Ha! I chuckle. Aren’t you funny, talking about not being wasteful? Because here I am, ready and willing to throw my virginity at some guy I hardly know.
All right. I’m not entirely “ready,” but I’m going through with it anyway. Markus and I are supposed to get on a plane, fly to New York City, have dinner at some place overlooking Times Square, and then have sex. Part of me just wants to know what it’s like. Hell, it was my idea, and Markus is a really, really nice guy. Good family. Teaches high school English. Tall, dark, and handsome.
More importantly, he didn’t run the other way when all that crap went down with my grandparents. He doesn’t care that I grew up in a bubble, isolated from the world, or that now I’m a household name who’s frequently followed by paparazzi when I leave the house. “The Peachtree Cinderella.” I may be from Georgia. I may be the rightful heir to my mother’s fortune, but I am no Cinderella. You can’t put a fancy dress on me or a pair of glass slippers and see a princess.
I’m too tainted for that. I mean, I am now.
A few months ago, a random act of fate brought me together with my mother’s real will. Not the fake one I’d been shown. That’s when I learned I have to be married before my twenty-first birthday to see a dime of my inheritance. Worst of all, the man must be from a list of guys introduced to me by my grandparents, the very two people who wanted to keep the money for themselves. They even hired Gustavo to kill me. Now he and they are in jail, awaiting trial.
Meanwhile, the executors of the will cannot act beyond giving me what they already have—the remainder of this year’s allowance, about eighty thousand dollars—unless (A) I comply with the will and get married; or (B) I get the court to throw out the will. I’m choosing B: No marriage. I prefer court.
Anyway, back to Markus. He’s on the list, but not ready for marriage, which is okay by me because I don’t love him. Maybe I could someday. He would be good to me.
But he’s not Bex.
“Stop it,” I mutter and turn off my stove. I don’t need tea. I need…I need…to put the past behind me. I need to submerge myself in travel, people, food, art, books, school, men, more men, music, and anything else I can get my hands on. I’m so hungry for it all, I can taste it. What I don’t need is to stand here in my goddamned kitchen at ten o’clock at night, making goddamned tea, thinking about goddamned Bexley Hughes!
My door buzzes, startling me. Gustavo’s in jail, but the memories of that night are still fresh. I get cold sweats every time I think about that crazed look in his dark eyes.
I walk to the front door and peek through the hole. Bex. What the hell is he doing here? He’s the last man I expect to see.
I turn the deadbolt and open the door.
“Hi.” He’s wearing jeans and a sweater that matches his stunning blue eyes, which are sharp and intense.
My stomach lurches and rolls in response. I feel sick, but not because he disgusts me. I cannot look at this man and not want him. He’s just that fucking beautiful.
“Hi,” I say back.
We stare for a long, tense moment, neither of us showing our cards, but I know better than to assume he feels nothing. There’s always something going on behind those observant eyes. Like me, he hides his emotions well, and right now, I’m trying my best not to deify him for his beauty or demonize him for not wanting me.
“What are you doing here?” I finally say, my voice neutral.
“Can I come in?” he replies, his tone equally flat.
I step aside, and he enters, going straight for my tiny living room. I shut the door behind him and follow, only to find him standing there, looking out my window. The lights are off in the room except for a faint glow coming from over the stove in the kitchen just on the other side of the small breakfast bar.
I stare at the back of his head. He still hasn’t cut that thick dark hair of his or shaved his impressive jaw since I last saw him—about a week ago—giving him the look of a man who’s either too busy to care or knows that a trim isn’t going to make a lick of difference when it comes to his looks. He’s damned gorgeous, and he knows it.
“Well?” I fold my arms across my chest, waiting for him to reveal the purpose of this mysterious visit. Our last encounter was messy. I had been taken hostage by that crazy hit man Gustavo, who’d become obsessed with me—a blessing and curse. It kept him from carrying out my murder but didn’t keep him from stalking me. That event also included seeing a gun pointed at Bex’s head and me realizing I didn’t want to lose him. Bex and I connect in a way that gnaws at my soul. Doesn’t matter that he’s nine years older or was sort of, kind of my therapist. Anyway, I finally told Bex how I felt, and he broke my heart. End of story.
So why’s he here now? “I’m still waiting.”
“I saw you kissing that man,” he blurts out, his deep authoritative voice making me feel instantly on edge. He doesn’t bother to turn and face me.
“What man?” And what’s it to him?
“Yesterday. Coming out of this building.”
“You were spying on me?” I frown.
Finally he turns to face me, but I’m blessed by the dim lights. I can’t stand gazing into his intense blue eyes. It’s too painful.
“No. Not spying. Coming to talk to you.”
“For?” I ask.
“Tell me why you were kissing him.”
I blink rapidly, a dozen or so thoughts of indignation scrambling my mind. Where does he get off asking me that? He crushed me. He rejected me. He told me my love wasn’t real—the whole patient-doctor transference thing at play—as if I were a child.
“I was kissing him because I’m single and wanted to. How does that concern you, Dr. Hughes?”
