JACKSON
I was barely listening to my father prattling into my ear as I stared out the window of the library into the sunny spring morning outside. My attention was preoccupied with thoughts of Bianca Hardwick.
Sweet, sassy, fascinating Bianca, who spoke her mind and worried about her sick mother and knew how to make a man feel like a king with her kiss.
No wonder her idiot ex was still sniffing around.
In the four days since the benefit, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind. Even when I was sleeping. I’d woken up with a stiff cock every morning, tortured by dreams of her sweet mouth, how soft her eyes had looked after she kissed me, how her hand had curled so tightly into my hair. Every night I’d decided to go into her restaurant, only to change my mind on the drive there and turn around and go home.
I’d said too much, acted too strangely, even threatened her ex with bodily injury. She must think I’m a lunatic. An unstable, depressed, hotheaded lunatic who’d be better off—
“—married,” said my father.
My attention snapped back to the present. “Sorry? Who’s getting married?”
After I got my bearings, I said flatly, “I think we both know that’s never going to happen.”
The following pause wasn’t long, but it was cavernous, and echoed with his disappointment. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?”
My pulse quickening, I tightened my hand around the phone. “What are you talking about?”
My father’s deep sigh echoed over the line. “I’m talking about your obligations to this family. I’m talking about your mother’s broken heart. I’m talking about your trust, Jackson.”
“My trust?” I repeated, confused. I’d heard the family obligations and broken heart themes a million times before, but my father had never mentioned my trust.
He’d set it up for me when I was born. When I turned twenty-one, I started to get monthly distributions from it. Monthly distributions in seven figures, which allowed me to live . . . well, like I did.
Without my trust, I’d be penniless.
Ironically, without my trust I also wouldn’t be the people-hating hermit I was today. Thank you, Cricket.
My father said, “Yes. Your trust. Which, as you’d know if you’d ever bothered to read the thing, stipulates that you must be involved in the day-to-day operation of Boudreaux Bourbon to continue to receive. In lieu of that, you must marry by thirty-five.”
I opened my mouth and found myself unable to speak.
My father said, “I put that last one in place so you didn’t piss away every dime on strippers and blow, like Harvey Culligan’s son did. And thirty-five is generous, you have to admit! I could’ve made it twenty-five, but I figured a man deserves a few good years to sow his wild oats before he gets hitched. Hoein’ around builds character. To a point.”
I would’ve laughed, convinced he was joking, but one thing my father never joked about was money.
Into my astonished silence he said, “Your mother and I have been very, very patient with you, son. This conversation never needed to happen at all if you’d just married Cricket and taken over as Master Distiller like you were supposed to. But after what you did to that poor girl, well . . .”
Oh my God. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
My father’s voice turned brisk. “We don’t need to go over all that mess again. My point here, Jackson, is that you’re my only son. You’re the heir to this whole thing the Boudreaux family has built over eight generations. If you continue to shirk your obligations and refuse to at least settle down and give your mother the grandbabies she wants, then I’m sorry to say, but you’re gonna be cut off without a red cent to your name.”
I made a little strangled sound, which my father took as his cue to end the conversation.
“I’ve been beatin’ around the bush about this for years because I felt bad about the state you’ve been in, but now I’ll put it to you straight. You have until your birthday to get your ass back to Kentucky and take over as Master Distiller, or get married. To a decent girl, mind you. I’m not welcomin’ a hoochie mama into this family! And before you think about bein’ tricky and gettin’ a quickie divorce, you should know that any marriage you enter into needs to last at least five years for you to continue to get your money. The decision’s yours.”
He hung up without saying good-bye. I stared at the phone in my hand.
My thirty-fifth birthday was next month.
This wasn’t real. He was just trying to scare me. It was all empty threats.
Right?
With my heart in my throat, I dialed my family’s longtime attorney. Then I listened with my eyes closed as he told me the bad news.
“So your daddy finally threw down the gauntlet,” said Rayford, calmly reading a newspaper as he sat across from me in the library. “Well, you gotta give Brig some credit. At least he gave you a choice.”
“A choice?” I leapt from my chair and started to pace. I felt like a caged animal. “He didn’t give me a choice, he gave me an ultimatum!”
Undisturbed by my outburst, Rayford turned a page. “No such thing as a free lunch, Mr. Boudreaux. You know that better’n anybody.”
I stopped pacing and glared at him. “You know if I’m poor, you’re out of a job, right?”
Rayford lowered the paper and peered at me over his eyeglasses. “Don’t be foolish. You’ve got Cody to think about. His care, his education, everything he needs. Besides, you don’t know the first thing about bein’ poor.” He snapped the paper up and started reading again.
I folded my arms over my chest and stood with my legs braced apart, like I was preparing for a group of suits from the bank to knock down the front door and I’d have to fight them to the death for possession of the house. “Maybe not, but you know as well as I do that I’m never going back to Kentucky.”
Rayford smiled. It looked a little mysterious. “So that leaves marriage. Who’s the lucky girl?”
I wanted to tear out my hair. Instead I took up pacing again. “Gimme a break, Rayford! Even if I wanted to get married—which I don’t—I couldn’t find a wife in thirty days! I haven’t even been on a date in four years! There’s not a sane woman in the entire state who’d agree to marry a complete stranger and stay married to him for half a decade!”
“So find an insane one. Seems to me there’s lots of ’em.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re no help at all.”
