Chapter 7
Phoenix
Sometimes I wish Holland looked more like her brother.
Trevor would never be caught dead wearing tiny silk pajama shorts and a matching silk button-down top. If he were, however, he would look absurd. Not like— her .
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.
“Hurry up and tell me,” she calls from down the hall as I settle onto the ancient sofa in Nana Lu’s living room.
Trevor and Holland’s grandmother Lu is one of my favorite people on earth. She’s everything a grandmother should be—everything my grandmother isn’t.
Mavis Butterfield barks half-deranged orders at me and delights in inciting succession battles in her family; Nana Lu just tells me how handsome I am and that I need to eat more. I always leave our visits with a variety of hard candies tucked in my pockets, because she insists, pressing them into my palms with her shaky, age-spotted hands. I eat every last one, even though the only kind I really like are the strawberry ones with the gooey centers.
Lovely though she is as a grandmother, however, Luella Blakely is not a gifted interior decorator. There are tacky seashell displays everywhere—very Florida—and the walls are all different summer colors; pastel lime, sky blue, bright yellow, and sunset orange create a spectrum that’s overwhelming to the eye. It’s awful.
This couch might be the worst part. It’s still on the cinderblocks Holland put beneath when Nana could no longer get up on her own from such a low surface. It should have been burned decades ago.
I sink back into the orange-brown cushion anyway, turning my gaze to Holland as she emerges into the room. She comes to a stop in front of the couch, her arms crossed once more, her foot tapping impatiently.
“Come on, Peacock,” she says, shooting me an irritated look. “Tell me what the job is.”
“It’s not quite a job,” I say. Then, weighing my words carefully, I go on, “It’s more of an arrangement.”
Her brown eyes narrow, and she steps closer to the sofa, all five-feet-six-inches of her towering over me. “So you mentioned,” she says. She couldn’t look more suspicious if she tried. “Explain.”
I keep my expression passive, blank, but my mind is working furiously as I try to figure out what to say. I’ve never had a conversation like this before, and I’ve certainly never had it with someone as explosive as Holland.
“All right,” I finally say. There’s nothing to do but spit it out. “I’m interested in entering a contract-based matrimonial agreement with you.” And I’m playing a game called How can I make this marriage proposal sound unlike a marriage proposal?
“ A contract-based—what?” she says, and she’s confused enough to stop glaring. Lines furrow her brow instead as she blinks at me. “Did you say matrimonial? ”
“I did, yes,” I say with a slow nod. “Have you heard of contractual marriages?”
“Yeah,” she says, fainter now. “It’s a whole genre.”
I blink at her. “Sorry? ”
“Never mind,” she says. “Forgot you don’t know how to read. But—you’re obviously not proposing marriage. ”
When she says it like that ? —
“I think you’ll find semantics very important moving forward,” I say quickly. “But—technically—I suppose I am proposing that we get married.”
The words have barely left my mouth, and I already know they’re going to be received poorly.
“I’m not marrying you,” she says, and I can read every emotion playing over her face—her confusion, her shock, her utter bewilderment. “You’re not—you can’t possibly be serious.”
Once again, I nod. “Sadly, I am.”
“You’re not.” She shakes her head, her blonde hair brushing against the silky fabric of her pajamas. “I can’t believe I actually thought you’d be helpful.”
“I’m not messing around,” I tell her firmly. Can she hear how uncomfortable I am with this entire conversation? “Our usual pranks aside, I’m very serious about this.”
“You can’t possibly?—”
“I can,” I cut her off. “And I am. I’m asking you to become my legal wife—in name only,” I stress.
“I’m obviously not marrying you,” she says. “Get out. Get out of my house.” Her eyes are deer-in-the-headlights wide, darting back and forth; she’s on the precipice of losing it completely.
I’m right there with her.
I sigh. “You might have to marry me.”
She scoffs, an unhinged sound. “That has never been true, and it’s certainly not true today.” She turns away from me and folds her arms. “I’m not marrying you.” I can’t see her now that her back is to me, but I can hear her facial expression—brows set, mouth pinched into a tight line. There might even be a muscle twitching in her jaw—left side only.
I stand up and lean sideways, just a bit, and sure enough, there it is: that little muscle that ticks only when she’s really pissed off.
I roll my eyes. “Look, Amsterdam. I don’t want to marry you any more than you want to marry me. But they’re making me get married. Do you understand? My grandmother is forcing me to get married, or I can’t inherit the company—not all of us have a Nana Lu, you know? If I don’t get married, the company will go to my cousin Lawrence instead.” I glare at the back of her head. “That’s the one who found your number on my phone and called you to ask if we were sleeping together. A few years ago. You remember Lawrence, don’t you?”
“Lawrence can swan dive off the nearest cliff,” she says icily.
I sweep my arms in exasperation. “Wonderful. It’s settled, then. You and me, one week from today.”
“I’m not marrying you!” she says, finally turning back around. She stomps her foot and then winces; my gaze darts to her bruised knee.
“I’m not doing it!” she goes on. “What would I be getting out of this arrangement?”
“I’ll pay you,” I say coolly.
“You’ll—what?” she says, freezing. Then, like a prairie dog standing at alert, she turns all her focus on me.
Some interest at last.
“You would pay me?” she says, and I duck my chin in a nod.
She clears her throat, her gaze darting away and then back to mine. She’ll probably start fidgeting with her hair soon; she does that when she’s overwhelmed .
“How—how much?” she says.
