by Imani King
“I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” Ollie said, his hands up. “Dorian’s my best friend. I’ve got his back.”
“It’s not Dorian’s job that’s on the line,” Gigi said, sighing before motioning to the pre-nup sitting on the table. “Just look that over and we’ll talk if you have any questions.”
“Well, my client and I—” Ollie began, but a growl from my soon-to-be-wife silenced him immediately. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
Ollie took the pre-nup from the table and started to read through, mumbling softly to himself. I had every confidence in Ollie to give me fair warning if I was being screwed over, but something told me that Gigi wasn’t the kind of person to take advantage of anyone.
I smiled, turning back toward her as she idly stirred her coffee. She was watching Ollie like a hawk, so intent that I wasn’t sure I’d even seen her blink once the entire time. She was an odd kind of woman—compared to the usual women I hung around, at least. Her phone wasn’t constantly out, she wasn’t taking pictures of herself—she was there, in the moment. Present.
“So, explain it to me in layman’s terms, Gigi,” I said, breaking her out of her one-sided staring contest with Ollie.
She startled and blinked at me, like she’d just been caught sleeping in class. “What?”
“Explain the terms to me, and Ollie can worry about whether the legalese is airtight.”
“It is airtight,” she said, taking a breath before turning her attention fully toward me.
“The pre-nup outlines the deal we talked about before,” she said, running a hand through her dark hair. “In the case of a divorce, you will pay me alimony in the sum of five-thousand dollars a month. I have no rights to any property not signed for under my name and you have no rights to anything that qualifies under that category.
“If there’s a child, boy or girl, then you’ll also afford me an amount in child support equal to another five-thousand dollars a month for each child—since your inheritance states that you need a male heir, or to be in the process of producing one—to keep your inheritance, then you’re going to foot the bill for any children that don’t fall under your grandfather’s draconian rules.”
“That seems fair enough,” I said, nodding thoughtfully, “What about custody?”
“Half and half,” she said, “an evenly shared custody agreement for all of the children. The first male heir will inherit your family’s entire estate, along with comparatively smaller inheritance for your other children upon your death to be determined by your will, none of which will be less than a value of one million dollars for each child that is not the heir.”
“Also fair.” Now that we were starting to talk about them, the thought of children was actually rather frightening. An undetermined number of mini-mes running around my family’s property, getting into trouble just like I used to. My heart started to pound, but as I listened to her speak and fight for the well-being of even her hypothetical children, I felt a bit more at ease. Again I was reminded of the reason I’d liked Gigi in the first place—she cared.
“And then there’s the matter of infidelity,” Gigi said. Those words stopped me cold.
“Go on,” I said hesitantly, a frown forming on my face.
“While the two of us are together, you and I will refrain from acts of infidelity of any kind. You will not take a mistress or engage in any extra-marital affairs while the two of us are tied together in the bonds of holy matrimony.”
“You don’t think I would seriously—” I began, but quickly silenced myself as Gigi rose in her seat, towering over me.
“Dorian Lambert,” she growled, a pit forming in my stomach. “You might love me, you might discover that you don’t, but while we are husband and wife, there will but one thing that will happen in this marriage—you will respect me. I won’t be hassled and harassed by paparazzi or tabloid scumbags with pictures of you macking on some barely-legal sorority girl. I’ve done my research on you, and I know what I’m getting into here. I deserve better than that.”
I blinked, staring up into her fiery eyes as she slowly took her seat once again. I hated to admit it to myself, but Gigi was more frightening than even my mother—and that was a feat I’d thought impossible. I’d never liked the idea of being tied down. If things weren’t working out between us, it might be months or even years before we divorced. That was a long time to get acquainted with my hand...
“Fine,” I said finally. “No cheating.”
“Good. That just leaves living arrangements, then. We have to share an address once we’re married—strictly to keep up appearances. We don’t want it to look like we’re in a fraudulent marriage.”
“Sleepover,” I said, a grin spreading across my face. “Gosh, I haven’t had one of those in a long time.”
“No pillow fights at this party,” Gigi said, her brows furrowing. “This is business, plain and simple, until I say otherwise.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her a mock-salute. “No funny-business. All serious, all the time.”
“Give me a break, Dorian,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “This was your idea. I just want to make sure it works out for both of us.”
“Sorry,” I said, flashing her a more sincere smile. “I’m not used to this whole ‘legal’ side of a relationship.”
“That I can believe.”
I shifted in my seat, rubbing my chin. “So, what did you want to do about the ceremony? You seem like the kind of girl who wants her wedding to be a big occasion.”
Gigi went quiet for a few minutes, her eyes on her coffee, the sound of Ollie’s mumbling filling the silence. Her frown deepened and her eyes lost some of their shine.
