Chapter 14
STERLING
B y Friday morning, I was feeling smug. A little too smug, maybe, but Laney was in my building. In my conference room.
She was here with an attorney. One she’d hired in order to look over the terms of the contract I was offering. That was movement. It was progress.
This last week had tested my patience and the limits of my self-control like no other, but she was here, which had to mean that she was open to discussing saying yes. That was all I needed. I’d thought I had her with that storefront, but I’d underestimated her.
I wouldn’t do that again.
Precisely one minute late for the meeting, I walked into the conference room where they were waiting. I liked the sight of her gray eyes lifting to look up at me when the door opened. I liked it even more when they followed me as I strode in.
For a short moment, I stared at her, surprised by how lovely she looked.
She was dressed smartly in simple, clean lines, white linen pants and a light blue blouse buttoned all the way up.
Her hair was down, tumbling in loose, long waves over one shoulder like she’d forgotten to pile it on top of her head today.
I kept staring while I sat down. My pulse did something inconvenient. Laney saw me looking at her and her cheeks flushed a deep rose, like she’d just come from a morning run, but she didn’t drop her eyes. Her chin lifted, like she was daring me to acknowledge that I’d been caught in the act.
God, she was infuriating—and so surprisingly damn poised.
My attorneys were seated across the table from her and the single lawyer she’d brought with her. That infuriated me too. I’d told her I’d pay for the fees and yet she’d rocked up with only this one guy.
From what I’d been told, he was a good guy to have chosen, a high-end professional with a reputation for iron-clad, family-estate planning, but still. I would have felt like she was doing a better job of protecting herself if she’d brought a team.
I would’ve done a better job at protecting her than this, but I kept my mouth shut and let the lawyers do their thing. They’d started exactly on time, which meant they’d already been at it for a minute when I’d walked in.
Deliberately late. I’d needed that moment when she’d looked up at me. I’d needed her to wonder, just for a few seconds, if I would even show up. Because I needed her to know that if we did this, I would always show up. She could look for me at any time when she needed me, and I would be there.
Our arrangement wasn’t about hearts and flowers. It wasn’t romantic or loving, but it didn’t need to be in order for me to be there for her.
It bothered her that there wouldn’t be love in our marriage. I had realized that after we’d gotten home from LA. I couldn’t promise to love her. In fact, I could basically only promise the complete opposite, but I could promise to be dependable.
That wasn’t nothing.
As I tuned into the actual negotiations, I realized her attorney was already knee-deep in a clause he wanted amended.
“My client’s control over the company, Baby Blossom, needs to be indisputable in the event of a split.
The current language is ambiguous. We need it to state in no uncertain terms that she will be granted full ownership of that company, as well as that Westwood and Sons, Sterling Westwood Holdings, and/or any firm relating to them will relinquish all shares they hold in Baby Blossom to my client upon the date of divorce. ”
I didn’t even glance at my legal team. “Fine. Do it.”
Her lawyer frowned. “You’re willing to agree to this?”
I looked him right in the eyes. “I believe I’ve already said yes. She gets what she wants. If you feel the current language is ambiguous, change it. The meaning of that clause has always been clear to me, but by all means, clarify things all you want.”
He turned to her, quite obviously surprised. “Ms. Rhodes?”
Laney didn’t respond. She sat back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other, and started tapping her pen rhythmically against the pad of her notebook. She hadn’t spoken since I walked in, but she didn’t need to.
I would’ve signed away the moon if she’d asked. Anything she wanted from me, she could have. I would have bought her a yacht. Or three. Big ones. Super-yachts. I would have given her a fucking jet of her own if she’d asked for any of those things, but she didn’t.
She just listened, silent and steady while her lawyer continued to grind through the fine print and mine volleyed back with quiet amendments of their own.
None of what they were harping on about mattered to me.
The terms of the deal were meant to benefit her.
I wasn’t trying to slip in any traps or pitfalls.
All I wanted was for her to say yes. There would always be more money to be made, but she wouldn’t be able to spend what I had in this lifetime or the next. After forty-five minutes, everything was finally agreed in principle and her attorney stood to shake hands.
“I’ll personally see to the necessary amendments,” he said. “You can expect the final copy of the contract in your inboxes by mid-afternoon.”
Everyone began filing out, murmuring politely to one another and seeming much too self-congratulatory considering that they’d basically just reworded what I’d already offered. Laney moved to follow them, but I stood up and touched her elbow before she reached the door.
“Can we talk privately for a moment?” I asked.
She paused, then gave the smallest of nods as those soft gray eyes lingered on mine. “Sure. I can’t see why not.”
Nathan passed us in the hallway as I guided her toward my office. His brows lifted so high I thought they’d detach. I didn’t explain, nor did I owe him any explanations.
When we reached my corner office, I opened the door for her, waited until she stepped inside, then closed it behind us. Laney turned around slowly to face me but didn’t move much farther into my office. “They didn’t tell me you’d be here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I gestured to the small seating area near the windows. “Sit.”