He shakes his head disapprovingly, and I know it’s because I didn’t call him Bex. But what does he expect? Our relationship can’t go back to the way it was.
“I’ll tell you why that concerns me,” he replies. “One minute, you’re saying I’m the love of your life, and ten days later, you’ve got your tongue down some other man’s throat.”
He has no right to speak to me like I’m some cheating girlfriend. None. “Yep. And it was a great kiss, too. The best. So now that we’ve cleared the air, why are you really here?”
“Did you get my message last week?” he asks.
“Nope. I deleted it.” He made himself perfectly clear that last time we spoke. There’s nothing more to say, which is why I repeat, “Why. Are. You. Here?”
He stares for a long moment, his full lips flattening into a hard line as he mulls something over. “Because the last time we spoke, I meant what I said. Did you?”
Now he’s lost me. “I always say what I mean. As for you, what part exactly are you referring to? The one where you dismissed my feelings? Or the part where you told me you weren’t really married and said you were sorry about lying?” It’s true. He told me he was married to Sophie, who turned out to be his golden retriever.
I understand why he lies to his patients—he is, after all, extremely easy on the eyes, and some of his patients tend to obsess—but why keep up the charade with me? He had dozens of chances to come clean, including the time I kissed him in his office—an impulse I quickly regretted because it made me feel like the lowest person on the planet. He was taken. Married. And there I was wanting him anyway.
“You said you loved me, Rose,” he growls.
“I was wrong.”
“So then you don’t love me?”
“What do you want me to say, Dr. Hughes? That you were right? That my feelings for you weren’t real—the result of my situation and the fact you were there for me when no one else was? Then you win.” He rescued me. Physically and emotionally. For this, I could never hate him. It just hurts being around him because clearly I still have feelings, and he’s only capable of lust. And pity. Lots of pity for me.
“Bex,” I say, dropping the passive-aggressive act, “what’s going on?” Because he has to know seeing him isn’t easy.
“I
need to tell you something. Something that’s going to make you hate me more than you do now.”
But I don’t hate him. I just…I don’t want to think about him. Even if he changed his mind about us—impossible—and groveled at my feet, I could never trust him again. Maybe a normal girl could, but I’m not normal. I grew up in a world so deceptive and wrong that it took everything I had to be brave enough to love him. My feelings were a miracle, and he blew me off.
“All right,” I say. “Out with it. Then you have to go.”
He looks down at me, and my stomach knots. His expression is as cold as a block of ice. “I’m on the list.”
CHAPTER TWO
Bex’s words tumble around in my head and settle in a bad, angry place that triggers me. The list? The list. Wait. Sonofa—“You’re on the fucking list? How could you!”
“Rose, calm down.”
“I hate you. I fucking hate you,” I snarl under my breath.
“I know. But you need to listen to me.”
Listen? Hell no. I want him as far away as possible. The list he refers to is the guest list for my coming-out party about a month ago. Normally, twenty-year-olds don’t have coming-outs, but my grandparents were trying to comply with a provision in my mother’s will. They were required to throw the party and invite fifty eligible bachelors from good families. I wasn’t supposed to know that marrying one of these guys before my twenty-first birthday would satisfy the terms of my mother’s will. Yes, it’s a ridiculous demand, but that doesn’t change the reality of the will, which is why when I found out, I planned to choose one of those fifty men, marry him, and claim my inheritance.
Easier said than done.
Because whomever I choose would have full and equal rights to the money, and after everything that’s happened with my grandparents, I can’t stomach rolling the dice. I don’t know which man to trust. My instincts say trust no one because they’ll screw me over and take everything. Or try to have me killed. People will do a lot for two hundred million dollars. Therefore, I’ve opted for a legal battle to prevent my currently incarcerated grandparents from becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Yeah, that’s right, on my twenty-first birthday, if I don’t inherit, the entire estate and all of the money that comes with it will be fully released to their “care” until they deem me capable of running things. Meaning never. They will drain the estate, sell off the assets, and move the money far, far away where no one can touch it. They don’t deserve a dime. They took everything from me—my childhood, my freedom, and my ability to trust.
Bex is the only person who knows all this. He knows how hard I’ve fought to take control of my life and all of the difficult decisions I’ve had to make. Had he told me the truth—that he’s not married and on the list—he could have…well, I don’t know.
I glare up at him, hot, salty tears stinging the corners of my eyes.
Bex drops his head. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you were at my coming-out party,” I say, thinking aloud. He showed up with his two wealthy older aunts, Eugenia and Virginia. They’re the kind of Southern women no one wants to piss off and everyone wants to please, with more money than they know what to do with. Bex told me he’d finagled his way into the party because he suspected my grandparents were up to something and would make their move that night. He was right. That was the night that triggered everything else. The contract being put on my life, me falling in love with Bex, the public notoriety.
“Yes,” he admits, “I was chosen as a suitor by your grandparents and invited to your coming-out party. I kept it a secret from you because, frankly, I think the entire thing is a fucking joke. You should not be forced to marry in order to inherit.”
“I agree, but how could you, Bex? How could you not at least tell me?” I run a hand through my hair. “I mean, I get that you would never marry me, but—”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He pulls a small black box from his pocket and holds it out.