“Let’s not have one. We’ll just do this legally so that there isn’t any huge press circus. We want to keep this as quiet as possible. Besides, we want to make it quick, don’t we?”
She looked up at me, putting on a mask of indifference. I could tell something was bothering her, something deep down that she’d never let slip. I felt uneasy, like I was doing her some great wrong.
“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. “We’ll do it quick and dirty. No big affair. But in the meantime…” I trailed off, digging in my coat pocket for my checkbook.
“What’re you doing?” Gigi asked.
“How much money do you owe for your loans?”
“What?”
“Your student loans. Do you have the exact number?”
“Over half a million dollars, Dorian. You can’t just—”
“How does six hundred thousand sound? Just in case you’re off by a few numbers.”
She gaped at me. She’d been dealing with our family’s estate, and yet she still wasn’t comfortable around this much money. It made me a little giddy for reasons I couldn’t quite quantify. “You shouldn’t—I can handle—”
“Consider it my wedding present to you. And we’re going to have to get you a new car, too.”
Gigi stared at me for what felt like an hour. I thought I might have broken her, the way her face almost went entirely blank. I let out a chuckle and tore out the check from my checkbook, handing it to her.
“How about you and I head over to the dealership right now. You like Mercedes, right? Who doesn’t love a Mercedes?”
“Dorian…” she said, her voice strangled. The corners of her eyes welled up with tears, a few escaping and trailing down her cheek. She wiped them quickly. “Thank you.”
I smiled, genuinely touched. When a few more tears made it past her lashes, I reached over and brushed them away myself.
“Hey, no need to thank me,” I said. The way she looked up at me, so damn grateful, broke my heart. “We’re about to get married. Only the best for my wife…”
Some strange sensation was stirring in my chest—a heaviness while, not unpleasant, wasn’t exactly something I was used to. It made me feel like there were butterflies in my stomach and I pulled away from her, swallowing the urge to say anything more than, “Let’s
just get this pre-nup signed, and then the two of us get this plan moving.”
“Right,” she said, wiping the sides of her eyes with a napkin from the table. “Down to business.”
“Everything seems like it’s in order,” Ollie said, setting the contract down on the table in front of me. “I’m a notary, so I’ll sign it as the witness and you’ll be all set.”
“See? I knew there was a reason I brought you,” I said, nudging Ollie on the shoulder. “Look at how useful you are.”
“You told me I was an idiot for taking that course,” he replied, glaring at me.
I nodded very seriously. “And you were right to not listen to me.”
I took a pen from Ollie’s jacket pocket and popped the cap off, scrawling my initials in across the document at the proper spots. With a flourish I signed my name at the last page, along with the date before taking the contract and holding it out for Gigi.
“Here you go, wife-to-be,” I said, a grin playing across my lips. “It’s time to sign our souls away.”
“You can cut that wife crap right there. Unless someone’s around, you’re going to treat me like your roommate until I’m ready to take things further... Clear?” she said, reaching out to take the stack of legal papers from me.
“Is that in the contract?”
“Don’t make me revise it.”
Our thumbs brushed ever-so-slightly. Her smooth skin felt like silk against mine, and I could have sworn I felt my breath catch for the briefest of moments. My eyelids fluttered for a second, unable to let go of the papers. My eyes locked onto Gigi’s.
Once again, the world returned to normal speed and I let go of the contract with a jolt. I swallowed nervously, my stomach churning. I cleared my throat.
What the hell was that? I asked myself, turning my eyes toward the table as she initialed and signed just as I had done. Once everything was signed, Gigi handed the papers to Ollie.
“That should take care of everything,” she said, giving a fleeting smile as she took one last drink from her coffee. “I want a copy of that.”
“Right!” I said, scrambling to my feet, desperate to find any way out of the uncomfortable situation. It was strange to feel like this. I thought my feelings were just a bit of look but don’t touch infatuation… I couldn’t actually be attracted to her, could I? No, she was nothing like any of the girls I went for. She was… different. Completely different. But maybe that was a good thing…
Don’t be a dumbass. You’re going to ruin everything! You told her you could love her. Attraction comes with the territory.
“Let’s get you that car, huh?” I said, trying to turn our conversation and my thoughts to something I was way more comfortable with: money. “I’m sure you have places to be.”
“You got that right,” she said with a little laugh. For some reason, it made me feel a little…
…small.
And not at all like the Dorian Lambert I was so sure I knew.
What the hell is this girl doing to me?
