Chapter 15
LANEY
T he knock came just after three. I’d known it was on its way. Fifteen minutes ago, I’d received a text to confirm my address and that I was home.
Standing at the kitchen sink, I stared at the wilting herbs in pots on the windowsill. I hadn’t watered them in three days, too busy thinking about babies. Babies, and contracts, and marriages that lasted for thirty-five years despite being entered into this way.
As I stood there, knowing I had to go get the door but unable to convince my feet to move, I thought about the exact weight of a soul under pressure.
A heart that wasn’t in this but was preparing to break at the end, and a mind that knew that sometimes, life didn’t go the way we planned but everyone had to get on with it anyway.
When the knock came again, firm and no nonsense, I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and pushed away from the sink. I watched the dust motes drifting through the air in the late afternoon sunshine and wondered how Dad was going to manage to keep this place clean when I wasn’t here.
On the other hand, just with the signing bonus, I would be able to afford to send a whole team of professional cleaners every week for the rest of my life and the cost wouldn’t make a dent in the nest egg I’d be getting.
Yet, the thought didn’t excite me. It didn’t make me want for the things I’d never had.
Between what Dad and I earned the honest way and our share of the rent from the building we owned with the family, we lived comfortably enough. I guess I could always just come back here and do the cleaning myself.
Feeling marginally better about it, I opened the door. The courier didn’t smile. He barely even looked at me, eyes on his clipboard and his tone sharp and businesslike. “Laney Rhodes?”
“That’s me.”
The guy nodded once and handed over the thick envelope like it was a subpoena.
It felt heavier than paper should, but he shoved the clipboard in my face and I signed on the line acknowledging receipt.
Then he spun around and left without any idea whatsoever of what he’d just delivered.
He didn’t know that these papers would change my life.
For better or for worse—just not in the regular, loving way in which that particular promise was usually made.
I let out a soft sigh, closing the door, but not moving away from it yet.
With the envelope pressed to my chest like a shield, my gaze drifted around the modestly sized foyer of our townhome.
It skimmed across the antique pine side table, its surface scratched from many decades of keys, and purses, and all manner of clutter being dumped on it as soon as we trudged in.
The coat stand in the corner that was sagging after years of holding more jackets, coats, and scarves than any single piece of furniture should be expected to hold at any given time.
More than anything, however, my eyes were drawn to the pictures on the walls. Some were new, in frames that were modern and held photos of memories my dad and I had made. Others, though, were old, the photographs in them yellowing and the hairstyles speaking of trends long since forgotten.
My grandparents smiled at me from frames they’d hammered into the walls before I’d even been born.
Mom was everywhere in between, these pictures of her now the only corporeal evidence we had of a life spent laughing while also busting her butt to keep Baby Blossom open when Megan’s parents had lost interest.
In the quiet of the room, I thanked the good Lord that Dad wasn’t home yet. He trusted me implicitly and I knew he wouldn’t stop me from signing these papers if that was what I wanted, but he’d also encourage me to follow my heart if I wasn’t certain.
I hugged the envelope tighter, knowing that I definitely wasn’t confident in the decision I’d made. Gwen had offered to come over to offer me moral support and champagne once I’d scribbled the next year of my life over to the Royal Prince Westwood, but I’d said no.
I wanted to do this alone. When it all went to hell, I didn’t want to be able to blame her for her encouragement. If I lost the store in a week, I didn’t want to be able to blame Dad either for advising me to listen to what the useless organ in my chest was saying.
Ultimately, this was my decision and mine alone, so I carried the offending envelope to the kitchen table, the same table where I used to do my homework.
The same table where Mama had taught me to frost cakes.
The table where Daddy had once read to me, in a very dramatic voice just to make a point, the entire case file of a girl who’d gone missing after falling in with the wrong crowd.
I slid the envelope across the wood and my thumb caught on the flap, a paper cut blooming across the pad of my finger. Fitting .
Sticking the cut in my mouth, I ignored the sting and glanced down at the papers. I read every word. Then I read them again. From beginning to end.
As much as I was still struggling to believe it, the agreement was real and pretty straightforward. No loopholes or unnecessarily obscure language that might be trying to hide something. No surprises in the fine print.
Just the terms we’d already talked about, printed in black ink with too much white space around them. Sterling Westwood and I would be married for a minimum period of one year, after which the parties would discuss the continuation of their marital relationship .
On occasion, I would be required to make public appearances as Mrs. Sterling Westwood, but I would receive adequate advance notice of any such appearance or event I was expected to attend. All costs of clothing, accessories, or preparation for any such occasion would be borne by him.
Central to the whole agreement was the aspect of discretion.
Basically, I could never tell anyone who didn’t need to know.
I was prohibited from speaking to the press about the arrangement in any way, shape, or form, or I would forfeit any amount still due to me under the contract.
Blah blah blah. As if I’d tell anyone about this anyway other than Gwen and my dad.
