Chapter 18 #2
“Talking to you as I did. It was unacceptable. I can explain it away because I was drunk, but… the words I said were inexcusable. The fact of the matter is that seeing you is like lightning in a bottle. I hated myself for allowing my heart to feel something for someone I assumed was trying to take advantage of me and my inheritance.”
“I don’t need your money. My mother inherited a great deal of her family’s wealth, and my father was a billionaire, so…”
“How was that?”
“Normal… for me. I suspect like you, I know nothing different, but I’m not a country bumpkin or suburban kid with stars in her eyes, Baz. I’m not here to steal your family’s money.”
I looked at my hands. “I’m sorry I assumed that.”
She sat. “Thank you. Selfishly, I’ve always wondered about this place.
My mother still laments it. She refuses to talk about it much because it makes her homesick.
You can do many things, but not villainize my mum.
She would have told me not to do this. And to know we’d been together would enrage her. Your father is right about that.”
I chuckled.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I do know you’ll never speak to me that way again if you want all your parts.
“Lanie, I’m sorry. Truly.”
“I should have told you sooner,” Lanie admitted. “But, Baz, I figured you’d tire of me long before we had that conversation. Or, like… you’d google me and see it at the top of the search results.”
“I am a clever man only when I am not thinking with my trousers,” I admitted.
“You get pussy blind,” Lanie snickered. “I understand. And while I did initially intend to fully seduce and torture you because of your family origins, I know you are a victim of your father’s machinations and your sister is sweet.
I think it is good you care about her. However, I cannot marry you, Baz. ”
A mixture of relief and worry came with her words.
If she’d agreed, it would have shown she had no common sense and was wrong for me.
However, now, there was no way forward. I felt despair.
I needed to find another way. I was so close, yet so far.
And what she didn’t understand was that my father would wear us both down in the process.
“Lanie, can we just… talk about it? Is it because you don’t love me?”
“Oh, sweetheart, of course I don’t love you. I didn’t think I needed to say it. No, it’s not that.”
“Is it because I don’t love you? Because, maybe I could learn to, Lanie. Is that what you need to hear?”
It was my weakest attempt at argument, and she saw right through it.
Lanie giggled. “Don’t be ridiculous, Baz! This is so stupid! You don’t love me. I don’t love you. We have incredible sexual chemistry and your kinks and mine sort of align, but… that’s where it ends. I’m not fucking marrying you.”
I gave up on love and convincing her, cutting to the chase. The obvious appeal lay before me. She drove a hard bargain.
I quipped, “What is your price?”
“What?” Lanie scoffed. “I am not a commodity. We played a game, but marriage isn’t—”
“What would it take to convince you I could make you happy so you could help me through this, Lanie? What would I owe you? I’d give you anything I could—in writing if you demanded.”
She stared, confused. “What?”
“Tell me what your terms are. I will tell you if I can meet them. What would you want—other than love. I may not be able to give you love, but I can promise you security and—despite yesterday’s drunken outburst—respect. I truly am so embarrassed about that. I rarely drink that much.”
“I know. We were both upset. It was not okay and it won’t happen again.”
“Agreed,” I promised.
“I dunno.”
“You worry if you lay the cards on the table I have the upper hand, huh?”
Lanie shrugged.
“You’re clever, Lanie. I’ll grant you that.”
She blushed. Flattery worked, but only if there was substance in my sweet words.
“Let me put it this way. I am the one in the bind. You actually hold the cards, Lanie. If we were to wed, my liabilities would outpace yours. No matter how wealthy you are, Lanie, let me be clear. I would stand to lose a company valued at more than a billion dollars. You do not.”
“There are prenups.”
“The UK doesn’t view them like the States does,” I explained. “They’d stay to the terms of our properties and such, but the company? It’s likely they would cut you in no matter what a piece of paper says.”
“I don’t want your company, Baz.”
“I am aware. But divorce makes people go mad. I must trust you, Lanie.”
She looked forward at the wall. I let her sit with her thoughts.
She turned back with a determined look on her pretty face.
“I want children and I want those children to keep all of this. If you can promise me that any heir we produce would inherit this place, I will think about it. And I want to continue working. I do not want you controlling me or telling me I cannot go on shoots.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Lanie. I’m not even asking for strict monogamy, okay?”
“Nor am I,” she said. “But… I want those things. And a decent settlement.”
I chuckled. “That’s all?”
“If I am helping you secure your inheritance, you owe me that much!”
I couldn’t believe her. “What… what changed?”
“I didn’t want to freeze my eggs.”
I cocked my head.
“I was done waiting for children—to the point I was going to put my eggs on ice. Now, I don’t have to do that and shoot a television show all at once.”
I furrowed my brow. “That was in your calculus?”
Cooly, she said, “Everything is in my calculus, Baz. Don’t underestimate me.”
I shook my head. “Of course not. I shan’t. Give me some time to call my solicitor and iron out the details.”
“And when he does, I will call mine—my sister’s divorce attorney—and have her redline the hell out of it. So don’t try anything stupid.”
“Who is she?”
“Bridget Callaway,” she said.
“Oof. Well, I wasn’t planning on anything, but I will mention that to him. She’s tough.”
“Tough enough to help bring down an entire government, yes. So don’t fuck with me. There may come a day when I will let you fuck me again, but no fucking with me. Understand?”
“I do.”