My new Mercedes-Benz rolled so smoothly through the crowded streets, the purr of its engine so silken I could barely even hear it. I opened her up as I merged onto the highway going north. Despite the euphoria of knowing that this marvel of modern engineering was all mine, the thought of what I was speeding toward was spoiling my otherwise good mood.
In a week, the bank would repossess my father’s house, leaving him like so many other veterans—alone and without a home. I had to find somewhere for him to stay, at least until this deal with Dorian could be finalized. My tiny apartment was barely big enough for me, let alone a seventy-two-year-old man. My options weren’t numerous, and the thought of my father in some ratty “facility” made my skin crawl. I knew how many lawsuits for neglect were raised against places like that.
And that was just the cases that actually got reported.
My only other option was almost equally unappealing—my brother.
Growing up, the two of us were always at odds—fighting, name-calling, the kind of things you would expect a couple of siblings to get up to. It wasn’t until college that our sibling rivalry turned into genuine dislike, especially after my brother decided to stop going by his first name.
“What’s wrong with the name your mother gave your?” my father would ask, his wrinkly brows knitted together. “Tyrell is just as good a name as any.”
“Jon is my name, dad! I just don’t like being called Tyrell.”
“You just don’t like sounding black,” my father had accused.
Things got a little more heated after that argument. Jon left to stay in the dorms on campus, and my father did his best not to mention him again. The truth was they only hated one another so much because they were exactly alike—pigheaded.
I pulled off the highway and made my way through the quiet, suburban streets that my brother called home now. I’d only ever been to his house once before when he invited me to a dinner party for some of his coworkers. It ended with at least four white guys breathing down my neck looking for a date, and not a single person there that I even knew.
I pulled into the driveway and put my car in park, looking up at the impressive home my brother’s money had bought him—money, my father would always say, he got from being ashamed of who he was. It was a two-story colonial knock-off, a house you pictured a cute old couple living in with their cute little miniature poodle. Not exactly threatening.
The man who stepped out to greet me, however, definitely looked threatening—at least before I noticed his blue terrycloth bathrobe and slippers. Jon’s eyes were practically falling out of his head as he looked at my new car.
“Gigi? Since when have you been able to afford a Mercedes?” he asked, something other than admiration in his voice. Was he actually jealous?
“Don’t worry about the car,” I said as I got out and locked it remotely, driving my point home with a little beep. “I really need to talk to you about something. Something important.”
Jon narrowed his eyes at me before motioning for me to come inside. His house was quaint in a way I didn’t expect to see from my brother—or at least, the guy he used to be.
“Hey, Georgia!” came a familiar lyrical voice as we cleared the door and entered the foyer.
My brother’s wife, Mary, was a gorgeous woman, light-skinned with flowing hair that bobbed just past her shoulder blades. I’d never really gotten to spend much time with my brother’s wife before they’d gotten married, and even less now that they lived in Suburbia, USA. She was a nice enough lady, and she and Jon had made cute kids together.
I smiled. “How’re you doing, Mary?”
She smiled even bigger. “Fantastic! I was just about to head out to the gym for an afternoon workout.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, trying to sound a least somewhat sincere. “I just needed to talk with you two about something really quick.”
“Oh! Of course. We just need to make it quick. I can’t keep my trainer waiting too long.” She winked. “You know how it is.”
No. I really didn’t. I nodded anyway. “Sure. Where are the kids?” I asked, noticing the missing sounds of my nieces screaming from the backyard swing set.
“Over at Mary’s mother’s house,” Jon said. Then he added, almost defensively, “The kids missed grandma.”
“And we definitely needed the break,” Mary chimed in, feigning exhaustion. Jon replied with a faint smile.
“Maybe they should learn that they have a grandpa, too,” I said as the three of us walked into his kitchen. The pictures on the wall were all full of Jon sitting with his kids and Mary, even a few with their grandparents—their maternal ones, at least.
Not a damn one of me or Dad. Maybe he was right back then. Maybe Jon really did want to forget where he came from.
“I don’t want to expose them to that man,” Jon shot back, his voice turning venomous.
“They at least deserve to know that they have a grandfather, Jon,” I pointed out. “What’re you goi
ng to say to them when you’ve got to bring them to his funeral one day? ‘Oh, by the way kids, you have a grandfather I never wanted to tell you about?’_”
“We just don’t think it’s the right time. And I think your father might scare the kids a bit,” Mary tried to explain, but all I could hear was the poorly hidden disgust in her voice. Our father hadn’t even been invited to their wedding.
Jon sighed. “Don’t make me out to be the bad-guy in this, Gigi. Dad’s the one—”
“Dad just wanted you to be proud of who you were, Jon.” I shook my head at him, looking again at all the decidedly pottery barn style décor in his house. “What’s so wrong with that?”
