Never Say Yes To Your Fake Husband (I said Yes #4)

8. Sterling

Chapter eight

Sterling

S ix sets of eyes are staring me down.

Wait, I mean six eyes. Jesus, not six sets and certainly not six sets of six. There are no aliens here. Just a very concerned mother, father, and little brother who also looks like he’s debating the merits of kicking my arse from here to Sunday. The little brother is the worst of them. He’s practically breathing murderous, ass-kicking— if you hurt my sister, you’re going down, you mother fucker— intent.

Does the dog count? I guess it would be four sets if he counts because he’s giving me a dirty look too. With his one eye. Jesus . And this after I stopped at three different vets on the way in order to find the miracle probiotic I was suggesting, paid for a cab, and also used my rental, which I’m pretty sure is a pet-free car, but whatever. I can afford whatever the slap on my credit card is for the cleaning fee.

Yeah, I get it. Dogs are actually a woman’s BFF, even if this dog has only known said woman for a few days. He’s still on her side. Sharing a couch with me last night didn’t endear me to him.

“Let me get this straight,” the little brother says. He looks like his sister. They have the same flaxen hair and blue eyes, but his bone structure is much less delicate than hers. He’s also about a foot or so taller. He’s even taller than me, and most people don’t get to boast that because six-three is a tough benchmark to beat. He has scrubby scruff, which indicates he’s much younger than she is because I know she’s twenty-nine, and since the dad is rocking a full beard that tells me family genetics doesn’t trend toward scrub-brush facial hair but more like get turned around and lost in the bush because it’s so thick kind of facial hair, I don’t think he’s old enough for bearding yet.

But what do I know?

That’s the kind of look Weland’s mom is giving me. It’s a look that says what the heck do I know about anything? And how could I have done this to their daughter? How could I have kind of ruined her life and then made her lie about it, even to them? What kind of person does that?

“Bry…” Weland says, a warning note in her voice. “We didn’t come here to beat anyone down or rehash things we can’t change. We came because…because I guess it’s time. We wanted to tell all of you everything. A full confession.”

“You told us everything,” Bryan argues. His death glare becomes extra homicidal, and of course, he doesn’t train it on his sister. Just on me. “He sat there and let you do it. And you clearly couldn’t come to us until he gave you permission. That’s weird and creepy. Gag orders? Seriously? Fake marriages? It all sounds just a tad like a controlling asshole to me. This is the guy you want us to give our blessing to?”

“Forgiveness doesn’t happen overnight.” Weland is so gentle. I think she’s always like this. Hard to make angry, quick to laugh, and easygoing. Somehow, she keeps putting her heart out there over and over again, even when it gets ripped up and tattered and hurt. “But yes, that’s why we’re here. Because we want to know what you think. Ultimately though, we will make our own decisions, so be gentle. People make mistakes, and this situation is still more complicated than a fifteen-minute sit down can even begin to explain.”

“You told us that you sold the rights to your songs. That’s why you had to take down the ones you had online, and that’s why you couldn’t make any more videos. Because all your work was sold.” Weland’s mom, Monique, complains. She’s an older version of Weland. Petite, lovely, and dignified with kind eyes. Except they’re not blue. “You lied to us because he made you lie to us?”

I did. I did that. I also gave Smitty a written sheet of what she could say to explain the money and why she was taking down her videos. I came up with that explanation because it was valid. And because I’m a bastard, I did use her songs. To my credit, once she read the sheet over with Smitty, she fired back that if I was paying that kind of money, I might as well have her song and all the songs she’d planned on putting online at that point. She wasn’t going to be turned into a liar.

So I had them, and I gave them away. I made exponentially more money from them than what I’m paying Weland, which makes me feel like a douchebag multiplied by a thousand.

All of this makes me feel like a total douchebag multiplied by a thousand. When laid all out on the table, it really does sound bad. It makes me sound like an unfeeling villain. Like a greedy, money-grubbing grubber of a grub, even though that’s not who I am.

“That’s not how it happened, and that’s not who he is.” Weland defends me, keeping her tone gentle but firm. It’s like my eyes are projecting words onto the wall, and she’s reading my brain like a teleprompter.

