Chapter5
The phone rang five times and she began to feel silly for calling him. She was just about to hang up when he answered and her breath caught as her heart practically stopped in her chest before it began to pound hard.
“Hello?” he asked lightly. She could tell he had no idea who was calling, and she realized that he couldn’t have known because she hadn’t given him her number.
“Hi.” she began nervously. She was uncertain of what to say, but she did her best to sound more confident than she felt. “This is Regina. I was looking for Ryder Carrington, please.” She asked, though fairly certain that it was him on the other end of the line.
“This is Ryder.”
“Oh…” She felt stumped again. “You gave me your phone number last night. I was working at the club. You and your friend talked with me about a business offer. I thought I would talk with you a little more about the offer if you are still looking for help.” Her heart was thumping so loudly that she was sure there was no way he couldn’t hear it.
Silence answered her for a long uncomfortable moment that felt as if it was stretching out into eternity. She was just beginning to wonder if she should say anything else as the silence was becoming awkward when he finally spoke.
Ryder hadn’t been expecting her to call him. She had sounded so absolutely positive about turning him down that he had been thinking of other women to talk with about Taylor’s crazy scheme. He was more than a little shocked to hear her voice on the other end of the line. Blinking in surprise, he was suddenly awash with mixed feelings.
The first was a wave of elation that she had called; much to his amazement, he was genuinely happy to hear from her, and happy that she had called him. Right on the heels of that happiness came a rush of panic that made his heart pound like an anvil, and the panic transformed into sheer dread.
If she was calling to talk with him about his offer, it meant that she was seriously considering it, and if she was considering it, that meant that there was a very real possibility that he might be getting married in the immediate future. The very notion of his getting married to anyone, paid employee or not, was enough to momentarily paralyze him with horror.
The silence between them on the phone call grew heavy and something in the back of his mind clicked and he realized that he needed to speak with her and say something.
“Uh… Regina! Right… I’m… I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting your call. You caught me a little off guard.” He realized that he was fumbling horribly and his mind scrambled trying to come up with intelligent conversation.
“I’m glad you called, don’t misunderstand me, but I just wasn’t expecting it.” He took a deep breath in and tried to focus his mind a little better.
“Oh!” She was relieved to hear that he was only surprised and not unhappy to hear from her. “Is this a good time to talk?” she asked, wondering if he was busy.
“Yes, it’s fine.” He answered, feeling a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He was going to have to find some kind of peace with the fact that if he wanted to get his father off of his back and be given his inheritance, he was going to have to find someone to marry, and it may very well be the woman at the other end of the phone call.
He was sorting through his thoughts as quickly as he could, and he came up with the best idea possible for him at that moment. “I would like to talk with you about this idea. What would you say to dinner? We could meet and discuss it all.” He felt his chest tighten and his nerve endings tingle as he asked her out, and it seemed completely foreign and strange to him that he was nervous about taking anyone out on a date, even a business date, and particularly a woman.
He knew that he shouldn’t have been nervous at all. She was a woman. All women loved him and adored him. It was a simple fact, a reality in his life. He was beautiful and charming and they gushed over him. He had never felt nervous asking any of them to spend time with him, yet there he was, feeling palpitations and a little anxiety, just over the mere mention of meeting Regina for a meal to discuss a business concept with her.
A business concept that involved the two of them getting married. He told himself that it was no wonder at all that he was nervous, and he tried to force himself to let go of it and find some calm and peace.
She was feeling just as nervous as he was. To begin with, she couldn’t even believe that she was on the phone call with him. She wondered more than once if she had lost her mind and if it was even real at all, but every time she doubted herself, she looked down at the eviction notice on her table and the big stack of overdue bills beside it and she told herself that she at least owed it to herself to see if he was serious and if she really could make any money at all.
“I think that would be fine except that I don’t have time to meet you for dinner. I have to be at work.” She heard courage in her voice that she did not feel in herself and wondering where in the world it had come from.
Blinking again, he stroked his fingers over his chin thoughtfully. “I could come by the bar.” He offered, sure that it would be a viable solution.
