Chapter 9
DEX
When I turn up at Rio’s place, he offers me a beer, but I wave it off, needing to have a clear head. I haven’t been able to work, haven’t been able to think since my meeting with the old man.
Now I need to give Rio the news that the woman he wants doesn’t want him.
She wants me.
I still can’t wrap my head around it. Couldn’t she tell I hated her? That she’s the last woman I’d pick even if we were the only two people left on earth?
“You look agitated.” Rio comments, “Missing Lexi that much?”
“I wish it were that simple.”
He looks concerned. “What’s going on, dude?”
“Are you going to make a move on the heiress?”
He looks confused. His dark brown eyes widening, and the corners of his lips turning up into a curious smirk. “She’s gorgeous. Beautiful. Hard to resist.”
“She’s all of those things,” I agree, “but something doesn’t add up.”
“Like what?”
I hesitate. “I don’t know… I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“You don’t think she’s gorgeous? But I get it. She’s not exactly your type.”
“Anyone going into a marriage of convenience for financial reasons, needs to have their head examined.”
“Dude, she has her reasons, I’m sure. And she’s gorgeous.”
“As you keep saying.” I rub a hand over my jaw.
“That woman is hot, ” Rio cries.
I shake my head, disagreeing. “She came to the soiree knowing exactly what it was. She was willing to be paraded in front of us like a prize at an auction.”
“The old man told us it was a soiree. Dropped her on us like a surprise.” Rio leans back, studying me.
“A bomb more like. He knew if he’d told us the truth, most of us wouldn’t have turned up. He tricked us.”
“It’s obvious that she’s here to make a match,” Rio muses. “It didn’t work out with Jett. Now it’s one of us.”
“Yeah. And you like her, so why don’t you make a claim?”
Rio shrugs. “I like a bit of fire in my women. She doesn’t have any.”
I stare at him in stunned silence, then, “You just said she was hot!”
“I’m not denying that, but I like the chase. The thrill. And there’s no chase or thrill if she’s already agreed to get married. You know how I like my women, Dex. Feisty and furious. It’s what makes bedtime so much fun.”
“There is a chase and a thrill,” I counter, frustrated. My mind races with the impression of the heiress last night, talking lovingly to her parents, and then later, when I turned up at her hotel room, of her trying to hide with the dress pressed against her. While it’s true that she’s not my type, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see what she was like behind that dress.
I shake my head. I can’t go there.
Rio likes her.
“Why are you talking about her?” Rio asks, his face turning suspicious.
“Look, the old man tricked us, she’s here to make a deal,” I say, running a hand through my hair as I try to figure out how to drop this news. I exhale sharply.
“You look like you want to tell me something. What?”
This guy knows me too well. Better than Zach, for sure.
“She’s here to marry someone, to make an alliance,” I say, quoting the old man. “It’s supposed to be mutually beneficial for both families. The whole point of last night was for her to pick one of us.”
“Well, it figures,” Rio says nonchalantly. “There’s five of us. One of her. Of course, it’s up to her.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Well, she uh … she picked me.”
Rio’s expression shifts and surprise flickers across his face. His features tighten, then he schools his face into a grin. He’s not reacting like I expected. Maybe he really doesn’t give a shit. He takes another swig of his beer. “She picked you, huh?”
“Apparently, but that’s what I don’t understand. I was horrible to her. You heard how I was with her.”
Rio shrugs. “Some women like that. The offensive approach. She doesn’t like me, because I was ga-ga around her. In awe. Doesn’t usually happen to me, and I’m ashamed to say I must have come across as an adoring idiot. I’m sure she’s had to suffer a few of those.”
“But you like her. Why don’t you go for it?”
Rio’s brow furrows. “Because she didn’t pick me, dude. She picked you .”
“She doesn’t know me.”
“She doesn’t know me ,” Rio counters.
“You can fix it. You’re that guy. After a couple of dates, she’ll fall for your charm. She’s desperate—”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t mean it like that, brother. Something’s not right. If the family business is doing well, and with her looking the way she does, why doesn’t she already have a line of powerful men at her beck and call?”
“Maybe she’s more selective. You know how so many guys with money are creeps. Nothing strange about that,” Rio counters. Maybe he has a point. Maybe I’m trying to come up with excuses to push this away. I can walk away, but the old man is persistent. He’ll work through the others, through Zach, then Rio and his brothers.
“You like her. Just meet her,” I plead.
Rio shakes his head, his eyes narrowing like he’s made up his mind. “I don’t think so. There’s no challenge. I like the thrill of the chase with a woman, and with the heiress, there’s no prospect of that.”
“You’re thinking about it wrong.” I get up and start pacing. “There’s no challenge because you’re not married yet .”
Rio watches me closely. “There’s no challenge yet? You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of something.”
I exhale loudly. “You don’t even have to sleep together. You’re only going to be faking it for the public, for investors, but behind the scenes, brother, sparks could fly.”
“They could, with you ,” Rio throws back. I’m not doing a good job of convincing him.
I rub my forehead. “She’s not my type. I just don’t get it. I was horrible to her.”
“Maybe she’s into S&M,” Rio says gleefully, rubbing his hands together.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Maybe. I only spoke to her and asked questions to get intel for you.”
“You don’t need to do that on my behalf,” Rio interjects.
“Brother, I don’t care for her and I was suspicious.” Now I’m starting to wonder if she assumed I asked all those questions because I was interested. I also didn’t gush all over her like Enzo and Zach did.
