Chapter 2
Chapter Two
GIDEON
“A s soon as you put down your phone, we can finish this meeting,” I say, but Landon keeps on grinning down at his screen.
“Leave him alone, he’s in love,” Spencer tells me.
“That’s not my fault.” I sigh loudly, but still Landon doesn’t look up.
“Just wait, one day you’ll be?—”
“Don’t put that evil on me,” I interrupt Spencer before he can curse me with whatever is going on with Landon.
I check my watch and see I’m short on time, so I give up being nice.
“Landon, if you don’t get off the phone, I’m going to tell Piper about the time you took a shit in the swimming pool at camp. ”
“It was because I didn’t know how to swim,” he says while still looking at his phone. “She’ll probably feel sorry for me and do something to make me feel better.”
He finally looks up from his phone and grins like he’s won the lottery. Which, according to Landon, he has. He’s convinced Piper is the greatest thing in the world, but he has no idea that he sounds like a complete fool.
“Now that I’ve got your attention, would someone mind explaining to me how the hell I got stuck setting up a prenup with Gamer’s fiancée?”
“He asked for our firm to draw it up as a personal favor, and you were the only one free.” Landon rolls his eyes because none of us can stand him. “I told him we’d help him out on this one thing, but he should use his dad’s lawyer going forward.”
“Why would he want to use us for his prenup?” I ask. “I’ve had to get the financials from their family attorney anyway. It seems like it would have been much easier and cheaper for them to do this in-house.”
“Well, he’s always had more money than sense. But Gamer said it’s because we’re college bros.” Landon uses air quotes around the last two words. “But I have a feeling it’s because he doesn’t want his daddy to know that he’s a cheating asshole.”
“But the fiancée knows?” Spencer asks.
“If she doesn’t, she’s a bigger idiot than his dad,” I say and close my laptop. “It was common knowledge when we were in college, and it doesn’t look like he’s changed since then.”
“The prenup looked spicy,” Spencer says. “Does she know she won't get anything if they divorce? Even if she catches him with his dick inside another woman?”
“Yeah right, like Unsaved Game could ever fuck someone long enough to get caught in the act.”
We were the ones that gave Conner Merritt the nickname Gamer.
Not because he was good with women, but because every woman that slept with him joked about how fast he came.
I said it was like playing a video game and then it ending unexpectedly.
Unsaved Game turned to Gamer, and it stuck.
To this day, I don’t think Conner has a clue that’s why everyone calls him that.
“Are you going to tell her?” Landon asks me as I stand up from the table.
“I’m here to get her to sign, nothing more. If she’s agreeing to marry him, then it’s her own fault.”
“Hmm,” Landon says thoughtfully as he glances at his phone.
Landon has always had a good heart, but since meeting Piper, he seems to look at life differently.
He’s told us some of her backstory, and I can see why he’s got more sympathy for women in trouble, but that’s not the case with this contract.
Her family comes from money too, so I’m sure it’s an arrangement of powers combining and nothing more.
“I’ll handle it,” I say, and Landon nods.
“I never doubted you.”
“At least you don’t have to see Gamer,” Spencer adds while I grab my laptop and a copy of the prenup.
“Small miracles,” I say, but before I walk out of the office, Landon chimes in.
“He’s invited us to the wedding.”
“I’m busy,” I call over my shoulder, not bothering to pretend I’ll be there.
As I’m coming out of the office space that Spencer and Landon and I share, I almost run into Scout. “Oh, I was on my way to get you,” she says. “Miss Brown is in your office.”
“My office? Why not the conference room?”
“She, um, has her mother with her,” Scout whispers. “I thought it might be best to give her some privacy.”
“I see.” I check my watch. “Give me ten minutes and then come and interrupt me. This won’t take long.”
“Will do,” she says and heads back to the front.
I pass by the conference room and glance in to see our paralegal Judith talking with who I assume is Emerson Brown’s mother. Judith should be able to keep her distracted long enough for me to get this signed and off my desk.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Brown, but—” I stop talking when a young woman stands up from the chair in front of my desk and turns to face me.
Eyes the color of a storm in the middle of an ocean lock with mine, and I stumble a step backwards. It’s like I’ve been physically hit and I have to catch my balance.
“Sorry,” I mutter as I walk toward her and extend my hand.
“I haven’t been here long.” Her voice is soft and sweet, and it matches her soft and sweet exterior. What doesn’t match is her handshake and how firm it is.
It’s at odds with how slight she is, and it surprises me so much I smile at her. “Quite the grip.”
“Oh no.” She drops my hand quickly, and her cheeks flush the prettiest pink.
I’m rattled by the loss of contact and how much she’s disrupted my behavior in a matter of seconds. “Please sit.”
I force myself not to look at her as I walk around my desk and sit down. I’ve got to put some distance between us and maybe get my blood pressure checked. I’m probably coming down with a cold, that’s all.
“So Game—” I clear my throat and start again. “Mr. Merritt has asked us to prepare his prenuptial agreement for your upcoming wedding.”
“That’s what I’m told.”
I look up from my desk, and her stormy gray eyes look sad and resigned. It’s not my job to care, and it’s not my business to ask why. I’m here to get her to sign a contract and nothing more. She’s probably sad because Gamer is a cheating fuck-face, but I’m not getting paid to find out.
“And you’ve read through it?” I ask, going back to the document and forcing myself to be professional.
“I’m sure my mother has.” This time she doesn’t look sad or resigned; she looks annoyed.
“Your mother isn’t signing this,” I remind her, but her expression doesn’t change.
“She would if she could,” she says so quietly I almost don’t catch it. Before I can ask, she nods to my bookshelf on the wall beside her. “Your philodendron needs fertilizer.”
“My what?”
“Your philodendron. The plant.”
“Oh, we have a service that comes in and takes care of them.” She seems disappointed when I say this, and weirdly I hate the idea of letting her down. “But I’ll tell them you said that.”
She doesn’t say anything but nods and continues to look around the room.
“Do you like plants?” Why the fuck am I asking her about plants? I need to get her to sign the prenup and then get her the fuck out of here so I can go get an MRI.
“I like gardening.” She smiles, and for the first time, it seems genuine. Her dark curls fall over the soft slope of her shoulder, and I have the almost unbearable urge to trace the curve of it. “But I’m not sure I’ll get to do it for much longer.”
“Why?” I have to stop asking questions, but my mouth isn’t working with my brain. Okay, so it’s a stroke. I’m having a stroke.
“Because Conner lives in an apartment.” When I don’t say anything, her storm cloud eyes find mine. “And I’m supposed to move in with him.”
“You say it like you don’t have a choice.”
“Do I?” She laughs, but it sounds far from funny. “You might be the only one that thinks so.”
I cock my head to the side, trying to figure out the puzzle in front of me.
I’ve seen Gamer with a lot of women, but none of them look like Emerson.
Most of them knew the score and were in it for a good time.
I don’t know what I expected the woman who would marry him to look like, but I would have thought she’d be happy about it.
Emerson looks like she’s in front of a firing squad.
“There’s always a choice,” I say, and then it feels like I’m being pulled in her direction.
She glances at the nameplate on my desk and then at me. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Mr. Bennet, with all due respect, no matter how much money that piece of paper says I have, choice is a luxury I can’t afford.”
I hold her gaze for a long moment, and to her credit she doesn’t look away. I want to tell her not to sign this, to stay away from Conner Merritt, or to run out of here as fast as she can. But I don’t get the chance to say any of it before Mrs. Brown barrels into my office.