She sighed in frustration but tried to hide it from him as best she could. “I can’t talk with you while I’m working,” she said in an even tone. He had to be realistic, there was no way she could stop working to talk with him about it in detail. She couldn’t even believe she’d had the time to listen to him tell her about the offer to begin with, when he had been at the bar with Taylor.
“Hmm.” He began thinking it through some more. “Is there any other time this week that you have to visit? I could try to change my schedule around.”
“No.” She felt as if the weight of failure was beginning to press down upon her again.
“Well, we’re going to need to figure something out. We can’t really talk about it on the telephone. This is definitely something we should discuss in person.” He thought over his schedule again and again trying to think of a time when they could meet, but he kept running into the same mental road blocks.
She sighed deeply and shook her head, pressing her palm down on her leg. “You know what, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even called. This sounds like it just isn’t going to work at all. I just don’t have the time to meet with you to even talk about it. Thank you for the offer, though. Best of luck with it. Goodbye.”
Regina ended the call and set her phone on the table, dropping her face into her hands. She realized that there wasn’t going to be a way out of it. She had no time to meet with him. She had no time to meet with anyone. She was working and she couldn’t talk with him about it at work, and she was going to school and she definitely couldn’t talk with him about it there. She was at a total loss for time. It had crossed her mind to ask for time off, but she knew that she couldn’t even get that. There was no way around it; no feasible possibility. She felt silly knowing she had even called him to begin with, wasting his time and her own.
She pushed herself away from the table and headed to her little bathroom to get ready for work. A little while later she was praying hard behind the steering wheel of her car, determined to make it get her to her job.
Regina walked through the back door of the strip club in her mini skirt and fitted half tank top. She had been told by her boss to show some skin but not too much as the dancers were there to show their bodies, and she was there to serve drinks and keep the customers happy. He wanted her to be appealing to them without taking attention away from the dancers.
He had offered to get her up on the stage and he told her that she could be making a good deal more money if she danced and peeled her clothes off for all of the men and sometimes women who came in to drink and gape, but she just couldn’t make herself do it.
She told herself over and over that she wasn’t there for that kind of a job; she was getting an education in college so that she could work in business, and while she had no problem with the strippers who did dance around her, she didn’t want to become one. She didn’t want to get caught up in their world and begin making a career out of dancing. She wanted to earn her tips as a cocktail waitress and get herself through school, and at some point, leaving her cocktail waitressing days behind her.
She saw that business was slow when she came out of the back and headed to the bar where Garrett was cleaning glasses. He looked up at her and gave her a big smile as well as an affectionate hug when she reached him. She pulled up a stool, crossing her arms and resting them on the bar.
“How’s my girl today?” he asked, looking her over from the chin up. “You look tired. Don’t tell me, you didn’t get any sleep last night, right?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t really get much sleep last night, but that’s my own fault. I’m trying to do too much.”
He studied her face and her eyes carefully. “What else is it?” he asked, probing a little deeper as he gazed at her.
She never could seem to hide anything from him. Regina climbed up on a bar stool and sat across from Garrett, looking at him as she spoke. “Well, remember the guy who wanted to pay me to marry him?”
Garrett chuckled. “Yes. Carrington, the Manhattan billionaire who wants his inheritance.” He picked up a glass tumbler and began to wipe it out with a white towel as he did dishes behind the bar.
“I guess that’s him. Well, things are a little tough for me right now and I got to thinking about the offer that he made. It would be a really good offer for me. If it’s legitimate. I was going to meet with him and see if he was serious and if it’s really a genuine thing that I could do. I called him and we tried to work it out, but we’re both busy and I just don’t have the time to do it.
Between work and school, it was just too much and there’s no free time for me to even meet with him to find out if it’s actually the real deal. It’s bothering me so much. I’m under a huge amount of stress right now. My bills are piling up and I can’t seem to get ahead enough to pay them, and on top of all of that, I just got an eviction notice. I have to be out of my place or pay my back rent and the back rent is seventeen hundred dollars.
There’s just no way I can do that. It seemed like this was the best way that I could come up with some money fast, but if I can’t even find the time to meet with him to make it work, then it’s not a viable solution, if it’s even a real solution.” She rolled her eyes and dropped her head down into her arms.