Like Rio did.
“She picked you,” Rio repeats. “What’re you going to do about it?”
I hesitate, turning the thought over in my head. I stand to get million dollars a month, but the old man hasn’t told me what happens if I walk away early. I decide not to tell Rio about the money. “You know what? I’m going to do it.”
Rio grins. “Cool. About time one of the Knights got married.”
I nod slowly. “If I marry her, the old man will think I’m doing exactly what he wants.”
“Oh, he’ll love that.” Rio nods. “You’re one of the hardest to bend, Dex.”
I grin and think to myself how he’ll think he’s won. She’ll think she’s won. But I’ll walk away early. Seven months later. Maybe eight months, if I can last that long.
They need a year?
They won’t get it.
And in the meantime? I’ll enjoy playing the game and bending the rules. More than anything, I’ll enjoy pissing the old man off. “I’ll just try this out and see how it goes. Have some fun. Who knows?”
Rio raises a brow. “Fun? You planning on doing the deed with her?”
I pause, my glee fading. Not a chance in hell. “No way.” The fun will come from seeing Paul Knight’s face when I renege on the deal early. But I don’t tell Rio about that, either.
“It won’t be easy to resist her,” Rio says, wisely. “She looks even better in real life than she does in the photo.”
I roll my shoulders back. “We’ll see.”
Last night was bad enough. Going to that event, standing there like a damn pawn in my father’s game. And now, less than twenty-four hours later, my whole life has the potential to be upended.
All because of something I didn’t even do.
After I see Rio, I don’t feel too bad. But I don’t understand the quick turn of events. I can’t forget how smitten Rio was by her and I think he’s just putting on a brave face because she picked me. I feel bad that he’s hiding his attraction for her behind a weak protestation about loving the chase or something.
It still feels wrong to go ahead with this, so I decide to run this by Jett and Zach. I head home, take a long shower, trying to clear my head. Then I tell my brothers to come over. We all live in the same block. Just us three, which is great, mostly.
A little while later, they both show up together.
“Has Father spoken to you?” Jett asks the second he steps inside.
“About what?” I head to the bar and get their drinks ready.
“About last night,” Zach says.
I hand him a bottle of beer, and Jett a glass of whiskey. I pour myself a glass of scotch.
“Can’t stay long,” Jett adds, as we all sit on bar stools.
“No, of course not. Always too busy for your brothers these days,” I quip.
“Don’t be like that,” he warns. He’s extremely protective of Cari, and any jokes me or Zach make are quickly shot down. Not that we joke about her. More that we joke about him, and how he’s so domesticated now.
“The old man did speak to me about last night.” I scratch my cheek. “I might as well tell you now, before he calls us all into a meeting tomorrow.”
“Tell us what?” Jett asks, guarded.
“What’s going on?” Zach asks.
I exhale. “It’s exactly what we thought. You know how the old man plays games with us? Last night was a setup. The heiress is here to make an alliance. She wants an arranged marriage because she didn’t get one with Jett. And her family, her father, is eager for it, for purely financial reasons.”
Jett and Zach exchange looks.
“And?” Zach prompts. “Get to the point. I need to be somewhere.”
“Where the hell do you have to be?”
Zach ignores me. “Just spit it out.”
I lean back on the stool. “She picked me.”
Silence.
Then, “Who picked you?” Zach’s brows pull together.
“Yesterday,” I say, dragging it out. “Daniela Oliveira, the heiress, Brazilian Beauty Queen, she picked me .”
Zach’s eyes go wide. “You’re kidding.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” I ask.
“You didn’t even talk to her,” Zach mutters.
“Yeah, well, some of us still got it, huh, brother?” I clap him on the shoulder.
“Picked you for what … to mate with? Marry? Talk to?” Jett asks.
I scrunch up my face in disgust. “To form an alliance. To marry her. For one year. Purely a transactional arrangement. The same deal you were meant to enter.”
“You already spoke to Dad about it?” Zach asks.
“He called me in for a meeting earlier today.”
Jett pats me on the back, but his expression is wary. “Are you sure about this?”
“I wasn’t .”
“He offered you money, didn’t he?” Jett says flatly.
“Can we not talk about the money?” I hiss.
Zach lets out a low whistle. “You get to marry her and get paid for it? Why the fuck didn’t she pick me?”
I down my scotch in one gulp, and Jett pours me another. Zach holds his beer bottle tight to his chest, watching me the same way Rio did yesterday when he looked at Daniela.
“You’re actually going to marry her?” Zach asks, voice tight.
“Just for one year.”
“I wouldn’t jump into this,” Jett warns.
“He’s giving me a million dollars a month.”
Silence.
Jett exhales sharply. “That’s more than he offered me.”
Zach stays quiet.
“I was expecting him to call us into a meeting today. Thought he’d come clean,” Jett says.
“He had a meeting this morning,” I say, my voice oddly detached. “With her. My… wife-to-be.” The words feel foreign coming out of my mouth.
“You’re really going to do this?” Jett asks for the third or maybe the fourth time.
“Does this mean there’s going to be a wedding?” Zach asks.
Fuck. A wedding. I hadn’t really thought about the details of it all. All I know is that twenty-four hours ago, my life was fine. I had a casual arrangement, nothing tying me down, no responsibilities.
Lexi, my friends with benefits counterpart has been out of my life for months, and that’s been the biggest headache in my life so far.
But now, this.
I showed up at a networking event, thinking I’d have a few drinks, play along.
And now?
I’m getting married.