Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Everything inside of me is telling me I need to say no to this.
That it’s dangerous on a hundred different levels, but the most dangerous of all is the woman standing before me.
Guilt trip aside, I can’t stand to see her like this.
I can’t stand what this has done to her.
And if her ex and even his father are taking things too far and not letting her go…
But fuck, I can’t marry Georgia.
I mean, fucking marry her?! Even if it’s fake and I rarely have to see her, I’ll have to touch her in Vegas. I’ll have to come across like a man in love with his woman, and I can’t go down that road with her again. It’ll risk everything. It’ll break promises.
I can’t marry her.
But how can I not help her either? Just the thought of her ex stalking her, making her feel uncomfortable or unsafe makes me want to burn his world down.
And I will. In my own way. Until then, how do I leave her out there alone?
Or worse, stuck in a situation where she ends up marrying the bastard ?
“Do Zax and Grey know about what Ezra is doing? Do they know he and his father are trying to coerce you into a marriage you don’t want?” One that will hold you captive and fill your days with misery.
She wipes more of her tears away and sighs plaintively, her hands going to her hips as she shakes her head.
“I haven’t told them about that. They’ve already been worried enough about me.
They do know I have to get married, but I think they believe I’ll just turn around and marry Ezra.
Only my mother knows about them and isn’t much help because she wants the shares to stay with us, and Ezra seems like the only way for that to happen. ”
“You know that won’t stand, right? I’ll have to tell them. I don’t keep things like that from them. Not anymore, and I promised never again. They need to know what he was doing to you.” I rub the back of my neck. “You don’t feel like they can help with this?”
She gives me an unhappy look but doesn’t ask me not to tell them. “No. I don’t. I think men are possessive and territorial, and my cousins telling them to fuck off won’t do a goddamn thing. It certainly hasn’t done anything when I’ve told him to back off and leave me alone.”
“And a restraining order…” I trail off, already knowing her answer.
“Will be a public record. I already have the press all over me. Not to mention Ezra and his dad work with me at Monroe, and that won’t look good for the company or for shareholders. I have to see them and be around them. Besides, Ezra’s not dangerous, just… not willing to let me go.”
Hmm. I mentally store that away for later and plan to do a little—or more like a lot—of digging into Ezra. I looked into him when they got together—Zax had asked me to, much to my surprise—but that was a couple of years ago, and a lot has clearly changed.
Speaking of. “I’d have to ask Zax and Grey if they’re okay with this.”
She hiccups out a laugh, but there is no humor to it. “I figured as much. ”
“They don’t want me near you, Georgia. Not after what I did to you before. They made that damn clear at the time.”
She walks toward me, her big green eyes glassy and her cheeks flushed, but my body still stirs at the sight of her and how she smells—sweet and spicy like Christmas, like vanilla and cinnamon.
If possible, she’s even more beautiful now than she was then, and I haven’t been able to stop looking at her.
Not once since I first set eyes on her. I feel her on me like a wool sweater, warm and itchy on my skin yet somehow cozy and not uncomfortable enough that I want to take it off.
She affects me, and I hate that about her. I always have. All the ways she’s irresistibly dangerous to me are all the reasons I need to say no to marrying her.
“You realize the hypocrisy in what you’re saying considering Zax was with Suzie for a hundred years, not to mention I’m a grown-ass woman and can be with whomever I want.
That notwithstanding, you won’t be near me.
Not like that anyway. I think we both know those days are over and better left in the past.” Her head tilts as she reaches me, studying me. “Are you considering saying yes?”
Am I? Who am I kidding? I was never going to say no. “Yes. But I’ll have rules.”
She smiles, and it’s like the first breath of dawn after a stormy night, and something inside me twists in the worst and most painful of ways. This is going to cost me.
“Oh, trust me, Lenox, I have plenty of my own.” She pats my shoulder, and I immediately pull back, making her frown. “You’re going to have to get over that for a few days. Married people are generally in love and touch each other as such, and we’re going to have to sell it even if we’re not.”