Garrett offered her a genuinely sympathetic frown. “I am sorry to hear that. That’s tough news. I would give you more time here, but you just asked for an extra night off a week. I’m guessing that one night doesn’t make much of a difference if your bills are stacking up and your rent is that far past due.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t really make that much of a difference, no. Unfortunately. I wish it did. I’d do the extra night a week and try to figure out the homework, but it’s just far too much and not nearly enough. I hate being caught in the middle of that. It feels like there’s no way out of it. It’s a never-ending cycle of failure. There has to be some kind of relief somehow, doesn’t there? Some light at the end of this dark tunnel?”
He sighed. “I wish there was, pumpkin, but you know what, I’m not even sure of that myself and I’m not going to stand here and blow sunshine up your skirt and tell you that the road ahead is going to be better and sunnier and that you’ll make it through this somehow. That’s just a bunch of crap unless there’s a plan and some serious action, and if what you’re doing right now isn’t working, then you need to change it and find a way to make it work. There has to be a solution somehow, someway.”
Regina groaned and nodded. “I’m sure there is. I just have to find it. I should have known that anything like a billionaire offering me a million dollars for a crazy job like being his wife was just too good to be true. It is, and I shouldn’t have thought that I could do it. I feel silly for even calling him.”
“Don’t feel silly. It was a try, and that’s a good thing. At least you tried.” Garrett gave her a smile.
“Thank you, Garrett.” She smiled back at him. “I better get back to work. These guys aren’t going to tip me anything if I don’t bring their drinks to them.”
She got back onto her feet and got to work. It grew busier during the night and she did alright with her tips; about average for what she usually made, and though she normally would have felt a little better about it, she was dejected inside all night and the tips did nothing to lighten it. She was weighed down by the burden of her debts and by the sinking feeling that it just wasn’t going to get any better and that there was no way out of her hole in the foreseeable future.
When her shift ended at two in the morning she hugged Garrett goodbye and left him to go home. Tired and sad, she walked out of the bar and headed for her car. She was looking down at the sidewalk and not looking around her, and she didn’t see the tall muscular figure leaning against the car parked beside hers.
“Good evening.” He said casually. “Or rather, good morning.”
Her heart nearly beat right out of her chest and her head jerked up as she heard the voice. She planted her hand over her heart and her wide eyes stayed fast on him. Blinking in surprise, she gave her head a shake and the corner of her mouth turned up slightly in the hint of a smile.
“Oh my god! You startled me!” She had stopped short and stood still where she was. “Ryder… what are you doing here?” she asked in confusion. He looked like something out of a dream; a hot guy in snug jeans with a button up shirt only partly buttoned up, leaning against his car with his fingers just barely tucked into his jean pockets, looking at her, waiting for her to come out of work. It was a scene from a movie playing out in real life right before her.
“Sorry,” He gave her a sort of shy and sweet smile, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She looked around them both and saw no one else there. They were alone, and she knew that she should feel a little worried. She knew that it wasn’t a safe situation, but even just looking at him as he stood there looking at her, she knew she was safe. It was a relief to her, though his presence there was still a complete puzzle.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, taking a few steps forward and stopping again, just a little closer to him.
He leaned forward, lifting himself from his car and started towards her, sort of meeting her halfway. “I came to talk with you. I was thinking that maybe we could go get a coffee at an all-night diner or something. You said that you were busy. It’s a time sensitive issue. I’d like to get it discussed as soon as possible, if we can.”
She lowered a brow and her tone somewhat, planting her hand on her hip. “Time sensitive? I didn’t know that you were in a rush to get married.”
Answering her back with a bit of a snarky tone, he smarted off to her as well. “If I wasn’t in a rush, I’d have settled for someone who wasn’t a cocktail waitress.”
Shock hit her like a brick wall and a wave of resentment washed through her. She furrowed her brow and raised her voice. “Listen, if you’re so set on having someone else, then you sure as hell don’t need to be here talking down to me. I have places to be and things to do. Get lost.”