It kind of creeps me out, but the shiver that runs up my back isn’t all bad. It’s more like amazement. Being married to someone for four years doesn’t make you close to them. Being contractually married for four years definitely doesn’t make you close, yet it still feels like I know Weland, and she knows me, and now she’s reading my thoughts.

Bryan gives his sister a wounded look. Yeah, it would suck to find out that you’re kind of the reason your sister messed up her whole life. Not that it was on purpose, but the kid has to be feeling guilty. And I say kid, but I think he’s probably twenty-one or twenty-two since I already know he’s a lot younger than Weland. I should know this. All the details. Smitty would know it. He’d tell me if I asked him, but I don’t want to ask him.

Beans shifts under the table, curling up into a ball. He huffs, closes his one eye, and immediately starts snoring. As soon as we got to Weland’s parents, she let them feed Beans a packet of the probiotics we found, along with a bit of plain yogurt. Then, we all sat down at the kitchen table and she explained why she called an emergency family meeting and brought some rando with her.

Rando. Christ. I hate that word, term, implication. All of the above.

“He still made you lie to us,” Bryan insists. “And that’s just wrong. Who makes someone fake marry them anyway? That’s seriously desperate, dude.”

I glance away since I don’t want to look an angry wolf in the eyes. I glance toward Fred instead, but looking at Weland’s dad isn’t really any better. I see where both kids got their bright blue eyes from though. He subtly scowls at me like he’d enjoy nothing more than shoving a boot straight up the parts of me where the sun doesn’t shine.

He’s pushing hard to get the dirt despite what his sister just said. “I can’t explain the whole situation, but it was dire. Sometimes it happens. It wasn’t his fault.” Weland is defending me again, though she can’t explain the whole thing because I haven’t even explained it to her. It’s not fair of me, and I know it. I need to man up here.

Clearly, this whole family thinks I’m a piece of work.

I think I’m a piece of work.

There’s no way they’re going to give their blessing.

It was a crazy idea anyway, thinking we could make it work. Wanting to make it work out of the blue wasn’t something I saw myself needing to check off a life list when I was on my way here. And then I saw Weland at that club in person, and it was…it was…I don’t know. It feels a lot like game fucking over. RIP to my single life.

And you know what? It might be crazy, but I’m not sorry. Everyone called me crazy back in the day. They said starting a record label would never work. That I’d never sign anyone and that tiny little indie studios never went anywhere. Well, spoiler alert, they were wrong. Whatever this idea of mine is now might be crazy and terrible. It might even end up being torture, but call me a masochist, I guess, because I’m signing up for it.

I’m suddenly jumping off the cold and unfeeling bastard businessman married to the life of work, work, work boat, and leaping into waters that involve tricky things like emotions, hormones, and other unknown elements that terrify me.

“I did.” This is me manning up. “I did, and I’m sorry. I went about all of this the wrong way. I did pay your sister a huge sum of money in exchange for a fake marriage because I needed it to save my company. I’m not sorry about that. If you met my cousins, you’d understand. It’s not an excuse, and I’m not saying it was right. Just necessary, but necessary isn’t always moral, and it’s very seldom the high road. Yes, there was a gag clause because the marriage needed to appear legit, and I couldn’t risk it getting out that it wasn’t. No, there was nothing saying we needed to be in the same room or that the public needed to know my wife. And my cousins not being able to get their hands on her or even their opinions anywhere near her was important to me. I was trying to protect her as much as I was trying to protect myself. That sounds like a cop-out, but I mean it. The rest, you can blame me. I took advantage. I needed someone who was desperate because I was desperate myself. I went about it all wrong. I freely admit that.”

“So why now?” Weland’s dad interrupts. “And is it genuine?”

“You just seem like a creep who wants to get in my sister’s pants,” Bryan growls.

“Bryan!” Monique yelps. “We don’t say things like that.”