I stare at the thing as he and I stand there in the middle of my dark, sparsely furnished living room. “What’s that?”
“A ring.”
I look up at him, and there’s just enough light to see the no-bullshit look on his face. Now I’m really confused. “Wait. Is it that kind of ring?”
He nods but doesn’t speak.
“What the hell are you doing, Bex?” Why would he want to screw with my head like this?
“I’m making things right.”
“Right?” I snap. “Right, how?”
“Do the math, Rose. I’m on the list. You marry me tomorrow morning at city hall, we present the certificate to the estate trustees, and the money is yours. If your grandparents or anyone wants to sue or stake a claim, they can, but the money will be in your control, and we both know they will get nothing because you’ll have more than enough resources to hire an army of lawyers to make everyone go away.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter and go to my white couch. It’s a vintage thing I bought at a consignment shop. I plop down, feeling like I’m going to faint.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Bex returns with a glass, and I chug it.
“Rose,” he sits beside me, “you know you can trust me. You know I won’t take your money. And you know that I Io—”
“No.” I pivot to face him. “I don’t know I can trust you, because two seconds ago you told me that you kept the truth from me, which technically means you had the power all along to help me but chose not to. Now you’re offering to help me. Why?” I simmer with anger. “Because you sure as hell didn’t offer when I had to date all those men.” I have next to no experience with men or relationships, so dating was not easy. All I wanted was a nice, trustworthy guy, but I got an assassin, a stripper, a player, and a bunch of other men I didn’t know what to make of. One guy even asked me—me, a girl who’d never been kissed—to suck his cock right off the bat in order to determine our compatibility. Can you imagine?
“I’m sorry, Rose.” Bex places a hand on my thigh. I want to push it off, but I don’t. I can’t resist him even when I’m angry, because his affection is like a drug. “I made a mistake keeping it from you. I thought I was protecting you somehow.”
“Well,” I say, my voice tight, “I appreciate the gesture, but it’s too little, too late. I’ve decided what needs to happen.”
“Which is?”
“When my grandparents get full control of the estate, my lawyers are going to contest the will, and I am going to do everything in my power to catch up on the two decades of living I’ve missed out on. That includes with men.”
The displeased look in Bex’s steely blue eyes is immediate. “Your grandparents have already drawn up papers from jail to ensure anything they own or control goes into their personal trust, which is managed by your aunt Belinda. So while you’re fighting to get the estate back or waiting for an injunction to freeze the assets, they will have taken everything they can and put it somewhere you can’t touch.”
Aunt Belinda. That woman and her daughter are the devil. They hate me even more than my grandparents do and for no other reason than Belinda was jealous of my mother’s success. She’s still jealous, which is insane. Belinda got to be a part of her daughter’s life. She got to hold Teresa as a baby and watch her grow. My mother held me for two seconds before I was whisked away so the doctors could try to save her. At least, that’s what my grandmother told me.
I sigh with frustration. There isn’t one piece of this situation that’s sane. It’s got to end. “Then…then I guess…I’ll have to let the money go, because I’m not marrying someone who doesn’t love me.”
“Rose.” Bex’s grip tightens on my leg; his voice deepens. “Did you not hear what I said the other night? I do want you. I have from the first fucking moment we met, and now I’m here, trying to tell you I want to marry you.”
What the…? Does he think for one second that I don’t get the difference between lust and love? I might b
e naïve, but nobody is that dense. Maybe he thinks I’m desperate enough to accept this consolation pity-prize. I’m not.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I push his hand from my leg.
“Give me one good reason why?”
Bex
I know I am a therapist, but that does not mean I’m perfect or any better at this. I want her to know how I feel and that I am an option, here for the right reasons. But at the same time, I don’t want to push Rose into this. I can’t and won’t tolerate Rose’s life being anything less than she deserves. I’ve said my piece. I’ve apologized. I’ve asked her to marry me. But what sort of man would I be if I used my knowledge of her inner workings to persuade her to marry me? Bluntly put, I only want this if she does.
“I’m sorry, Bex, but I just can’t marry you.”
“Why?” I ask again.
“I told you, I won’t marry just to get that money. I want it to be with the right man, and the one thing I’ve realized is that I am wholly and unequivocally underqualified to even say what love is. I have never been loved. Not by my mother, not by my family, and not by any friends because I wasn’t allowed to have any.”
I’m sure her mother did love her, but I understand what Rose means. I do. But I’ve been in love. I’ve been in long-term relationships and fucked them up because I wasn’t ready or because I loved my work more. Rose is the first woman I’ve met who makes me feel like none of that fucking matters. At least, not more than her.
“So what are you saying, Rose? You’d rather turn me down and let those pieces of shit take every dime your mother worked for and intended for you, while you struggle? That money could be put to good use. You could help other women with it. You could help children or save puppies or whateverthehell you want, but I can tell you one thing: If you leave it in your grandparents’ hands, they’ll only use it to buy an expensive lawyer and get themselves out of jail.”
The Boyfriend Collector, Two Page 2