Regina walked to her car and turned the key in the lock, pulling the door open as fast as she could. She was furious with herself for thinking that she ever could have considered a business arrangement, let alone a marriage no matter how brief, to a man who could be so cold and callous before it had even been arranged.
She was just yanking the door open when his hand flattened on the window and pushed, closing the door before she could get in. She turned and looked up at him angrily. “What are you doing? I’m tired. I just worked an eight-hour shift after a long day and I want to leave. I don’t want to sit here and argue with an egotistical, overbearing, self-righteous jerk!”
His jaw fell open slightly and he stared at her. “Wow… no one has ever said anything like that to me at all.”
“Well then everyone you know is lying to you.” She glared hotly at him.
With a sigh, he gave his head a shake. “Please don’t go. Listen, I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it and I shouldn’t have said it. I let my mouth get away from me. It won’t happen again. Just don’t leave. Please… Look, I really do want to offer you the job. I’m very sorry. Listen, there’s a diner right down the road. Just come with me and have a cup of coffee and talk with me. We can even walk there. If you have half an hour, even… just come talk with me and let’s see if this is something that we could work out. Please?”
His apology was genuine and she could see by the earnest look on his face that he meant every word that he had said to her. She thought about her dire situation and she realized that the moment she was in just then might be one of the defining moments of her life if she was careful with it. She knew that, though she was exhausted and what all she wanted just then was a hot shower and as much sleep as she could get before she had to get up in the morning to get to school.
But, she could go have coffee with him for half an hour without it costing her too much time. She could take a shorter shower and skip making herself lunch in the morning. There was a little wiggle room in her schedule, though not much.
She thought about how he had made the effort to go all the way to the club and to wait outside for her by her car so that he didn’t disturb her while she was working, and she realized that had been a thoughtful move on his part. She could try to meet him halfway and at least talk with him. He was making an effort, and though they were off to a rocky start, she could be a big enough woman to make an effort too, and try to find some middle ground.
“Thirty minutes,” she stated flatly. “That’s all the time you’ve got.” Her eyes were steady on his and as she stood there holding his gaze she wondered how many women had gotten themselves lost in it.
He smiled widely at her. “You got it. Thirty minutes. We’ll have this all figured out by then. I’ll make sure of it.”
With a nod and a tired sigh, she closed the car door and locked it. Together they walked side by side away from the bar and down the sidewalk to the all-night diner a block away.
A few minutes later they were seated across from one another, him with a cup of coffee that looked as if it might be older than both of them, and her with a cup of hot tea. Up to then, neither of them had said a word about why they were meeting, up to then but after the waitress left, it was the only thing they both wanted to talk about.
He sipped his coffee and wished he could spit it back out without being rude. Instead he swallowed it and did his best to look nonchalant about it. She looked tired, but still very beautiful, and he found that he was grateful that someone so hard-working and good-looking with such a sharp tongue and a clever mind, had somehow become the one that he was talking to about the ridiculous idea that he and Taylor had concocted. He hoped that he had made a good choice, and that it would be a lucky situation for them both.
Taking in a deep breath, he spoke, hoping that somehow the right words would find their way to his lips and that they would come in just the right order to convince her to help him. He wished that he could tell his father to go to hell and lose everything and not care because none of it mattered, but the truth of it was that it did matter; it mattered more than everything, mostly because of Camille, and partly because of himself and his brothers.
“Is this really a serious deal that you’re talking with me about? This crazy deal you offered me about marrying you?” she asked him point blank. Her blue eyes were locked on his as she tried to look as deeply into him as she could.
He gave her a nod. “Yes, this is completely serious. Everything I told you is true,” he admitted earnestly.
She frowned slightly. “I don’t understand why you’d do this at all. What about love? Why wouldn’t you marry someone you cared about or loved?”
He pursed his lips a moment and began to explain. “I am at odds with my father, and I have been for a very long time. I’m the youngest of three brothers in a prominent and wealthy family. You have probably heard of our name around Manhattan. Everyone has.” He said it as if it was commonplace, though it was anything but.
