Chapter 9
LIAM
I drain my coffee cup, wishing caffeine could fix my life instead of merely waking me up. The sun is high in the sky now, glazing the lake in blinding silver that hurts my eyes, but at least the headache has downgraded from a jackhammer to a steady drumbeat.
I set down my cup. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
I stand too quickly, my knee knocking the table—thankfully, it’s the right one. Peyton jumps. She’s still sleep-rumpled, with a flake of croissant clinging to her lower lip.
“Where are you going?”
“To handle the mess I left downstairs. And to find pants that fit me.” I gesture at the door. “Keep the suite for the day. Order whatever you want. Get a massage. Decompress.”
“Decompress,” she repeats. “Right. Thanks. I appreciate the food. And the… not kicking me out.”
“Do you need anything before I go?”
Her gaze darts to the corner where her wedding dress lies in a crumpled heap. Her nose crinkles as her mouth pulls tight.
“Does this hotel have a boutique? Or a gift shop? I don’t want to squeeze back into that.”
“I’ll send options up,” I say. “The concierge can pull a few things from our resort collection. Any preferences?”
“Anything with pockets.” The ghost of a smile tugs at her lips. “And no corsets. I’m done with stuff that makes it hard to breathe.”
“Pockets and freedom of movement. Got it.”
I make a beeline for the door. Three more steps and I’m free. Free of the memory of her body underneath mine. Free of the way her voice sounds in the morning—rougher, warmer. Free of the inconvenient tug in my chest that tells me walking away is the wrong move.
Behind me, a phone buzzes against the nightstand. I turn. Peyton stiffens in her chair before standing and approaching the bed like she’s going near a feral beast.
She sits on the mattress, posture rigid as she picks up. She’s gone from the exhausted calm of breakfast to this locked-up tension in the space of a heartbeat.
“Mom?” Peyton’s voice trembles and drops to a muffled, barely audible tone. She turns away from me.
I should leave. I’ve done my part. I fed her, housed her, I said my goodbyes. Whatever drama is unfolding on that call is none of my business. She’s a stranger. But my feet are rooted to the floor.
“This morning?” Her shoulders hunch. “Already? On a Sunday? How’s that even possible?”
The silence that follows is excruciating. Tension coils tighter in her spine.
“Yeah, he threatened to do it,” she whispers, “but I hoped he’d change his mind… I didn’t think Matt would actually…” Her voice grows smaller, more strained. The color drains from her face until she looks like she might be sick.
“How can they even—” She cracks mid-sentence. “No. No, I understand. I’ll… Okay.”
She hangs up and clutches the phone in both hands, staring at the blank screen. Her lower lip trembles.
Another buzz.
She checks the notification. Peyton scrolls with her thumb and reads for a few long seconds as despair breaks behind her eyes. Her breath catches, and then she’s gasping, her chest heaving in short, panicked bursts.
I cross the room in three quick strides.
My leg screams in protest, but I ignore the sting, dropping to my knees in front of her. Peyton’s hands are ice-cold when I take them, clammy and shaking. Her pupils are wild, gaze unfocused.
“Peyton, hey. Eyes on me.” I squeeze her fingers hard enough to ground her. “Breathe.”
“I—can’t—” She wheezes. “He—he’s—”
“Yes, you can. Breathe with me. In through the nose.” I inhale, exaggerating the sound. “Out through the mouth.”
She exhales brokenly.
“Again,” I command. “In for four. Then out for six.”
I keep counting. I force her to match my rhythm, staring her down until the frantic terror in her gaze recedes, replaced by simple misery. Her breathing slows. The color doesn’t return to her face, but she’s taking in oxygen.
“There you go.” I don’t release her hands. They’re warming now, the chill fading under my grip. “Keep going.”
We stay like that for a long moment—me on my knees before her, her hands in mine, the morning sunlight pooling around us. It’s intimate in a way that should feel wrong with a stranger, but doesn’t.