The thought of touching her, of pretending to be in love with her makes my pulse quicken and my fingertips tingle.
I remember every line of her body. How her hair feels and smells when my face is buried in it.
The sounds she makes and the way she looks when my hands are on her body, giving her pleasure or simply holding her .
It’ll be a fucking nightmare even if the touch is innocuous and purely for show.
I quickly change the subject, needing to clear that from my thoughts. “And you feel Ezra will believe this? That we’re in love and married when you only ended it with him four months ago.”
She flushes and shrugs. “I once told him that I had been in love with you when I was younger. I believe I had referred to it as a stupid teenage infatuation. But frankly, there is nothing to argue if I’m married.
That’s the point of this. They have no recourse or ability to force my hand or guilt me into it. ”
Only I doubt he’ll take that lying down if he’s grown obsessed with getting her to marry him and then she ups and marries someone else. Things like that make men dangerous and unpredictable, especially when he already perceives her as his.
“We’ll have a prenup,” she explains. “It’s already been drafted since I had one with Ezra.
It says you keep your stuff and I keep mine, and any assets we acquire in our marriage are divided in half, though I don’t think that last part will be an issue for us.
And, if you agree to do this, I will have another contract drafted that gives you three percent of Monroe Securities. ”
“Keep your company, Georgia, I’m not interested. If I say yes, I’m doing this for other reasons.” Like keeping you safe . Like not wanting you to ask this favor of anyone else, or worse, end up marrying Ezra . “You should go now. I’ll give you my answer by seven tomorrow morning.”
She swallows, takes a step back, and without another word, turns and leaves.
The moment I hear the door shut, I spin around, drink down my bourbon, and then chuck the glass across the room until it shatters against the wall. This time I don’t bother going to clean it up.
Fuck! What the fuck am I going to do? I scrub my hands up and down my face as I try to think.
But all I see are her broken eyes and the way she begged.
And then hearing all that she had to say?
Yeah, I understand why she feels this is her only option.
But I can’t imagine these men are going down so easily.
Monroe Securities is a very pretty commodity with a stunning woman running its show.
A stunning woman they want to own as much as they want to own her company.
I need to call Zax and Grey. I need to tell them Georgia was here and all about her proposal. My stomach twists into knots, the bourbon churning like acid, eating away at me. With a wasted breath, my mind wanders back to that night.
My body dropped onto Georgia’s, heavy and boneless, as I panted for my life.
Sweat coated our bodies, and my tongue swiped out, tasting it on her neck.
A sweet, little contented hum emanated from the back of her throat, and I found myself smiling—a rare fucking phenomenon that only happened with her—as I rolled us over until she was on top of me, my half-hard cock still inside her.
I needed to leave, but with every time that thought hit my brain, I found myself bargaining against it.
Just five more minutes. Just a little while longer.
Letting go of Georgia required herculean strength, and in moments like these, I had none to spare.
Especially when she snuggled into me, her head on my chest, listening to my heart beat as if only she could hear it.
My fingers trickled through the soft waves of her hair when her head popped up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes bright, as she killed me with a smile and then killed me all over again when she said, “I love you.” Just like that.
Like she couldn’t hold the words in a second longer.
Like they had been eating at her and setting them free unburdened a weight from her soul, when all they did was send a rush of heady warmth and burgeoning panic through mine.
I froze. I didn’t ask her what she said because I was terrified she’d repeat it. My heart raced, thumping painfully against my ribs, and I found myself pushing her off me and sitting up, unable to catch my breath with her on top of me, looking at me like that.
In a scramble, I snatched my boxer briefs from the floor and tugged them hastily on and then stood up and did the same with my jeans, all the while knowing she was watching me.
“Well, that’s not the response I was hoping for,” she teased, but I could hear the hurt in her voice.
And fuck. How did I do this to her? How did I allow this to go so far?
It was my fault. All of it. I told her from the start it would only be this, only sex, but… it’d been two years.
Two years because I didn’t know how to let go of her.