16. Rei
I knew it.
I freaking knew it.
This date had been going too well.
He was thoughtful, a good listener, and asked great questions to keep the conversation going so it didn’t feel like I had to carry it for the both of us.
Sure, maybe booking out a fifteen-thousand-foot mini golf course for just the two of us was a little overkill when I would have been happy with a conversation over a muffin and a dirty chai, but hey, we love a king who goes above and beyond.
Just when I thought this relationship could really go somewhere, I asked him if he had skeletons in his closet and his features went all stony and guarded again, unlike the open, smiling man I’d experienced just moments before.
“Tell me,” I ordered. I wasn’t in the mood for games. Mini golf was over.
He set his cup down with a sigh. Then he ran his tongue over his lips as if to remove any milk residue, even though there wasn’t any there.
Maybe he was just stalling. Then he got out his phone and tapped on something.
I couldn’t tell what because there was a dark privacy screen protector blocking my view. Definitely stalling.
“Are you really texting right now?” I asked, annoyed. I had half a mind to get up.
In response, he flipped the phone around to show me a document, the words “non-disclosure agreement” in bold and all caps across the top. “I need you to sign this first,” he said.
I stared at it, and then him. “Are you kidding me?”
His face instantly answered my question, but he added, “I wish I was.”
“You can’t really expect me to sign that without my attorney looking it over.” I knew better than to trust things at face value. Learned that lesson the hard way and had the emotional scars to prove it.
“Your attorney?” he echoed.
“What, just because I’m a janitor I can’t have a lawyer?”
“No, o-of course not, I-I—” He stammered over his words, but he cut himself off with a deep breath. “Please send it to your attorney as soon as you can. I want to tell you everything, but I can’t until I know for sure it will stay between us.”
He seemed so earnest, and I felt like the room was spinning around me. I didn’t know who to trust, who to believe. This man across from me, putting on such an honest act, who clearly had secrets of his own... or Conrad, the man I thought I knew so well.
Finally, I said, “Can you email it to her? I’ll have her give it a look.” Her explanation would fulfill my curiosity even if it ended whatever this was between us.
“Sure.” He had me type her email into his phone, and then he said, “Sent.”
“Please hold,” I said, standing up and walking away from the table to call Darla. She was a total southern belle, complete with red lipstick and bleach-blond hair always perfectly done. All that sweet exterior hid a shark on the inside—exactly what I needed for my legal representation.
After a couple rings, she said, “Rei, sweetie, what do you need?”
“Can you look over this NDA that the MyHome CFO just sent you? The sooner the better.”
“Sure thing. I’ll pull it up now. They’re usually pretty easy.”
I nodded, pacing around the lobby and ignoring the man waiting at the table, drinking cocoa like I wasn’t dying to know the secrets he was working so hard to keep.
“Hmm,” Darla said.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“This all seems pretty standard. Although the protections are vague. ‘All personal matters relating to MyHome founders and major investors.’ I wouldn’t usually be concerned, but we both know you’re a bit of a gossip hound.”
I’d be mad if she wasn’t right. “So, if I found out, say, that one founder has a giant dick, I can’t go telling my bestie about it?”
“Oh, honey.” She chuckled. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind that getting around.”
I chuckled. But that’s when I realized, Jada was married to one of the founders listed in the NDA. “Do you think my friend who married another founder signed one too?” I whispered. If Quentin heard, he didn’t give any indication.
“I’d be shocked if she hadn’t,” Darla replied.
I let that news roll over me for a moment before I said, “Thanks, D.”
“You got it.” She hung up, and I lowered my phone.
Jada hadn’t told me about an NDA. What was she contractually bound to keep from me? I wondered. She seemed happy, but then again, she’d been desperate to tell me about Quentin before our date... What had she wanted to tell me? I had a feeling I was about to find out.
With a deep breath, I walked back to Quentin and said, “Okay, I’ll sign it.”
