BIANCA
Four days had passed since the benefit, and though I kept hoping Jackson would walk through the front door of my restaurant, he never did.
Now I’m as liberated as the next girl, but one thing I will never, ever do is chase after a man. No matter how much of a fascinating puzzle he is. My mama always said the minute you make a move on a man is the minute you lose control, because then he knows he’s got you.
“A woman worth her salt should be the hardest thing a man has to work for in his life, because then she’s a prize, not a gift,” she’d told me. “Anything you get for free is worth exactly what you paid for it: nothing.”
I wasn’t looking for control in a relationship, but I knew she had a point because I’d thrown myself at Trace like I’d been shot from a cannon, and look where that got me.
So I put Jackson Boudreaux out of my mind and focused my energy into taking care of Mama, running the restaurant, and trying to think of ways to make more money.
Unfortunately I was coming up short on all three counts.
“Boo, what’s happenin’ with you?” said Eeny, hands propped on her hips. “I’ve never seen you lookin’ so raggedy!”
We were in the kitchen. It was a weeknight, and the restaurant was full. Mama was in her second round of chemo and was sick as a dog. I’d started spending the night at her place because I was afraid to leave her alone. When I’d looked into the cost of a home health-care worker to help out, I’d nearly fainted.
I should’ve gone into health care instead of the restaurant business.
“I’m fine, Eeny,” I said, rubbing my eyes. They were grainy and bloodshot from lack of sleep, and swollen from crying.
Watching someone you love being slowly poisoned to death is not much fun.
“Girl, you are not fine!” said Eeny, folding her arms over her chest. “I’ve known you since I was cookin’ in your mama’s restaurant and you were knee-high to a grasshopper, and never once have I seen you in such a state! I think you should tell me what’s goin’ on before I pay a visit to Miss Davina and get the truth!”
I stopped stirring the big pot of jambalaya on the stove in front of me and turned a tired eye to Eeny. She stood there glaring at me, searing my eyes with the canary-yellow caftan she was wearing, which had turquoise-blue stripes and a matching turban. All she needed was some fruit in it, and she’d look exactly like the Chiquita Banana lady.
“Where’s your apron?” I asked. “You’re blinding me with that getup.”
She said, “I’m not coverin’ up this beautiful frock I special ordered with one of those dingy ol’ kitchen aprons! And don’t change the subject!”
I loved that she was worried about me, but if I told her the truth, the news would spread around the city faster than the speed of light. Eeny was many wonderful things, but circumspect wasn’t one of them. She loved gossip as much as she loved loud frocks and fried plantains.
So I said, “I’m fighting a bug.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie. I was fighting a bug. The depression/insomnia/so-broke-I-can’t-afford-to-pay-attention bug.
Eeny narrowed her eyes at me. She opened her mouth, but before she could get anything out, Pepper ran through the kitchen doors.
“He’s here again!” she shouted gleefully. “It’s him!”
There was only one person in the world who could get Pepper so excited. I wondered how much Jackson had given her this time.
My heart beating faster, I said, “He’ll have to wait for a table, unless you can move some of those reservations around.”
Pepper, in a tight, shiny gold dress so short it looked like a skirt she’d hiked up over her boobs, jumped up and down, grinning like mad and clapping her hands.
“He doesn’t want a table! He wants to see you!”
Eeny muttered, “Get the poor man a pair of sunglasses and a stiff drink.”
Over on the other side of the kitchen, Hoyt started to whistle the theme to Jaws.
I said, “Pepper, please tell him I’ll be out in a min—”
Jackson burst through the kitchen doors. He spotted me standing frozen at the stove and said loudly, “Everyone out.”
The entire kitchen staff turned to look at me.
Oh Lord. Not this again.
Smoothing my hands over the flyaways from my bun, I said, “Jackson, we’re so busy right now. I’m sorry, but I can’t have my employees—”
“We’re getting married,” he pronounced, and stared at me.
Pepper gasped. Eeny did a comical double take. Hoyt started coughing and couldn’t stop. Everyone else stood stock-still, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.
Most of me was convinced he was joking. It was in terrible taste, but that was really the only option that made any kind of sense.
There was a tiny part of me, however, that noted the determined look in his eyes and wasn’t so sure.
“How nice for us,” I said sarcastically. “And when will the blessed event take place?”