“And I’m serious about children.” She sat taller and flared her nostrils. “Do not make me drag you through the shit for putting me off for years. Obviously, I’m working right now and busy, but… someday soon—”
“I don’t think we’d struggle with the mechanics,” I assured. “I cannot promise I will be the world’s greatest father, but I’ll support you and any children we have. That is ingrained in me. I may not be home every night, but I will be there.”
Lanie thought a moment. “I spent the early morning trying to figure out under what it would take. In all honesty, I’m a bleeding heart falling in love with this place. My biological clock ticks. I don’t want a husband who hovers. I need someone who is sexually compatible and…”
“Emotionally distant?” I joked.
She giggled. “Not distant… not pushy. Someone who fucks me like he can’t imagine the world without me when he’s around and otherwise leaves me to my own devices. Someone who doesn’t try to make himself the center of my world and isn’t intimidated by my success.”
I squeezed her knee. “Lanie, I cannot think of a single thing that is sexier in a woman than success.”
She did a double-take.
“What? I’m not allowed to fancy a strong woman?”
“It just… it doesn’t track with your tough guy persona.”
I pulled her chin towards mine. “You are altogether terrifying in your sheer persistence and cleverness, Lanie, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find it dead sexy.”
I wanted to kiss her, but she pulled back.
“Well, maybe you’ve just met your intellectual match, Lord Osgoode? It had to happen sooner or later.” She stood. “Look, we can talk about ironing out details later. I need to get dressed for breakfast. I cannot go down in a negligee.”
LANIE
“Can we do this?” Baz sought assurance.
“Do I have a choice?” I murmured, straightening my dress and turning from him.
Before I could even ask him to zip me into my dress, he finished the task.
“Lanie, I’m not forcing you to do this. You must do it freely or else… I don’t want it.”
“I just need time to adjust,” I said. “It’s going to keep the place in the family. I will adjust.”
He rubbed his temples and paced. “Lanie, I want to make you happy. I feel like all I bring you is incredible grief.”
He was talking himself out of it, even after just talking me into it. I didn’t find his waffling attractive. The push-pull of this annoyed me more than the ridiculous idea of our arrangement.
I sighed. “Fine, don’t then. Would your brother not sell you the estate? Could you not just buy it off him? Problem solved.”
“If he sells it, he pays tax. If he keeps it and donates it in part to Scottish Heritage, he pays none. And he has plans for some god-awful holiday village on the property. Some sort of gauche thing—to make the everyman feel fancy. It will be hideous, not match the place, and be poorly put together. He won’t sell. ”
“My family,” I said. “It has been in my family.”
Baz nodded. “Yes, I suppose.”
“I remember my mother tried to buy it back and your father wouldn’t sell.”
“Not to her, no. It’s a matter of pride with him. Still, as I consider it again, I think I’m asking too much of you.”
“Baz, you’re not asking me to give up my job or my life. You’re not even asking for exclusivity. I think I can manage it based on the terms of our agreement—the estate and a child in return for my some method acting.”
“Well, it’s on your timeline—that bit,” Baz said. “I am in no rush. And you don’t… we don’t...”
I cocked my head. “What? Now you have me and you suddenly find me repulsive?”
“No! Lanie, I never could!”
“Last night you were.”
“Last night, I was drunk and feeling like a caged animal,” Baz explained. “I had it all wrong. I don’t find you repulsive.”
“You can barely look at me.”
He met my gaze and stepped towards me, his expression intimidating.
“You don’t have to lie, Baz. I’m a big girl.
And if you feel like that, we shouldn’t do this.
I’m not settling. I don’t need to love the man I marry, but I do deserve someone who is fucking addicted to me.
” As he knelt before me, my words slowed, “If we do this.. neither of us should feel like we’re trapped—as you said. ”
His brown eyes met mine, suddenly sweet and soft.
“Lanie, You’re magnetic. You make me laugh.
You torture me, but I love that. I cannot ever completely figure you out, which is why you continue to impress me.
I spent twenty-five million dollars just to watch you fuck someone else.
If that is not addicted, I don’t know what is. ”
I fobbed his words off, unable to accept his kindness or deference. “You never mentioned I was beautiful or fit.”
“Those are implied given that I cannot keep my hands off you.”
“Or mouth,” I snickered.
“That, too.”
Instinctively, I stroked his cheek. “Do you really think you could just… deal with me? And maybe what we both need is… a timeframe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Treat it like a business partnership with a term. I stay with you three years and then, if at the end of it, we’ve met our objectives, we can part amicably. Alternatively, three years or until I produce an heir?”
“That’s wise, Lanie,” I said. “I will speak to my solicitor this afternoon.”
I prevailed. Never did I think I’d feel as though I had the upper hand while also saving someone.
And the man before me on his knees? The one who never settled for anything but a win?
It was a total chef’s kiss. I was never the type to appreciate a man who hovered.
I wanted a man to dote when I wanted him to and then go back to his own turf.
I wanted children, but was this really the best way to get them?
Perhaps not, but it was the only surefire way to get what our family deserved—this beautiful place and all the memories within.
It was also the only way to help Baz and his lovely sister.
I may have experienced slight moral bankruptcy, but I wasn’t completely heartless.
If it were Dora Elizabeth facing eviction the way my mother and her family had, I’d never have forgiven myself.
Baz’s father may have been evil, but I had scruples.