9. Orson
9
Orson
When I read the message on my phone, I jump off my sofa and fist pump the air. “Yes!” I yell, hardly able to believe what I’m seeing.
I’ll be honest; when I arrived at the bakery tonight, I had a general idea of what I was going to say, but when it came down to it, I was completely stumped. Me, a man who makes deals for a living. Speechless.
That has to be a first.
Granted, it’s the most bizarre deal I’ve ever made, yet probably the most lucrative. I don’t really know what I expected Lily to do when I asked her to marry me, but in the end, she reacted exactly as anyone might. Her mouth fell open, and she gawked at me like I’d just escaped from an asylum.
I’m trying to figure out if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that it only took her a few hours to make the decision. I’d given her two days. That thought worries me a little, and letting my excitement wane, I send her a reply.
Are you absolutely certain about this?
Clearly, she was waiting for my reply because she answers right away.
Yes. Besides, I don’t really have a choice.
You always have a choice.
Not if I want to save my business, I don’t, she comes back.
Can you take tomorrow afternoon off? I send back. I figure the afternoon will be better. She’ll have all her early morning baking done by that time.
I suppose so. Why? she texts back.
I tap my fingers across the keyboard. We’re going to need to work up a contract. How about I pick you up at two?
That sounds fine.
Okay. I’ll see you then. I send the message.
After a few minutes, I don’t hear anything back from her. Our correspondence is over, for now.
At 2:00 p.m. sharp, I pull up outside Harper’s.
The bell tinkles above my head when I open the door, and I step inside. Lily is pulling on her coat, and Jasmine beams a huge smile in my direction.
“Hello, Mr. Donovan,” she says.
“Hi, Jasmine,” I reply, waving. “How are you?”
“All the better for seeing you,” she says mischievously, giving me a big wink.
I don’t falter, but I suddenly wonder if Lily has told her why I’m here. I kick myself for that oversight. I’d asked her not to mention this to anyone if she decided not to go through with it, but I hadn’t insisted she do the same if she agreed.
No one can know this isn’t for real. Like me, my grandfather is a very astute man. I have no doubt he has spies of his own scurrying around Willow Creek at this very moment. If the cat gets out of the bag, it’s bye-bye inheritance.
Lily comes around to the front of the counter. “Hey,” she says, sounding a little weary. She looks tired too. Is that my fault?
“Bye, Jasmine,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Bye, Lily, Mr. Donovan,” Jasmine says in her usual cheery tone.
As I open the car door for Lily, I say, “Does she know?”
For a second, Lily frowns at me; then, realizing what I mean, she shakes her head diligently. “No. You asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Good. Thank you.”
The drive into the city is long, but it passes quickly, with my excited passenger asking a thousand and one questions about how this arrangement is going to work. If she carries on the way she’s going, we won’t need to go to the office. We’ll have figured the contract out in the car.
“But what about meals?” she continues, the words flying out of her mouth. “Will we have to eat together like married people do?”
I’ve lost count of what number this question is, but after being interrogated for nearly an hour, all I can do is smile and do my best to answer her neverending queries.
“Not if you don’t want to,” I say for the umpteenth time.
That’s been my go-to phrase. Partly because I’m not going to make Lily do anything she doesn’t want to, and partly because I have no darn clue. I’ve never been married before. I don’t really know what the rules are.
And yes, my parents were married, but the truth is, I hardly ever saw them. I was raised by the staff because Mom and Dad were always at functions, or dinners, or galas, or fundraisers. Sometimes, they went on vacation and didn’t come back for a month.
Not surprisingly, I’m not super close with my parents. In fact, for the amount of time they saw me when I was younger, I might as well have been in boarding school. Maybe that might have been a better idea. It couldn’t have been worse than Willow Creek High.
Lily quiets a little as we get into the city. Her eyes are as wide as saucers when she looks up at the high rises.
“Have you never been to the city before?” I ask, now curious at her wonderment.
“I have,” she says, straining her neck to see a particular building. “It’s just been a really long time. A lot has changed since I was last here.”
“When you say a really long time...”
“I was ten.”
“Really?” I blurt.
She turns to me and smiles. “Why does that surprise you?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I suppose, I just thought…” But then I taper off, realizing the drastic differences in our lives.
“You just thought that everyone popped into the city whenever they had a spare few hours,” she teases.