“But we do make life hell for assholes and creepy dudes who want to mess with Weland. At least, I do. She’s my sister and she clearly needs protecting, maybe even saving from her own self. I messed all this up for her. It was my surgery she had to pay for. It was me she sacrificed herself for, and I’m not going to let her do it again. I’m not entirely sure why you’re even here, Sterling, but you don’t get my stamp of approval on anything but us putting you on a plane to whatever hole you came out of and making sure you stay there for the next year until my sister is free of you, and then it’s good riddance time.”

“Bryan.” Weland’s hand shoots out and covers her brother’s.

She’s sitting the closest to him while their parents are on the other side. We’re kind of together, clustered around the other half of the circle, where the three of them could watch us as they listened to whatever we said. I’m closest to Weland’s mom, but she also looks like she’d enjoy tenderizing me with some kind of kitchen implement at the moment, despite her admonishing her son earlier for whatever he said.

“It’s true, Welly. We’re not letting him hurt you. This guy is straight up the worst kind of news.”

“I’m twenty-nine. I don’t need defending,” she whispers. “But thank you. This is my decision. I just wanted to come and tell you about it. I was skeptical, and I guess I did say I needed to hear what you thought, and above all, I needed to tell you all the truth. It was past time. But now that I’ve talked it all out, this is what I want. For better or for worse, we are legitimately married, and part of me wants to see if it will work.”

“And the other part is terrified because you know this guy is a jerk and a monster?”

“Oh lord.” Weland withdraws her hand, scowls at her brother—not really a real scowl—and turns to her dad. “I think it’s time for ice cream. Or coffee. Or coffee and ice cream together.”

“Caffeine and sugar won’t make him less of a total douche,” Bryan gripes.

“We don’t say douche in this house,” his mom reprimands him.

“Apparently, we do,” Bryan shoots back. “We do when it’s necessary!” He scowls at me like he’s four and just got soap in the mouth, while I did much worse and didn’t get punished at all. “It’s so necessary. This guy thinks he can just waltz into Welly’s life and suddenly make a forced fake marriage real? He’s a stranger. He doesn’t know one thing about her. He just shows up after lying to all of us for years and forcing her to do the same and then expects the world to drop at his feet as if that’s what is traditionally done because when you’re rich, you can afford to be a…fine. A total D-bag hole. Is that better?”

It’s not really a question, and his tirade keeps on tirading. “I don’t know if it’s an emotional breakdown or what’s even going on, but we’re here for you, Weland. We are. We’ll chase this rich pr…bast…entitled person right out of town if that’s what you want. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t fit in here. He has no right to get anywhere near you, seeing as he’s already taken more than enough from you.”

I’m not exactly stunned by this. I pretty much saw all this coming. Weland, though, appears surprised. Her lips are slightly parted, there is a soft rose petal blush on her cheeks, and she looks absolutely lovely. She brushes her hair back and swallows nervously. “Umm, first of all, I’m not having an emotional breakdown.”

“We know you aren’t, sweetheart.” Her mom gets up and walks around the table. Then, she fills the kettle in the small kitchen and slides it onto a stove that looks like it’s at least thirty years old but immaculately cared for. The house is a small bungalow, but everything looks that way. The pride of ownership is obvious. The flowers growing in the beds are beautiful and neatly tended, while the white fence around the side yard is straight and true and doesn’t have a flake of paint peeling. The inside is just as nice. Homey, if not very modern. The furnishings are all dated, but they look just like the day they were made.

“You think I am.” Weland’s eyes nearly pop right out, and her hands curl into a bunch on the tabletop. She grasps her knuckles until they turn white. “You’re making tea. You make hot chocolate when everyone is in a happy mood, or it’s freezing outside. Coffee goes with dessert, or early in the morning, or for anything social. Juice is also a happy drink, whether it’s the crystals kind or the real fruit stuff. Milk is either a late-night comforting beverage or strictly reserved for cereal or cooking. Water is always on offer, but tea? Tea is one of those things you only bust out when something or someone needs real comfort. Or serious fixing.”

“Good lord, what is that smell? Is there a gas leak in the house?” Fred jumps up and turns his head from side to side so wildly that it’s a wonder his neck doesn’t snap clean off.