“My father and I disagree on almost everything that can be disagreed upon, and we don’t get along. Lately things have grown more tense as some of the choices that I’ve made have been the quintessential antithesis of what he would prefer from me, and that’s led us…” He paused and thought about what he was saying. “That’s led him to an impasse with me. This impasse is one that in simple terms, basically means a permanent and complete break.
He thinks I’m wild and unruly, irresponsible and immature, and that I need to settle down with a wife and grow up. I don’t want to get married. I’m not in love with anyone. I never have been. It’s the farthest thing from my reality and I have no interest in it. What I do have an interest in is continuing my lifestyle and receiving my inheritance.” He felt a strong ire rise up in him and he steadied the emotions, keeping them in check as he maintained a level tone.
She watched him, listening to everything that he was telling her and reading him as he said it, trying to determine if what he was telling her was the truth and if there might be anything that he was intentionally hiding and keeping from her. She told herself that if she was going to even consider what he was proposing, she needed to be certain that he was someone that she could trust and believe in. She vowed that she would not tie herself to anyone who might hurt her or try to do her wrong in any way, not even for a job worth a million dollars.
“His solution to our current problem is that I can either get married within three months and settle down, or I lose my inheritance, I am ejected from and disowned by my family, and I’m kicked out of our family home.” He couldn’t believe the words were coming from him. Speaking them made them seem even more real and much closer to becoming reality in his life, and he didn’t want that at all.
“So, you want me to marry you so that you can get your inheritance, and then divorce you because you don’t want to be married?” she asked, keeping up with everything that he was telling her and more.
He sighed and nodded. “Yes, that’s about the extent of it.”
“Can he take your inheritance back from you? Like, if we got married and you got your money, and then we got divorced, could he take back everything and leave you on the street?” she asked, uncertain of the inner workings of the deal before her.
He shook his head. “No. Once I inherit the money and the business and my share of the home… everything that I’ve had coming to me all of my life, he can’t take it back. It’s mine and it stays mine. I just have to get to the point where he gives it to me. That’s where you come in.” He gave her a smile and she could see that he meant it.
Ryder leaned forward in his seat and spoke a little softer. “This is the job. We pose as a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, dating seriously. You meet my family. After a very fast whirlwind romance right in front of my family, I propose to you and I tell my family that I don’t want to wait to be married. I tell them I want you to be my wife right away. No time to waste. We get married even before the three-month mark my father set as a deadline for me. I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t want to risk anything backfiring with this. Are you with me so far?” he asked, pausing in his offer to check with her.
She nodded. “I understand what you’re explaining.” She still wasn’t sold on agreeing with anything. There were infinite holes in his plan and in his story and she wanted to be completely sure before she agreed to anything.
He gave a nod. “Good. So, we get married and when I receive my inheritance, then you and I will get divorced. Now, before we get married we will both sign a prenuptial agreement. We both agree that if we ever divorce, I will pay you one lump sum of one million dollars and you won’t ask me for anything else or try to get anything else from me, and it will be a clean break from that point.
That’s the arrangement. Then, when we get divorced, you will be paid the million dollars, it’s in the contract and it’s legal and binding for both of us. No more and no less. You take your money and go your way, I take my inheritance and go my way, and we’re done. Clean cut.”
She bit at her lower lip as she wondered just how much his inheritance was. If he was willing to pay her a million dollars to get it, it must be a really big inheritance. She wanted to know how much it was, but she didn’t want to be rude and ask, and she didn’t want to make him change his mind about hiring her for the job of being his wife, if he was of a mind to give her that job. Still, she thought to herself, it was going to make her wonder.
“It must be quite an inheritance if you’re willing to marry a complete stranger and pay a million dollars just to get it.” She eyed him closely to see what his response would be.
He nodded and spread his hands out on the table with his palms downward, as if he was smoothing rough wrinkles out of it. “It’s more about family legacy. I don’t want to be out of the family,” he told her evenly. It was partly true. He didn’t want to be out of the family. On the other hand, he also didn’t want her to know that he was inheriting a billion dollars and all of the other things that went with it; business, property, and much more.
Regina knew that he wasn’t telling her everything, but she also knew that she didn’t have to know it all. If he was willing to sign a legal document that gave her a million dollars upon their divorce, then she was willing to take it and she wouldn’t have to know all of the details.