When her breathing steadies, I ask quietly, “What’s happening?”
“My ex.” She spits the word like poison.
“He’s a vindictive bastard. I knew he was a controlling prick when I left him at the altar.
But I never thought—” She shakes her head, curls tumbling around her face.
“Last night, he called. Threatened to ruin my family for embarrassing him. Matt said he’d get me fired, destroy my parents, bankrupt us.
I didn’t believe him because who does that?
I assumed it was just… his pride talking.
Wounded ego. People say things in the heat of the moment, right? ”
I nod.
“Not Matt.” Her voice goes flat, hollow.
“I just got an email from the HR director at my company. I’m expected in for a meeting when my vacation days end.
It’s Sunday. The company is closed. But Matt somehow managed to make them go to the office just to fire me.
” Her brown eyes well up. “And he’s served my parents with a lawsuit.
The VanCamps paid for the wedding. They wanted it to be a high society event, and now they’re suing us for the reception costs, emotional damages, reputational loss.
” She takes another shaky breath. “How are my parents even involved? Why are his lawyers suing them?”
“Is this ex… err… connected?”
“Yeah, his family comes from old money. Matt’s dad golfs with half the judges in Springfield, they have their fingers in a lot of pies. And now my mom and dad risk losing everything because I was too cowardly to break up with him before the wedding.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s going to bury us.” Peyton pulls her hands free from mine, pressing them to her face. “Matt has the money, the connections, the lawyers. I don’t even have a job anymore and can’t afford to pay for a decent defense attorney. And my dad needs money to pay for his medications.”
“Is he sick?”
“He has arthritis, but it’s manageable if he can supplement the insurance care with better treatments.” She rubs her forehead. “But not if Matt buries us in legal fees.”
I should say something comforting. Something appropriate about how things will work out, how there’s always a way, how justice will prevail. But I’ve never been good at empty platitudes, and she doesn’t strike me as someone who’d believe them, anyway.
Instead, I say, “I can protect you.”
She drops her hands and looks at me. “What?”
“I’ll take care of the lawsuit.” The words are out before I’ve thought them through, but once they’re in the air, they feel strangely right. The pieces click together in my mind. “Your ex wants to destroy you. Fine. Let him try. But he’s not the only one with power. I can stop him.”
“Why would you do that?” She blinks, tears drying on her cheeks as confusion takes over. “You don’t even know me. Twelve hours ago, you were throwing me out of your lobby.”
A plan crystallizes in my brain. It’s insane. Absolutely insane. And yet—
“I’d do it for my wife.”
She looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head.
Then she laughs. A wild, hysterical gurgle that starts in her chest and bubbles up through her throat, shaking her entire body. She laughs until new tears stream down her cheeks and she’s gasping for air again.
“Oh my gosh.” She wipes her eyes with the heels of her palms, still convulsing with residual giggles. “Lila was right. You really would do anything to impress your father.”
“This isn’t just about my father.”
“Isn’t it?” She stares me down like she can see straight through my bullshit. How much did she and Lila talk last night? “You’re proposing—what? A fake marriage? To a woman you’ve known for less than a day, who you nearly killed with your motorcycle?”
“You walked into the street.”
“I stumbled off the curb, and you were racing in a twenty-five zone.”
“That’s beside the point.” I push up from my knees, ignoring the fresh bolt of pain that shoots through my leg. “I know it sounds crazy—”
“It sounds certifiably insane.”
“—but it could work.” I pace to the window, then back, the movement helping me think.
“Last year, I had a… situation on social media. A photo went viral, and I became a meme. My father was furious. The company’s stock dipped.
I’ve spent the last fourteen months struggling to claw back some credibility, and nothing has worked. ”
She watches me, her arms crossed over her chest.
“But last night, when he thought I’d gotten married? That I’d ‘settled down’ and ‘made a responsible choice’?” I meet her gaze head-on. “He was proud of me.”
