Chapter 11
BLAKE
Issac's stare bores into me from across the table, and I hold my hands up.
"Come on, man. You barely know her."
Issac's jaw tightens, but I continue.
"You told me yourself, it was a business transaction, right? So does Danielle not make the most sense?"
Issac remains silent.
He gets like this when he's pissed, but I'm hardly ecstatic. "I've got to marry my ex and be forever in her debt, just to fulfill my obligations," I spit, my grip tightening around the beer bottle.
"Did you love her?" Issac gazes at me, and I feel bad. My best friend of many years, and I've never once spoken about Danielle.
Fiddling with the beer label, I heave a sigh. "Yes."
Issac sucks in a breath, and his body relaxes. "Good," he exhales, uncrossing his arms. "Then maybe you can admit you still have feelings for her before this happens."
Arching a brow at him, I glance around with a smirk. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I'm saying," Issac sips from his beer bottle slowly, agitating me with the delayed response.
"If you feel anything for her, don't put her through this.
It will ruin her life because of who you are to her.
She's not one of these gold-digging tarts, Blake.
She works hard; she's got ambition." He presses his lips together, shaking his head.
"You don't deserve her, Blake. I doubt you ever did. "
"Fuck you. You don't know her either, Issac."
We glare at each other until the bartender drops off two more beers, eyeing the two of us warily. "Anything else?"
I shake my head, no.
"Look at me. If you fuck her over, you'll have to carry that guilt forever. Some sad fucker will spend the rest of his life picking up the pieces of your destruction."
Cracking my knuckles, an old habit that’s never died, I hold his gaze in mine.
"I know you think you’ll be that sad fucker.
But you refused to see her throughout this, so what does that make you?
Why would you spend the rest of your life picking up the pieces when you refused to be there throughout a business arrangement? "
Issac's nostrils flare, and he closes his eyes. "She has to pretend to be in love with you. I can't be with her while she's hanging off your dick," Issac snaps. "We both know that's going to happen, Blake."
He doesn't know Danielle at all if he thinks she's going to hop into my bed at any point over the next five years. "She won't, Issac. She hates me."
Issac smiles like that pleases him. "What did you do?"
"Does it matter?"
Issac waits, and I know he wants the details.
Details that sound so simple, so innocent, but they are anything but.
Not to Danielle.
"Did you screw around?"
"No!" I retort, draining my beer. "I just ended it."
"Why?"
God, this fool.
"Because we were too young."
Issac frowns, tilting his head to the side as he points his beer bottle in my direction. "That's it?"
"It was too intense; we were too young…"
"You are kidding me, right?"
I meet his eyes, shaking my head. "It was the right thing to do; look at how I've lived, Issac. I couldn't have given her my word then."
"Because you're Blake James?" Issac rolls his eyes. "You lost a girl you loved because you wanted to screw around? God, you're stupid."
Gritting my teeth, I refuse to rise to his bait.
Memories of Danielle staring into my eyes, her fingers stroking my neck as we inhaled each other's breath fill my mind. The erratic pounding of my heart when her lips pulled into a bright smile, the way she made me feel when she brushed her lips against mine.
"I'm done with this conversation."
"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you. You better not fuck her over, James." Issac stands up, tossing notes onto the table for the bartender. "Danielle's amazing." This isn't like Issac.
"If you like her so fucking much, why won't you see her throughout the fake marriage?" I rise to my feet, knowing the two of us squaring up to one another isn't a pretty sight to behold.
"I told you why."
"So? Fuck what you have to see her like, if you know she doesn't mean it, that it means nothing to her—have your fucking relationship with her."
Issac nods, a sad smile on his face as he shakes his head at me. "Maybe I will. Write that into your fucking vows."
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sink back into the chair, exhaling heavily.
Why the fuck did my dad do this to me?
Dragging my phone out of my pocket, I scroll through the numbers until I see hers.
Danielle.
She answers, and I hang up like the coward I am.
Fuck Issac and Danielle.
They can do what they want; I'm in this for the long run.
Five years.
Then I never have to see her again.
Until then, I'm getting married tomorrow in a little office, away from prying eyes.
Danielle could barely look at me when the arrangements were made, and she even went as far as to make sure it was during her lunch hour.
Who gets married on their lunch hour?
It's hard to separate emotions from transactions in the world of business, but it's not something I've struggled with.
I'm not about to start now, either.
Ending things with Danielle was the hardest decision I've ever made—and Blake James from the past would be screaming with joy if I told him he would end up marrying her.
But now?
It's business.
Sure, she's my ex.
But my best friend seems attached, and nothing can ever happen between us anyway—there are clauses left, right, and fucking center keeping us in line.
I think Danielle and Issac could be good for each other. She wants a happily ever after, a Prince Charming to her princess. However, I can't be that Prince Charming for her, and Issac deserves a good woman after the shit with Devon's mom.
So why am I so fucking jealous?