Rayford made a noncommittal noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement, then crossed his legs. His gaze still on the paper, he mused, “Funny, I thought I was plenty helpful the other night.”
I stopped pacing and stared at him. “Please don’t be cryptic. I can’t handle cryptic right now.”
Rayford looked up at me. His mysterious little smile grew wider. “When I was nowhere to be found at the end of the night of the charity event and you had to drive Miss Bianca Hardwick home.”
For a minute I was speechless. “You’re kidding me. You did that on purpose?”
Now his smile positively beamed. “Lovely girl, isn’t she? Lots of moxie, as my mama used to say. And speakin’ of mamas, did I overhear her tell you her own mama was havin’ some troubles? Somethin’ about it bein’ a rough couple of weeks?”
My eyebrows flew up my forehead. “Were you eavesdropping on us?”
He shrugged. “Just passin’ by the kitchen. I’ve got a pair of workin’ ears, no need to get all excited.”
I said sternly, “Rayford.”
He said, “You know she likes you, don’t you?”
After I came back to my senses, I decided my legs weren’t feeling quite normal and sat back down in my chair. I cleared my throat, buying time to let the frog jump out of it before I had to speak again. “What makes you say that?”
Rayford ruefully shook his head. “If I might be so bold, sir, for a smart man you can sometimes be awful stupid.”
Then he folded the newspaper in half and turned the side he’d been reading toward me.
CHARITY BENEFIT RAISES MILLIONS FOR WOUNDED VETS, the headline read. Directly beneath it was a large, color photo of Bianca and me onstage. She was tucked tight under my arm, smiling up at me like an angel.
I said, “I told her to smile at me. She was just following orders.”
Rayford rolled his eyes. “No woman smiles at a man like that because of an order.” He tapped his finger on Bianca’s face, inviting me to look closer.
I opened my mouth to protest but closed it again.
Because he was right. Bianca’s smile wasn’t only on her mouth. It was in her eyes, in her face, in her entire body. She was leaning into me, her arm around my waist, staring up at me like the sun was shining out of the top of my head.
She looked . . . bedazzled.
I was looking at her the exact same way. In fact, if I’d seen this picture anywhere else and I didn’t know the people, I’d have assumed it was an engagement announcement.
I sat back against the chair. A breath left my chest in a noisy rush.
“Mm-hmm,” said Rayford, full of himself. “So there you go.”
“There I go what?”
“Lord, do I have to do all the heavy lifting?” he muttered. Then he waggled the paper impatiently at me. “Hello, future Mrs. Jackson Walker Boudreaux?”
I blanched. “You’re . . . that’s . . .”
Rayford said, “You already know each other, it’s clear that she likes you and you like her—”
“I never said I liked her.”
“Oh, be quiet, now you’re just talkin’ trash,” said Rayford, then continued on with his ridiculous explanation. “And there’s a very good chance that if you sweeten the deal a little bit, she’d say yes.”
I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. “Sweeten the deal?”
Rayford sat back in the sofa and crossed his legs again. Smoothing a hand down the lapel of his suit jacket, he carefully said, “Everybody’s got a price. You didn’t know that last time you got engaged, but now you do.”
I said quietly, “Ouch.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But it seems to me that if you go into it with your eyes open, with all your cards on the table, it might work out for both of you.”
He let me process that, then added, “She doesn’t even own a car.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of the chair. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
Rayford said, “You told me Cody likes her.”
I groaned.
“She’s smart, she’s got her feet on the ground, and she comes from good stock.”
“Rayford! What century is this? We’re talking about a woman, not a cow!”
“And she isn’t too hard on the eyes, either.”
That made me pause. I had a vivid, fleeting image of Bianca prancing naked around my bedroom and had to shake my head to clear it.
“It’s not gonna happen. What would I do, mosey into her restaurant and say, ‘Oh, hi there, I was just thinking since you’re poor and I need a wife that we should get married’? How romantic! I’m sure that’s the proposal of her dreams!”
Rayford said, “Maybe if you prefaced it with the mention of a million dollars, it would be.”
I jerked my head up and stared at him in outrage. I sputtered, “A million dollars?”
He didn’t even blink. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you not a billionaire? With a b?”
“No! My father is a billionaire!”
“And who’s his only son who’s gonna inherit all that money?”
I threw my hands in the air. “This is completely insane.”
But Rayford wasn’t giving up so easily. He said, “And who gets an annual trust stipend in the gazillions every year before his father dies?”
“Gazillions aren’t units of currency.”
“I’m takin’ poetic license here, sir, cut me some slack.”
A sensible man would’ve withered under the stare I sent Rayford. Obviously he wasn’t sensible.
Being annoyingly reasonable, he said, “You don’t want to go back to Kentucky. You also don’t want to be dead-ass broke, because you’ve never had a job in your entire life, and you don’t know how to do anything except collect overpriced automobiles and mope around in your big ol’ mansion. You wouldn’t last an hour as a poor man. So your only other option is marriage. Ideally you’da had a girlfriend you could ask, but your antisocial self doesn’t have one of those, so we gotta be practical and determine who you could stand livin’ with for the next few years before you get divorced and go your separate ways, and everybody’s happy because everybody’s rich.”
He smiled at me. “And from where I’m sittin’, only one woman in the world fits that bill.”
I had to admit it. The man made some very good points.
Shit.