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, sliding the phone to me again. I scrolled to the bottom of the document and used my finger to sign. Once the date was entered and the document submitted, Quentin said, “Okay, it’s a long story.”
I arched my eyebrows. He was a man of so few words it was hard to imagine him spinning me a long tale. But he opened his mouth and started talking, weaving a story that sounded impossible. No, more like utterly absurd.
“So let me get this straight.” I downed the rest of my cocoa and set it on the table, wishing it was a dirty martini instead. “You founded this company five years out of college with your friends.”
He nodded.
“And your rich uncle.”
“Entrepreneurship professor,” he corrected with a small smirk.
I waved my hands, saying, “Same difference.... So this rich uncle has too much to drink at Thanksgiving and says, ‘You know what would be fun? A competition between my B-school kids and my biological kids.’”
He tilted his head to the side and shrugged. “Yeah, basically.”
“So you all have to get married before he dies and his kids just have to... What? Try to make sure you don’t get married?”
He cleared his throat. “Or make sure Simon dies before we say ‘I do.’”
My heart plummeted. “In the last month, he’s been blinded and poisoned.”
“You heard about that, huh?” His look turned grim.
“Holy shit... You’re trying to get married to get his shares... You’re trying to marry me.” I stood up, heart racing. “But Bryce and Jada... They just...”
Quentin nodded slowly.
My hands clapped to my mouth. Their marriage was fake? I’d been her maid of honor! Her baby’s godmother! All for a sham wedding?
“I know,” he murmured, shaking his head. “But there’s more to it.”
I gasped. “More? How could there possibly be more?”
He stood up, standing face to face with me. “There’s something specific about the way Simon wants us to get married.”
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to explain.
“He said we have to sign a prenup, giving half of our fortune to our brides if we divorce.”
I sat back down in my chair. My legs felt weak, and I took deep breaths, trying to process everything he had told me. I couldn’t believe this. Couldn’t believe my best friend had been roped in. What Quentin was asking me to be involved in.
Is that what Conrad had been worried about? How would he have known?
Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground, wincing on the way. “Old football injury,” he explained at my worried look.
“How much are you worth?” I asked him.
He heaved a sigh. “Valuations vary.”
“Ballpark.”
“If everything was liquidated? Seven billion.”
Good thing I was sitting down. “SEVEN BILLION? Dollars?”
“Dollars,” he confirmed without even flinching.
“That’s all from MyHome?”
He shook his head. “That only accounts for about a fifth of it.”
I had to be hearing him wrong. “You’d lose more if you got married and divorced than if you didn’t get married at all!”
He shook his head. “It’s not just about me. The other guys and I... We’re a family.” There was a sadness to his tone that made my heart ache all while respecting him more. Quentin wasn’t devious like Conrad thought… he was selfless.
“You’re willing to marry a practical stranger for your friends?” I asked in disbelief.
“There aren’t many people in my circle, even fewer in my corner, but I’d do anything for them,” he said. Everything from the words he said, to the sound of his voice, to the expression on his face confirmed that he meant it.
We sat across from each other; silence made heavy with the weight of his secrets. And with my own.
If Conrad heard any of this, it would go immediately to the press. I could just imagine what the news would say—and how the market would react. They could lose deals at best or deal with legal consequences for making this kind of deal.
“There has to be a way we can both benefit,” he said. “Especially without us divorcing later. Tell me what I can do for you.”
When I looked at him and saw a hint of hope in his eyes, butterflies turned in my stomach.
Some immature part of me wanted to believe that for Quentin, at least, some part of this was real.
But the jaded part of me knew Quentin was an excellent businessman.
What if there was an angle to this proposal I didn’t know about?
I met his dark-brown eyes, searching for answers.
His exterior hid so much more than the simple, quiet man he portrayed.
There was more to Quentin, just like there was more to me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking... I need to think about it,” I said.
Quentin nodded. “I understand. But I need an answer by Monday.”
Even though he didn’t explain further, I understood now. Simon was already in the hospital, and Quentin? He was running out of time.