Her expression softens, the mockery draining into sympathy, or maybe pity.
“I’m not asking you to fall in love with me,” I continue. “I’m not even asking you to like me. But if we play this right, I can get my father off my back, and you get protection for yourself and your parents.”
“You can’t stop Matt from suing me, and he’s already gotten me fired.”
“My family has resources, too. We have lawyers on retainer who eat guys like your ex for breakfast. If this VanCamp asshole wants to sue your parents, we’ll bury him in countersuits so deep he’ll need a mining permit to dig himself out.
” I take a step closer. “And I’ll find you a new job.
A better one than whatever you had before. ”
Peyton stands from the bed, the robe swirling around her knees as she moves away from me.
“You sound unhinged,” she says.
“No more unhinged than a woman wandering the streets in her wedding gown with makeup melting down her face.”
Her jaw tightens. “So we’re both crazy. Great foundation for a marriage.”
“It’s a quid pro quo. You get protection; I get my father’s respect and the chance to run the company.”
“You’re not thinking straight. You’re probably still hazy from the painkillers.”
“I’m perfectly lucid.”
Peyton drags her fingers through her curls, but they get stuck, and she gives up, untangling them with a shake. “Even if I agreed—which I’m not—it would take years to convince your father you’ve become Mr. Family Values. You can’t flash a ring and expect him to hand over the keys to the kingdom.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s your timeline?”
“Three to five years.” I say it evenly, like it’s a business projection. “That should be enough to establish credibility.”
“Three to five years?” Her mouth falls open. “You want to stay married to me for years?”
“Better three years married to you than another thirty working under my father’s thumb.”
“No. No way. I’ve just escaped a marriage I didn’t want to be in, I’m not jumping into another one.”
“I don’t know why you walked out on that guy, but I’m nothing like him. This would be an equal partnership. You’d be free to do as you please.”
“Yeah, what if I want a real relationship? What if I want to fall in love?”
“Really? So shortly after leaving a guy at the altar?”
The question stops her. “Well, not right this moment. But in three to five years, yeah, probably.”
“Three years is nothing.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I’m also your best option.”
She presses her fingers to her temples, closing her eyes. “This is insane.”
“You’ve said that.”
“Well, it bears repeating.”
I should back off. Give her space.
“Don’t say no.” I hold up a hand. “You don’t have to answer now. You’re not thinking clearly.”
She opens her eyes, watching me warily.
“I am thinking clearly! You’re the one out of his mind!”
“I’m being practical.” I walk back to the door and grip the handle. “I’ll go get those clothes. You take some time. Think about it.”
“I won’t change my mind in half an hour.”
I pull the door open, glancing at her. She’s standing her ground, her dark curls wild, eyes fixed on me without blinking. She looks formidable even in a bathrobe.
“I’ll be back,” I say. “And when I am, we’ll talk about what this could look like, how it would work, what we’d both be agreeing to.”
“And if I still say no?”
“Then I’ll arrange a car to take you wherever you want to go, and you’ll never have to see me again.”
She doesn’t respond. I don’t wait for her to speak. I slip out of the suite before she throws a lamp at me.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I lean against it, my leg throbbing, my heart pounding against my ribs. What did I just do?
I pull my phone from the pocket of my robe and unlock it.
The screen lights up with a cascade of notifications. Emails, voicemails, calendar reminders. But the number that makes my stomach drop is the seventeen missed calls from my mother.
And the single text message from her at the top of the stack.
Mom
Flying in. Landing at 6 p.m. I want to meet your wife. Tonight!
Ah, this puts us on a time crunch. The shortened timeline should terrify me, but it doesn’t. In business, it’s better to add pressure to a negotiation. This will force Peyton to give me an answer either way.
If we’re going to pull this off, it’ll have to be airtight. And we need all the time we can get to prep.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and limp toward the elevator. I have pants to find, a fake wife to convince, and about six hours to figure out how to secretly elope.
Easy.