“I’d rather stand.”
Of course she would . I stayed standing too but strode to my desk and kept it between us. The meeting had gone well. I couldn’t afford to derail it by freaking her out now if I got too close.
“The revised contract will be ready within a few hours,” I said. “You could sign today.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Just like that? They email it, I sign on the dotted line, and it’s done?”
“Yes.”
Her lips parted. “So what would that be, like, our wedding?”
I paused. I hadn’t actually thought of it that way.
Briefly back in LA, I’d thought about letting her plan a wedding, but it’d been no more than a passing thought during a restless night.
A whiskey soaked one, at that. This whole arrangement, despite how deeply personal it was, had lived in my head thus far like a merger.
“As soon as you’ve signed, I can have someone come here to marry us,” I said, thinking on my feet. “It’ll be a civil ceremony. All the paperwork will be in one place. That makes the legal processing easier.”
She stared at me, unimpressed and certainly not enthusiastic. “How romantic.”
I shrugged. “It’s efficient.”
Laney exhaled, nodding slowly as her gaze darted across my office. “What happens after that?”
Fuck . I almost broke a sweat with this one. “You move in with me.”
“Of course.” She brought her eyes back to mine, a restraint in them I didn’t like seeing there. “So I sign, head home, grab some clothes, bring them over to your place, and then?”
“You continue your life. Your work. Your routines. The only difference is that you’ll be doing it as my wife.”
Her head slanted slightly forward, her hair falling over her forehead. She pushed it back with one hand and held it there as she glanced at me again. “And we… what? We live together. We’ll be married, but not really. We go out, but how? Separately? Together? How will our relationship work?”
My stomach tightened and an image flashed through my mind of that Uber driver smiling at her. “There’s no one else for either of us. During this year, we’re exclusive.”
Her eyebrows rose slightly, but she didn’t interrupt, so I went on, trying not to think about how frustrating this year was likely going to be for me. Physically, anyway. “We’ll live together. Have the baby.”
God, I said that too easily.
“At the end of the year,” I said in conclusion. “We revisit, regroup, and discuss whether we continue.”
Laney’s gaze darted to the floor-to-ceiling windows that formed the corner of my office. From up here, I had a view of the entire city. She looked out at it for a long time while I watched the sunlight catch in the strands of her hair again.
When she finally looked back at me, her voice was lower and there was a certain measure of resignation in her eyes. “What happens if we don’t continue?”
I kept my tone even. “You’ll be taken care of. The baby will be taken care of, but we’ll go our separate ways.”
“We won’t be married anymore.”
I frowned. “No.”
She nodded once, like she was filing away that information for future reference. I glanced at her hands, held tightly at her sides, small, capable, and currently very much clenched.
“Laney,” I said, surprising myself by the gentle yet insistent tone of my voice. “You can say no.” She looked at me, something unreadable in her eyes. When she didn’t say anything at all, I offered her the closest to a plea she would get from me. “You can say no, but I really hope you don’t.”
Laney didn’t speak for a moment. She just stared at me like she was trying to figure me out. I wished her luck with that endeavor. I lived in my head and I hadn’t fully managed it just yet. “Do people actually do this?”
I leaned against the edge of my desk, knowing what she was really asking. “People like me do. It happens far more often than you might think. There’s nothing wrong or shameful about it. It’s simply practical.”
“People like me don’t do it.” Her mouth twisted like she was trying not to frown. “It’s not normal.”
“Perhaps not to you, but it is effective,” I said, my voice once again hinting at a tenderness I hadn’t known I had.
All of this was coming from a place inside I’d never visited.
“There’s a reason people from all over the world have a history of arranged marriages in one form or another.
They would never have existed if they didn’t have a place in society. ”
She paced slowly toward the window, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. She was debating. I could feel it. The air around her was practically buzzing with indecision.
“You’re overthinking this. It’s not a death sentence,” I said gently. “Laney, you’d be my wife.”
She turned back to me, eyes suddenly wide and filled with something much softer than I’d been expecting.
“My wife ,” I repeated, more firmly this time. “I’d make it worth your while.”
Exasperation tightened her delicate features. “You mean you’ll give me money.”
“I mean I would give you everything .”
She shook her head like she couldn’t quite believe this was real. “Is this really what you want or are you being pressured into it? Is there something else on the line here that I don’t know about?”
While I showed no outward sign of it, I felt the question hit me square in the chest. I hadn’t told her that my inheritance was tied to this arrangement or that my future in the company was. I also hadn’t mentioned that this arrangement was the key to the life I’d spent over a decade building.
“Yes,” I said finally, not feeling the need to tell her about any of those things. “I want this.”
She tilted her head, searching my face for whatever truth she thought I was still holding back, but I meant what I’d said. I did want this, even if I couldn’t quite explain why yet. Even if this wasn’t the kind of want people like her believed in. They wanted messy, poetic, heart-eyed love.
My want was colder and sharper. It was practical and organized, but it was no less real—and it certainly didn’t change how deeply I felt it.