It feels weird to think about Weland’s parents using their first names. I don’t feel like I’ve earned a first-name basis, even in my head. She might have introduced them when we got here, but it doesn’t give me permission to use their names.

“It’s the dog,” Weland groans. “That’s why mom gave him that probiotic first thing when we got here. It’s no joke.”

Bryan wrenches his T-shirt with a stickman doing a handstand on the back of a purple unicorn up onto his nose. “Oh my sweet lord, that is horrific! No joke, you weren’t joking. It smells worse than something dying. This is blue cheese mixed with onions mixed with liver mixed with something dying.”

“I’m sorry.” Weland pushes back her chair. “I’ll take him outside.”

I stand up as well. This seems like a good time to take a five-minute break. Maybe it’s natural. Maybe the dog did me a huge solid, or maybe he needs to take a huge solid. It sure smells that way.

Weland gives me a stricken, worried I’m so freaking sorry about all this look. I want to put my hand on her back, her shoulder. I want to wrap my arms around her, pull her close, and hold her. I seriously don’t know what’s going on because I don’t get urges like this. My life has been vastly less complicated due to the fact that I haven’t been close to anyone. Okay, so I was once a teenager, and then once I went to college…I kind of…alright...once upon a time, I did date, but not after I became serious about my business, and by then, I was far too busy to worry about any of that. Maybe I grew up. Maybe the urges just died off or something.

All the urges are doing all sorts of things to me now, and that’s not a good thing, especially not when I’m standing in a kitchen with a bunch of people who don’t like me and would rather roast my balls on a platter than have them anywhere near their daughter. At a minimum, they think I’m a huge ass, and they’re not that wrong about how I’ve treated Weland. Even if they knew me, they would probably be pretty darn skeptical about me turning over a fresh, bright, and shiny new token leaf.

“Let me take him.” I bend down and urge Beans out from under the table. The odor is worse under here. It’s eyewatering. Some of it gets in my mouth when I try and do the shallow breathing thing through it, and I nearly gag. Upchucking all over the floor on top of just showing up here and being myself isn’t something I want to ever contemplate happening.

It’s just lucky Beans comes out, does a downward doggy stretch, grunts, and then wags his half tail when he looks at me.

And you know what? I don’t like dogs all that much, especially not the decrepit, smelly variety, but the ice blocks I’ve walled my heart up with melt just a little.

“You don’t have to do that,” Weland protests. She looks at her dad and her brother, who is still mostly hiding in his T-shirt, and then at her mom. “Please stop making tea. The world isn’t in crisis mode. We’ll talk right now. Please just sit down, and while Sterling takes Beans out for a ten-minute walk, we’ll work things out. Because this is happening. Me and him, we’re happening. We’re going to do this, and I need you all to be okay with it, at least on a very basic level, because I’m me, and I love you, and I can’t do this without you. I need your love and your support, and I need you not to have this kind of hate for someone who doesn’t deserve it. So, please. Just…let’s all sit down and keep talking.”

“There isn’t anything I will say while he’s gone that I won’t say in front of him,” Bryan insists. He has his nose plugged under his shirt, so it comes out garbled and nasally sounding.

Oh, I’m very sure about that. He didn’t hold back when I was right here.

Weland’s mom moves away from the kettle, which has boiled and turned off anyway, and comes back to hover near the table. Her dad reluctantly sits down. He looks confused and helpless, while her mom looks so worried and horrified. Her brother, on the other hand, is going to be in kick-ass mode for a long time.

I’m the wrench in a family that was doing okay.

Except Weland clearly wasn’t, and I’m solely to blame for that.

I might not be able to fix anything else, but I’m going to work my ass off to fix that.

Even I’m shocked straight down to my socks, which are still on my feet—fancy dress style socks that are more than due for a change, and can anyone say shower and a fresh set of clothes before I start to stink like Beans here—that she defended me. She said she wanted this, which was more than she said back at her place.

I don’t know why she’s changed her mind.

And I don’t know why I put it out there in the first place.

But I do know that when I do something, I don’t do it halfway, and now that we’re doing this, we’re full-on doing it. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t dated anyone in ten years. I’ll figure it out.