When he looked relieved, I started to panic.
He said, “As soon as possible. Tonight, if you want. We can go to the courthouse right now.”
Pepper squealed in glee. No one else made a peep, except for Eeny, who threw her head back and started to laugh.
That’s when my panic turned to anger.
I marched over to Jackson, grabbed hold of the front of his shirt, and dragged him out of the kitchen and into the alley behind the restaurant, kicking the back door open in front of me. When the door slammed shut behind us, I whirled on him and let him have it.
“What the Sam hell is the matter with you? This is my place of business! Some of us have to work for a living! You can’t just barge in here and start telling stupid jokes—”
“It’s not a joke,” he interrupted, his voice hard. “And if you marry me, you’ll never have to work again.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You’ve lost it. You’ve seriously lost your mind.”
“Just hear me out—”
“No, I won’t hear you out! I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t find this funny! And I don’t have time to listen to whatever stupidity this is! I swear I oughta just call the loony bin and have them pick you up—”
“I’ll give you a million dollars.”
He obviously thought that was a good direction to take this conversation, but I felt like he’d just punched me right in the gut.
It was painfully obvious now that he wasn’t joking. He was serious as a heart attack. He’d walked into my restaurant and announced we were getting married—not asked, announced—and then told me how much he was paying me to do it.
The man thought he could buy me. He thought I was for sale.
He thought I was a whore.
Heat flooded my face. In a raw, shaking voice, I said, “How dare you.”
“I know you need the money—”
That’s all he got out because I stepped up and slapped him across the face.
The crack of my open palm hitting his cheek seemed unnaturally loud. But maybe face slaps were always that loud. I had no idea, because I’d never done it before.
His head snapped around. He lifted a hand to his cheek and stared at me with his lips slightly parted, his eyes dazed. Bewildered, he asked, “What the hell did you do that for?”
What an idiot.
I hissed, “I’m not a whore, Jackson Boudreaux. Whatever your opinion is of me, I’m setting you straight right here and now. You can’t buy me.”
“I don’t think you’re a whore! Jesus Christ, hold on a minute—”
“No, you hold on, you rich, dumb, arrogant ass! I took the catering job because I needed the money, yes, but not for myself, and not so I could get sold into prostitution later on!”
“What the fucking hell—”
“You should be ashamed of yourself! What would your mother say if she could see you right now, offering money to a girl to sleep with you?”
“Holy fuck, Bianca!”
“Stop cursing at me!”
He took two steps toward me and shouted right back, “I never said anything about sleeping with me! I’m talking about marriage!”
We stood nose to nose, glaring murder at each other, breathing hard, our hands clenched to fists.
“Oh, I see,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re gay. You need a beard.”
Jackson closed his eyes and muttered an oath under his breath. “No. I am not gay.” He opened his eyes. “And you know it, because that kiss we had was hotter than the sidewalk in July.”
We continued to glare at each other. I said, “Your metaphors need work.”
“Excuse me. Hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. And comparing a lady’s kiss to anything to do with a goat is just bad manners.”
His eyes glimmered with laughter, but his face stayed straight. “You’re right. I’ll try it again. That kiss was hotter than a housewife reading Fifty Shades of Grey at the Magic Mike premiere.”
My lips twitched. “Better,” I said, and turned my back on him, folded my arms over my chest, and blew out a hard, frustrated breath.
He let me settle for a minute, then walked slowly around and stood in front of me. “Obviously I came at this in the wrong way—”
“You think?”
He sighed. “Can I just get a word in edgewise, please? Let me say my piece, and then you can send me on my way. Deal?”
He was standing in the exact right position for me to give him a good, swift kick in the balls, but now my curiosity was getting the better of me, so I gave him a surly look and a shrug.
“Thank you,” he said. “Okay. A little backstory. I have a trust. It’s . . . big.”
I rolled my eyes.
Jackson sighed again. “As I was saying, I have a big trust. And no, that’s not a metaphor. I found out today that to keep my trust and inherit my fortune once my father dies, I need to either work for the family company or get married. By my thirty-fifth birthday.” His look turned sheepish. “Which is next month.”
I made a face. “So go work for the company, dummy!”
He didn’t appear to appreciate being called a dummy, but he restrained himself from whatever smart remark he wanted to say and instead said, “I can’t. I’ll never go back to Kentucky. Never.”
