook a jar of homemade sprinkles and then popped off the lid to pour some over a sundae. She looked straight out of the fifties in her swing-style dress that had most likely come from a vintage store. It wasn’t a work uniform, either—it was her daily ensemble of choice, quirky bird that she was, and I couldn’t picture anyone—in this decade, anyway—rocking that look the way she did.
“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a celebratory visit?” she said, adding a few balls of cookie dough to the top and then setting it in front of a happy—soon to be very happy—customer.
Even though it was still early, it was busier than I’d expected, and my usual spot by the caricatured painting of Debbie Reynolds was taken, so I walked down the bar to sit beside the Elizabeth Taylor one instead. Slutbags have to stick together, I supposed.
“A gargantuan Why the Hell Am I Still Married with extra crushed nuts, please. And some of those chocolate chip cookie dough balls. And by some, I mean all of them,” I said, when she stood in front of me.
“Aww, Pita.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “Still hitched?”
“Isn’t that unfuckingbelievable? I can’t be married, Ry. I can’t.”
“So he wouldn’t sign, huh?”
“Sort of. Why don’t you seem surprised by that?”
She shrugged and set about making what I hoped would be a monster-sized boozy shake.
“Ryleigh. Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Well…he’s not exactly the type to give up on what he wants, is he?”
“Don’t even say it.”
“You asked.”
“He doesn’t want me, he wants to make my life hell.”
“If you say so.”
“Yeah, I say so. You’ve seen the way we are together.”
She bit back a smile. “I have.”
“And what part of those murderous glares has you thinking we might in any way be compatible?”
With a zipping-her-lips motion, she hit a button on the blender, effectively drowning out anything else I had to say. Then I watched her pour the blended ice cream into a glass bigger than my forearm and pile it high with whipped cream, nuts, and candy bits.
“All right, woman,” Ryleigh said, setting the overflowing sugary concoction down in front of me. “This one’s called the I’m the Dumbass Who Got Hitched in Vegas shake—minus the booze, because you’re cut off for life now. You can’t be trusted to make sane decisions, so consider me and the girls your conservators.”
> Zoe, Ryleigh’s right-hand woman and manager of Licked, peered over her shoulder. “Now hand over all your credit cards and I’ll keep them safe.”
“Won’t. Can’t. All my money is going towards new lawyers to get me out of this mess and ruin my father and Dawson’s lives in the process.”
“And if that doesn’t work, I suppose you could always hire a hit man,” Ryleigh mused.
I snapped my fingers. “Exactly. Great plan. Maybe Quinn’ll do it.”
Ryleigh laughed as the phone began to ring, and she held up her finger for me to hold on as she went to the kitchen to answer it. Fine by me. I needed to drink myself into a coma, stat.
“That looks amazing,” the woman beside me said, staring in admiration at my shake. She was a petite thing who’d barely made a dent in her own small bowl of what looked like a Tease Me sundae.
I took a long pull of the mint-chocolatey goodness and then swallowed. “It’s necessary, trust me.”
“Bad day?” she asked.
“Right up there with the worst.”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you mention you got married, and I have to say, I don’t think I’ve seen a more miserable person in my life.”
Giving a humorless laugh, I nodded. “You would be right about that.”
“You don’t believe in it?”
“Fuck no. Marriage is a crock of shiitake. It’s either a business arrangement between two people who want to get farther up on the food chain and don’t give a fuck about using another person to do it, or its sole purpose is to make someone miserable.”
She chuckled. “I’m guessing that miserable someone is you.”
“Damn right it is.” I waved over at Zoe, whose hair was bright orange today and shaved on one side—she seemed to change it up the way I changed batteries in my vibrator—and pointed to the empty space on the counter in front of me. “Zoe. More balls.” An amused expression crossed her face, but she seemed to understand, because only moments later a bowl of fresh cookie dough balls was pushed my way.
“Don’t you wrangle enough balls at all those weddings you plan?” Zoe said, smirking at me before moving on to help the next customer.
P.I.T.A. (L.A. Liaisons Book 3) Page 6
