Chapter 5
5
Theo
I ’m back at Cat’s bar. Now that I’m sober, I question again my decision to bring friends here on Friday night. I better send Rose some flowers or something. I take in the sticky floor, the dim lighting, the bottom-shelf tequila. Yeah, definitely flowers. It’s worse than I remember.
And Cat works here.
It makes no sense.
Her friend, a slender Asian woman with an undercut and an amused look on her face, leans over the bar. “Yeah, marriage. You interested?”
“Blair, no,” Cat exclaims. Her face is dewy from what I’d assume was sweat with anyone else. Knowing Cat, it’s probably expensive skincare products.
Her beauty still causes a sharp pinch behind my ribs. She was lovely in high school and college, during those summers back home. But now, she’s alluring in a sharper way.
Her silky dark hair is twisted up, but a few tendrils have escaped during her shift. The hairstyle sets off her smooth skin, her large, dark eyes, her impossibly full lips, with a freckle right at the edge. I was twenty-one when I pressed a kiss to that freckle. The rain poured down on our heads that night. We were just supposed to swim in the lake, but she was so tempting. And then everything went to hell.
“You offering?” I ask, just to annoy her.
“No,” she says, at the same time as her coworker says, “Yes.”
“I would rather bathe in acid than marry him,” Cat hisses at her friend, who just laughs and goes to greet a customer at the other end of the bar.
“I’m standing right here,” I say.
“Much to my dismay,” Cat responds.
Blair turns to us. “If you’re going to shed blood, do it downstairs, please.”
“Theo was just leaving,” Cat says.
“Oh no, I’m not going anywhere.” I raise my brows in challenge.
“Fine. Come on.” Cat jerks her head at me, and then wends her way out from behind the bar. I follow her down a dark hallway and then down a set of uncomfortably sticky stairs.
“Pleasant,” I say. “Is this where you dismember the bodies?”
“Want to find out?” she tosses over her shoulder.
I smother a laugh and follow her to the ancient wooden bar on the back wall of the space. The mirror is cracked, the bottles are dusty, and Cat is so fucking out of place it makes my head hurt.
Now that I can study her, I can admit that the markers of wealth aren’t there anymore. Her nails aren’t done. Her haircut isn’t expensive. I’ve spent time with enough women in her social circle to know what wealth looks like. It’s careful makeup and beauty treatments, a delicate gold bracelet, diamond studs. Not a faded top and no jewelry. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
“Why are you here?” She crosses her arms over her chest, a movement that pushes her breasts up over the neckline of her criminally thin tank top.
“Buy a man a drink before you interrogate him?”
She silently slides me a bottle of cheap whiskey and a glass.
I pour, sip, and watch her. She’s more patient than I expected. Irritation simmers in her gaze, but her lips press flat like she’d rather die than beg me for an answer.
“I caught the end of your conversation with Blair. Why do you need to get married?”
“Because it sounds like fun,” she says flatly.
“Does it?” I can’t keep the skepticism out of my voice.
“No. Of course not. I need it for my inheritance.”
“There’s a marriage requirement?” That’s surprising. Although maybe not if you’re Gregory Peterson. He never thought I was good enough. Surely, he’d want to make sure someone of quality married his daughter.
“Yep. One year of marriage, and everything the light touches will be mine.” Her tongue taps her lip.
“Everything?”
“Everything.” She nods. “The shares of Peterson International, all my family’s properties, the townhouse I live in. If I stay married for a year, I get all of it at the end.”
“So Blair wasn’t kidding when she asked me.”
“Oh, she most definitely was.”
I nearly smile at the finality of the statement. “Who’s the lucky guy, then?”
She rolls her lips between her teeth before she lets out a heavy sigh. “No one. I’m giving it all up. Unless I can find a husband in the next six days. I’m not holding out hope.”
My amusement dies. Giving it all up sounds like Cat. She doesn’t follow through on things. One minute, she’s your friend, and the next, she’s back at her father’s side and pretending you don’t exist. She’s been given everything, and she takes it all for granted. In her position, I’d be out on the street asking strangers to marry me.
“Right,” I say stiffly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
“Oh, come on, Theo. You don’t want a wife who might poison you at breakfast?”
I push the whiskey away. “I knew I shouldn’t have accepted liquor from you. ”
Her eyes light. “Far too obvious. I’d need it to look like an accident.”
An unwilling smile tugs at my lips in response. I’d forgotten how funny Cat is. “I don’t think we’d suit, princess, but thank you.”
“I’m devastated,” she says dryly. She’s nearly smiling. “Imagine being married to me. We’d kill each other.”
Fuck. We would. We’d kill each other, and I imagine tension like what I feel now spilling over into the bedroom. Cat clawing at my back. Me wrenching her arms behind her and driving into her. I swallow thickly.
“Yeah,” I say hoarsely. “We’d kill each other.”
She leans back against the wall and smiles, a real one. It’s like being stabbed in the chest. “Try not to look so ill at the prospect of marrying me. I’m insulted.”
“You’re really looking for a husband,” I say. She must not be looking very hard. She’s beautiful and wealthy. Who wouldn’t say yes?
“Yeah. Know anyone who’s willing to marry me for a year? I need a husband by Friday, and my main skills include pouring beers and doing my own nails.”
“An impressive résumé. I’ll see what I can do.”
“I just need some sucker willing to give me a year of his undying devotion,” she says. “Why is that so hard to find?” She frowns. “Maybe I’ll throw the estate in France into the mix. It’ll be mine after all this.”
“You have an estate?” Wheels are grinding slowly in my head.
“And an ancestral home in the UK. My great-great-grandfather was an earl, you know.”
“He was? I didn’t know that.” Cat’s family is pretentious and wealthy, but I didn’t realize they were aristocrats.
She waves a hand in the air. “Yes. It’s all very silly. He was an asshole. But my father likes to pretend he wasn’t because it helps his European investments. There’s a courtesy title in there somewhere for my future husband. The UK home is a moldering piece of crap. The French estate is a much sweeter prize. Someone will want it. ”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find a husband, then.” Especially with a courtesy title and all those properties. “You could pay him off and have him live abroad.”
“I know. The only problem is that every man I talk to isn’t brave enough to stand up to my father.”
“Fuck your father,” I say.
“Yeah, fuck my father,” she says, grabbing the whiskey bottle and taking a swig. She shudders as she swallows.
Surprise keeps me rooted to the seat. It almost sounds like Cat hates her father as much as I do.
She replaces the bottle on the shelf. “Well, Theo. I wish I could say this was a pleasure. I have to get going. I’ve got six more nights of freedom and an ancestral home to bargain away.”
She has an ancestral home. She needs a husband. The Peterson name is gold in most circles. Her grandfather was an earl. She hates her father.
Something isn’t right here.
Christine’s words sound in my ears, then Cole’s.
Do you have a woman you can trot out?
Better, show them you fit in.
She’s almost at the base of the stairs leading to the main bar. Where she’s going to marry a stranger. Maybe that guy who was sneaking glances at her from the corner table.
“I’ll do it,” I say. She stops, turns to me, and cocks her head.
“Do what?”
I advance on her, my heart pounding, my strides eating up the floor. This is definitely a bad idea. Cat and I will be at each other’s throats. But I need a fast track to a better reputation, and what better way than the woman who is basically American royalty? Even if she does hate my guts.
“You don’t need to marry a stranger. Marry me instead.”