“Why not?”
He looked away. That muscle in his jaw started jumping. “There’s nothing for me there but ghosts.”
His voice was tight, his spine was stiff, and he looked miserable at just the mention of Kentucky. I looked down at his wrist, hunting for the semicolon tattoo, and caught a glimpse of it in the shadows.
If he was trying to get me to feel sorry for him . . . it was working a little.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So marry some debutante and have your two point five perfect babies and live happily ever after with your country club membership and your polo ponies. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the problem here.”
Jackson turned his head and looked at me. The expression in his eyes stole my breath.
He said, “The problem is that you’re the only woman I’ve liked in a long time.”
He let that sink in, then added, “And I don’t want to be poor. I’d be exceedingly bad at it. For one thing, I’m not nice enough.”
“How ridiculous. Not all poor people are nice.”
He frowned. “Really? Every poor person I’ve ever met has been extremely nice to me. Well . . . except you.”
I threw my hands up. “God, you’re hopeless. They’re nice to you because you’re rich! They want your money!”
“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “I thought only rich people were like that.”
I stared at him in amazement. “You’re right. You couldn’t be poor. You have no idea what real life is like.”
“Exactly!” he said. “So you understand my predicament!”
“What I understand is that I have a restaurant full of guests and I’m standing in a dark alley talking to a delusional rich man about his imaginary problems. You need a bride, run an ad in the paper. You’d have five thousand responses the first day.”
“I told you. You’re the only woman I’ve liked in a long time. I don’t like strangers. I don’t trust people. Women in particular.”
Whew, I wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. “You just told me I wasn’t nice to you. Why would you like me?”
His eyes started to burn. “You’re honest. And real. And you don’t care about my money—”
“Ha! So you offer me a million dollars of it?”
“I wasn’t finished. You don’t care about my money, and you’re kind, and responsible, and you’re not afraid to call me on my shit, and you’re so fucking beautiful it sometimes hurts to look at you, like I’m gazing into the sun and could go blind if I stare too long.”
He stopped talking abruptly, as if he’d shocked himself with what came out of his mouth.
He wasn’t the only one.
Beautiful. He called me beautiful. That right there was worth more than the money he’d offered.
In a spectacular display of intelligence, I said, “Oh.”
He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He looked at the ground. He squinted up at the stars sparkling in the night sky. Finally when he couldn’t find anywhere else to look, he glanced gingerly sideways at me, like maybe he was expecting another smack across his face.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then I said, “Let me get this straight. You want me to marry you.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t have to have sex with you.”
“Right.”
“If I don’t marry you, you won’t marry anyone else.”
“Correct.”
“And there’s no chance of you going to work for your family’s company.”
He shook his head emphatically. “None.”
“So what you’re basically telling me is that if I don’t agree to marry you, I’ll be responsible for you losing all your money and becoming a pauper and ruining the rest of your life.”
He blinked. “Well . . . yes.”
I snorted. “Gee, no pressure.”
He lifted his hands, palms out, in a surrendering gesture. “It wouldn’t have to be forever. Just five years and then we could get divorced.”
“Five years!” I exclaimed, freshly horrified. “I’m thirty-one years old, Jackson; that puts me close to forty by the time you’re finished with me!”
He looked pained by my choice of words. “I think your math is a little off there, Bianca.”
“What if I want kids? Have you considered that? By the time we get divorced, I’d be an old maid!”
He said, “Hardly. And you could always do IVF. I mean, you’d have enough money. Or get a surrogate. Or adopt . . . why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’m having an out-of-body experience. Somehow I’ve been transported to an alternate universe where a psychotic billionaire is trying to convince me to enter into a sham marriage, give up five years of my life, and forego the possibility of actually falling in love and sharing a future with someone. Someone who loves me for who I am, not what I can do for him. Do you really think any amount of money could convince me to do something so—so—wrong?”
For a moment, he looked agonized. Really, truly pained, like I’d stabbed him in the heart.
Then he said in a gravelly voice, “You’re right.” He swallowed and backed away a step. “You’re absolutely right. I’m so sorry. This was . . . stupid. Reckless. I shouldn’t have thought you’d . . . you’re not the kind of . . . fuck. Please forgive me.”
He turned around and walked away at a pace that was close to a run.