“Like I told you before—I’m flexible, but it would be competitive.” I pause. “As part of your compensation, I would cover any treatment you needed for that.” I gesture to her knee. Then, taking a deep breath, I bring out the big guns and aim them directly at her weak spot: “ And I would cover Maggie’s tuition for the remainder of her degree. Grad school too, if she wants.”
It’s this, finally, that seems to get through to Holland; her jaw drops. “You’re serious,” she whispers, and one hand comes up to play with the ends of her hair. “You’re actually serious. You really think we—you and I—that we could?—”
“Get married,” I say. “Yes. That’s my hope. I would compensate you well; we would both sign a contract listing acceptable terms. We would remain married until I’m able to inherit Butterfield and until my grandmother dies; after that, we would go our separate ways.”
She mouths wordlessly for a second, repeating the things I say, and then she speaks. “Insane,” she says faintly. “You’re insane.” She shakes her head. “No. I’m not marrying you. You’re rude, you’re arrogant?—”
“I’m hardly arrogant,” I say, bristling.
“And you snore like a wild sow birthing a full litter?—”
“Like a wild—” I stutter, outraged. “A wild sow? ”
“And you’re incredibly overbearing—” She breaks off, chest heaving, nostrils flaring. “No,” she says. “No way. Find someone else.”
My eyes narrow on her. “Find someone else?” I say, my voice quiet now. “Really? You think I can just find someone else? ” I take a deep breath and then go on. “It’s a small island; not many women. I’ll just marry one of your friends, then, I guess? Cat? Should I marry Cat? Or Jane?”
Her gaze darts away from mine, just barely—just a fraction of a fraction of an inch—but enough that I’m taking it as a win. I pounce.
“Or should I ask a stranger? Should I make some woman fall in love with me so she’ll be willing to get married?”
Her jaw drops. “No,” she says, sounding offended. “You can’t trick someone?—”
“See?” I say with a jut of my chin. “There’s no one else, Amsterdam. There’s no one else for me to marry. No one who will understand, no one suitable.”
“Oh, please,” she says, but her scoff is less convincing than it was a moment ago. “There are dozens of women who would quite literally kill to marry you, all of them suitable. ” She spits the word out. “Your mother has been parading them in front of you for years. Choose one of them.”
“No.”
“A blonde, or maybe a brunette, or a nice redhead?—”
“Don’t be stupid,” I say curtly. “I clearly will not marry anyone but you.”
A faint pink flush rises in her cheeks. “I don’t want to be the wife of a CEO, Titmouse ,” she says angrily—and this bodes ill, because that’s the bird name she pulls out when she really wants to annoy me. “I’ll have to smile all the time?—”
“Only sometimes?—”
“And I’ll have to be in charge of things?—”
“I’ll be in charge of all the things?—”
“And I’ll probably have to speak in public?—”
“I’ll find you a body double!”
“Stop trying to be nice!” she says. “It’s creepy!”
“Fine,” I snap; the word bounces angrily around Nana Lu’s living room. “Would you prefer me to be rude or arrogant or overbearing?”
By now her eyes are spitting fire. “We can’t get married,” she says. The yellow overhead light catches the gold in her hair and taunts me with it as she shakes her head. She’s had friends who assumed she used dye, but that hair is all natural, long and silky and easily one of her best features.
“Don’t you see that?” she goes on, and I pull my gaze back to her face. “We don’t like each other. You tried to blackmail me?—”
“We tried to blackmail each other,” I reply hotly, “and that was a long time ago, and it was barely even a threat. It doesn’t count.” I can hear the faint note of desperation in my voice, and it sends a flush of anger over my skin. I stare at her for a second, seething, until finally I can’t take it anymore.
“Gah!” I throw my hands up in the air. “Every time I look at you I just get so—I get so?—”
“Angry,” she says with a nod. “I know. Me too.” She tilts her head and waves one vague hand at me. “It’s something…hmm.” She breaks off, looking thoughtful as she smirks. “It’s something about your face.”
I clench my jaw so hard my entire skull might crack. And this—this is the real reason I didn’t want to ask Holland. Because I knew this was how we would end up: with me begging her to marry me, and her still refusing.
My pride trampled into dust.
But I grit my teeth and force out the words I know I need to say. “You can come work for me, then. At the office. Think about it.”
“No,” she says with one final shake of her head. “Get out. Leave.” She points down the hallway to the front door. “Now. Go.”
Deep breath in; deep breath out. “If you’re reluctant because of what happened…” I begin. It’s a step onto a minefield .
“I’m not!” she says quickly.
But I hear it then: fear, real fear. Her eyes have widened, and the flush in her cheeks burns brighter. For a second, the tiniest second, I think I might catch a glimpse of her truest self—soft, hurt, and desperately trying to pretend she doesn’t care—but I must be imagining things, because before I can look closer, she’s just normal Holland again.
“Fine,” I say, because she pretends, and I play along. “Just asking?—”
“Leave.” And, when I don’t move— “Now!” she shouts.
I storm out of the room without another word, down the hallway, and out the front, wishing I didn’t care about Nana Lu so much, because I would really love to slam a door right about now.
When I get outside, I glare up at the star-strewn sky. “Your sister is a brat,” I tell Trev, breathing deeply. “Forget about marrying me—she’ll be lucky to find anyone at all.”
“Hey!” she shouts from behind me, and I startle—I didn’t even hear her open the door. I don’t turn around, though; I’m too angry. I’ll say something I regret. I just walk faster, out through the gate, holding my tongue the whole time.
All of my pent-up retorts play through my mind on my way home, and when I fall asleep, it’s to the sound of her shouts ringing through my memory.