And then, there was the part that made my heart lodge in my throat. At some point within the next half a year, but as soon as reasonably possible, the husband and the wife agreed to do everything in their combined power to ensure the conception of a baby .
This was including, but not limited to checkups by an appropriately qualified doctor, consenting to any tests such doctor may require, and receiving any such treatment as may be necessary to reach the aim stated above.
A baby.
Buried in all that nonsense was the fact that Sterling and I would get down to the business of baby-making at haste—and neither of us would legally be allowed to let anything stand in our way. I pressed a hand to my stomach.
It didn’t feel any different, but it might. It could.
And call me crazy, but that thought wasn’t terrifying anymore . It’s… grounding. Calming, even.
All I had to do was sign on the dotted line underneath all the clauses offering me obscene amounts of money—and my company—to go through with this, and soon, there might be a tiny heartbeat thrumming exactly where my palm was pressed right now.
I flipped to the end of the document and signed. My hand shook a little, but I signed.
Because Gwen had been right. Because Baby Blossom wasn’t just a business to me—it was a piece of my family, of my mother. It was a legacy, a promise wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine of the packages we delivered—and I wasn’t going to be the one to let it die.
As soon as the ink started drying on the page, the guilt started coming. Slow at first, but then all at once. It was like standing on a dock and suddenly realizing the boat you’re on is untethered. I swallowed past the achy lump forming in my throat.
I, Laney Rhodes, was letting a man pay me to marry him. I could dress it up all pretty or justify it in whatever terms I needed to, but that didn’t change the facts. I’d said yes.
Even if I’d done it for the business, for my family, and for a child I didn’t even know yet, I’d officially agreed to become the wife of someone who was paying me for the questionable privilege.
It was as cold and practical as the papers sitting in front of me right now. I rubbed my chest, my lashes fluttering closed. I groaned.
For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I cleaned like a beast. I got up from that table and started in the living room, and then I worked my way through every corner of our house like it’d never been cleaned before.
At exactly eight p.m., my phone rang and I smiled when I saw my dad’s face on the screen. Before it’d even rung a second time, I’d snatched it up and I was pressing it to my ear.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said, his voice tired but warm. “I’m not going to make it home tonight. This case is eating me alive.”
I nearly blurted it out right then. The words danced behind my teeth, full of guilt and apology, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lay this on him over the phone like some panicked teenager.
“That’s okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’ll be okay alone tonight?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Be safe, Daddy. See you tomorrow.”
He paused, then sighed. “Love you, Laney Bug.”
“I love you more.”
When the call ended, I stared at the dark screen for a long moment, then slid the signed contract back into the envelope and sealed it. My heart was pounding, my future suddenly real in a way it hadn’t been just hours ago.
Forgiveness , I told myself. Tomorrow, I’d ask for forgiveness.
Deciding that I might as well go watch a movie in bed to distract myself if Dad wouldn’t be coming home, I packed away the cleaning supplies, grabbed a shower, and was just getting into bed when I got a text.
My heart catapulted into my throat when I saw it was from him . Sterling Westwood. Clicking into the message with a shaky hand, I leaned back against my headboard and read my first text from him as my official future husband.
Sterling W: Are you happy with the changes?
I sent him a thumbs-up emoji and moved to set the phone down, but another text came through right away.
Sterling W: Are you going to sign?
Me: You’re awfully eager.
Sterling W: Simply not used to people making me wait.
Me: I’m not used to people proposing to me using a fifteen-page contract I can barely make sense of without a wiry old man in a suit that smells like moth balls reading it to me like I’m a child.
I watched three dots appear, then disappear, and then reappear, and I felt a twinge of anticipation spark in me as I clutched the phone, waiting to find out exactly what was taking him so long. When his text finally appeared, I sucked in an involuntary, super sharp breath and blinked hard.
Sterling W: What’s your ring size?
Me: I haven’t said yes.
Sterling W: Are you going to?
I was enjoying this more than I should. I sent him the shrugging emoji, grinning to myself when the dots once again appeared, disappeared, and reappeared.
Sterling W: I’ll get on my knees for you tomorrow morning. 8 am sharp. I’m guessing you wear a size five? Don’t keep me waiting.
Me: I don’t like diamonds.
When he didn’t respond immediately this time, I pursed my lips, wondering if that was it. A few minutes later, however, he finally replied.
Sterling W: I didn’t think you did.
Just like that. No yay, so you really are saying yes? No awesome, welcome aboard the crazy train, wifey . Just that. I didn’t think you did.
Tossing my phone across the bed, I grabbed a pillow and buried my face in it to let out a muffled scream. I have officially lost my mind, haven’t I?
Yep. That was the only logical explanation. I had officially lost my mind, but I’d already signed the papers, and apparently, I had a date with a ring at precisely eight a.m. God, exactly when and how did this become my life?