Chapter 14
PIPER
Ican only blink, stunned, as I look at Nash down on one knee in front of me.
“Nash … what—”
“Well, fake marry,” he interrupts. “Will you fake marry me?”
I’m … I’m … fuck it—I’m befuddled. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask. I asked.” The edge of his mouth turns up on a wry smirk. “I’m still a little too traditional to let a woman propose to me. You can keep your last name, though.”
A bewildered laugh escapes my throat. I never imagined being proposed to by a guy holding a hamburger, while I have a dab of ketchup at the edge of my mouth that I’m too baffled to wipe off.
“Look, you need that inheritance to buy your bakery. All you need to do is be married for a six months, and you don’t care if it’s fake or not? Well, I’ll do it.”
Skepticism rises through me. “What’s in it for you?”
Nash looks caught off guard, his eyes shifting furtively, like he’s trying to find an answer for that himself.
“Being married could …” he begins, trailing off, his eyes still slanted to the side; then his expression shifts, and his eyes find mine. “Could help me with sponsorships.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“Yeah. I haven’t gotten any big-money sponsorships like a lot of players at my level have, and everyone says that married men or guys who are fathers get better sponsorship offers. Corporate types think of them as more stable, better faces for their brand.”
My brow crinkles. “Having children is not going to be part of this deal.”
He barks a laugh. “Yeah, I know. Just being married will be enough to get me some better offers.”
I want to own that bakery. The thought of it closing makes it feel like there’s a hole in my chest. It’s the job I’ve always dreamed of, and going in every day makes me so happy, even when the workday is long and hard.
I love my coworkers. I love what an institution it is in the community.
If I just had my inheritance, it could be mine.
“I … I …” I’m still trying to gather my thoughts.
“Think of how much it’ll piss off Crew,” Nash says, his nose twitching like it tastes bad to say my ex-fiancé’s name. “You run away from your wedding, and you get married to another guy on the same day.”
The thought of sticking it to Crew on my way out the door does appeal to the less mature aspect of my nature. But …
“We can’t get married today. Who’s going to marry us?”
Nash is still grinning. “A judge can do it.”
“It’s Saturday. We’re not going to find a judge at the courthouse.”
Nash shakes his head. “My future wife has too little faith in me.” Hearing Nash call me his wife, even sarcastically, brings a strange kind of pressure to my chest. “I happen to know a particular judge, because he’s a season ticket holder and comes to every fan event.
I’ve talked to him a couple times and know that he’s a workaholic, goes to his office every Saturday to read law review articles. Good chance he’s there right now.”
“And if he’s not?”
Nash pops a shoulder. “We’ll just have to have a long two-day engagement.”
Enough time to come to our senses. That’s probably a good thing. There are a million reasons I should say no to this ridiculous scheme, but my brain is too discombobulated by this entire day to hold onto any of them.
With just a couple days to think it over, I’d be able to put some sense into this shaken-up brain of mine and realize that getting my inheritance right away isn’t worth going through with something so crazy.
Maybe that’s the reason I answer, “Let’s try to get there before he leaves.”
The courthouse is practically a ghost town when we arrive. There’s a lone custodian down the hall, buffing the floors. All the clerks’ windows are closed except for one, the one for emergency filings.
We step up to it. There’s a woman behind it, with her head hunched over a book. She looks up when Nash’s broad frame towers over the counter. Her eyes go wide, and she lets out a happy gasp.
“Nash!” she yells. She hops off her stool and rushes out of view.
Moments later, a door down the hall opens, and she runs to Nash, colliding with him and wrapping him in a crushing hug.
The woman is about a third of Nash’s size, but Nash grunts like the strength of her embrace squeezes the wind out of him.
She steps back and looks up at him, her eyes beaming. “Why don’t you ever come to visit?” she chides.
I take a step to the side to get a look at Nash’s face. He’s blushing, crimson painted across his sharp, prickly cheeks. “Sorry, Sally. I’ll try to get in trouble more often so I have to be here.”
She looks at me for the first time, her smile turning quizzical. “Well, what brings ya’ll here today?”
“Do you know if Judge Tremont is here?”
The woman lets out a laugh that’s so infectious I can’t hold back my own smile.
“In his office like he is every Saturday until about three in the afternoon. If I hadn’t seen how he and his wife look at each other when she comes to visit, I’d swear he’s here every Saturday to avoid her.
” She shrugs. “Man just loves his work, I guess.”
“Thanks, Sally.”
She hooks an eyebrow at me before I turn around to follow Nash, but doesn’t comment on my unconventional choice of attire. I guess working at a courthouse, she’s seen stranger sights and learned not to ask questions.
“Don’t be a stranger, now!” she calls after Nash as he presses a button for the elevator.
“Who was that?” I ask when the elevator doors close us in.
“Sally,” he answers.
I roll my eyes. I’ve seen a side of Nash I never expected recently, but he’s still terse and dry as they come.
“Wow, thanks for the extensive biography. I mean, who is she to you? Why did she look at you like you hung the moon? I’d ask if she’s your sister or something, but I don’t think anyone who grew up with you would feel so warmly. ”
His brow lowers as his eyes slide to me at that remark. “Just someone I helped out a little bit. She blows it out of proportion.”
“Helped out? What’d you do, give her a kidney? Because she looked at you like she’d gladly give you hers.”
“Some people just like to overreact. Not something you’d be familiar with, I’m sure.”
I breathe a chuckle at his little jab, but I know he’s trying to deflect.
“Come on, give me the story. I’m too invested now.” I nudge him. “If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to assume you knocked her up and she’s happy about all the child support you pay her. And if we’re about to tie the knot, I think I should know if that’s the case.”
Nash grumbles while the elevator door opens and we step into the hallway.
“About a year back, I stopped to help when her car was on the side of the road because of a blown tire. I changed it for her, and looking into her car, I saw that she and her son were sleeping in it, because they had to get away from his piece of shit father, but they had nowhere to go. I made sure she got an apartment that day, and I used my connections with Judge Tremont to get her a job here.”
Nash pulls ahead of me, because I come to a stop. A couple paces in front of me, Nash turns around.
“You really did that?” I ask.
Nash’s face colors, and he tugs his gaze away from me, looking down at the marble floor bashfully. I’ve never seen Nash bashful before.
“It’s no big deal,” he says. “Anyone else would’ve done the same.”
A warm feeling wraps around my heart. “No, they wouldn’t. Not anyone.”
For years, I thought of Nash as a jerk who only cares about hockey.
But he’s gone way out of his way to help me.
He’s about to fake marry me so I get my inheritance.
He got an apartment and a job for a single mother in dire straits.
I wonder if there are other nice things Nash has done that no one else knows about, other than him and the people he’s helped.
Maybe my soon-to-be husband is a pretty good guy.
A smile spreads across my face. Nash’s face colors a deep shade of rose when he sees the way I’m looking at him. Is Nash one of those people who gets embarrassed when others hear of him doing good deeds?
I catch up to him, playfully knocking my shoulder against his arm when I pass.
“Come on, Nash. Let’s get married.”