I nod knowingly. “Okay. I get it.”
“We don’t all own helicopters, Mr. Donovan.” She grins.
I smirk at her. “Is that why you agreed to marry me? For the helicopter?”
“I’m afraid of heights,” she says, looking back out the window.
“Oh, well. You’re going to love my office then.” My tone conveys the exact opposite, and she spins her head to glare at me.
“Oh, no.”
I give an apologetic shrug and watch as the color drains from her face.
“It’s fine,” I scramble, trying to offer a solution. “We can go to another office.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “We’ll go to your office. I’ll be fine.”
I don’t believe it any more than she does, but I don’t argue.
Lily’s resolve seems to waver, however, when we arrive and travel in the glass elevator of the Donovan Enterprises building, which happens to be attached to the outside of the structure.
“Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord,” she cries, as the glass box flies up into the air.
Ordinarily, I love this part of arriving at the office. The view across the city is fantastic, and it starts my day with a buzz. But Lily is beginning to shake, and this is clearly not fun for her at all.
“Come here,” I say, taking her arms and pulling her into me.
After pressing her head into my chest and telling her to close her eyes, I wrap my arms around her. With her quaking body so close to mine, that same musky scent reaches my nose, and I can’t help myself. I inhale, breathing her in. My stomach twists, and it has little to do with the speed of the elevator.
When we enter my office, Lily remains nearly attached to the far wall. As far away from the wall of windows as possible.
“We can use another office.”
“No,” she says stubbornly. “I’ll be fine.”
“Uh-huh,” I reply, trying not to laugh at her as she’s pressed against the wall like a paranoid spider.
But we can’t carry on like this, so the first thing I do is close the blinds. They’re electric, and with one press of a remote control, they move across the huge glass panes with a low hum, blocking the view of the city.
I’m not sure that’s enough, though, so I take two chairs and the small table that sit at the far side of the room and bring them right over to the wall.
“Come on, Lily. Sit down.”
A little while later, after Gloria brings in a large jug of coffee, we get down to business. I set up my phone to record, put it on the table between us, and say, “Okay. Where shall we start?”
After an hour, we’ve gotten the basics down.
We’ll move into the apartment I bought just outside Willow Creek. Separate rooms, obviously. We agree on full and open communication. If either of us has a problem with each other, we nip it in the bud immediately. No long, sullen silences or slamming doors. Mutual respect is also high on the list. As is privacy. We don’t check each other’s rooms, phones, or any other personal items.
When we’ve exhausted all areas we can think of, I ask her if she’s okay.
She inclines her head. “It’s all just a bit weird.”
“It’s about to get weirder. We need to talk about being together when we’re around people. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but it needs to look realistic.”
“Right,” she quips back. “Newly married couples don’t usually walk three feet apart, do they?”
“So, what about holding hands when we’re in public? Are you okay with that?”
She grins. “As long as you wash after you tinkle.”
I laugh and shake my head. “That’s just gross.”
“Our backstory is easy enough. Everyone knows we knew each other in school. It won’t be a stretch for them to believe you arriving back in Willow Springs has sparked something between us.”
“I agree. Okay. What else?”
Lily sits and thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “I can’t think of anything. I mean, we’re going to live like roommates, right? It’s being around other people that’s going to be tricky.”
“I have one more stipulation.”
“Let me guess,” she says knowingly. “Don’t tell a soul.”
I love the way her mind works. “Exactly.”
I lift the phone and turn off the recording device. “I’ll get this transcribed and have a contract written up by tomorrow.”
When I stand, Lily follows suit. “Shall we shake?” I say, offering her my hand.
She nods and puts her warm, slender hand in mine.
“Nice doing business with you, Miss Harper. All you need to do now is go away for a weekend. We’ll have to play a part for a couple of weeks. Get people used to the idea, and then you disappear for two days, and voilà. We’re married.”
Lily looks worried. “What about the bakery? Besides, I don’t have the kind of money to just take a trip for two days.”
I feel awful and like a bit of a fool. I’m aware of her financial situation. I should know better. Sometimes, I just forget. But she’s about to be my wife, so I need to pay more attention.
“I think Jasmine can handle things for one day. You don’t open on Sundays. And I don’t want you worrying about the trip. Let me deal with that.”