“Okay fine. I’ll do it,” she said, lifting her chin and trying to make her voice sound more convincing than she felt. She wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to do it, but she wasn’t in a position to turn down any money, let alone money in an amount that would make her independently wealthy.
He looked at her curiously and gave her a half smile, his blue eyes alight with intrigue. “Why did you change your mind? When I asked you before, you weren’t interested at all. You said that you couldn’t be bought. What changed?”
She hated that he had brought it up. It made it seem as if she could be bought, and that was the last thing that she wanted him to think. Honestly was the best policy, and she knew it. “I need the money.”
Ryder had supposed that without her telling him, but he refused to be indelicate with her, especially if she was willing to help him out of his massive predicament. “Do you make enough money working at the strip club?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. It’s rare that I get a tip of a hundred dollars.” She gave him a pointed look. “I don’t like working there and I don’t want to work there, but I have no other choice.”
He felt badly for her as he listened to her talking about her situation. He hadn’t considered that her situation could be vastly improved by his job offer, other than that just about anyone would be doing better with an extra million dollars.
“What do you mean? Why don’t you have another choice?” He leaned forward a little more, keeping their conversation private.
Regina liked that they were talking about everything, and she was glad that he was being respectful with her about it. “Well, it’s a night job where I make enough money to live on, at least barely, while I’m going to school.”
Nothing she could have said would have surprised him as much as what she had shared with him. “Really? You’re in school? What are you studying?” He felt awful to hear that she was barely making it with the money she was earning at the club while she was trying to get an education.
“I’m studying business. I’m getting my master’s degree.” She told him with some small amount of pride. At least he’d know that she wasn’t planning on always remaining a cocktail waitress. “It’s just that the bar is open at the right hours for me to go to school and still be able to work, and it’s the most money I can make at a night job. I mean, if I was waiting tables here I wouldn’t be making near as much as money as I make now, and what I make now isn’t nearly enough for what I need. So, it’s not enough but it could be worse.” She looked over at their waitress near the counter with great sympathy.
She had surprised him again. He gave his head a little shake and smiled, looking at her in astonishment. “I understand. I do.” He told her kindly. “Listen, if you do this, I’ll have you quit working at the club so that you can focus solely on your studies. I’ll take care of all of your needs right away even before we’re officially engaged publicly.”
Regina wasn’t entirely certain that she knew quite what to make of what he was offering her. She frowned a little. “What are the parameters of this deal? What exactly will it be like?” She wanted to be sure. She had to be sure.
He spoke clearly and plainly to her. “We’ll spend time together in front of my family for a few weeks so that we can show them that we’re serious about each other. They’ll pick up on that pretty quickly, especially since I never bring any women around for them to meet. Then once we’re married, you’ll move into the family home with me and my family.”
She frowned again. “Won’t that be really crowded?” She asked, disliking the idea of marrying him and living with his whole family.
He shook his head. “No, you’ll hardly notice it. It’s a very large home in the Hamptons. We each have our own wing, actually, so we only really see each other in the common areas of the home. We eat meals together in the dining room, we visit in the entertainment room or discuss business in the library or the study. There’s plenty of room.”
Her heart picked up its pace as she tried to imagine herself fitting into the kind of world that he was describing. “You’re clear out in the Hamptons? I don’t think my car will make it that far.” She looked at him worriedly.
Ryder just smiled at her pleasantly. “I saw your car. That won’t do at all. I’ll buy you a new car to drive. I want to be sure that you’ll be safe and that you’ll have a reliable means to get around. You can get rid of the car you have and I’ll get something nice for you.”
She stared at him. She could barely believe what she was hearing from him. It had to be a dream. Nothing but a strange and totally surreal dream. “You’re going to buy me a car?” she asked in absolute astonishment.
He nodded again. “Yes, that’s no problem at all. You can keep it. It’ll be yours even after you leave. I’ll also provide all of your clothes and upkeep for you, beauty salons and things like that. You’ll need to look the part. I’ll give you a ten thousand dollar a month allowance for whatever you might need. The main thing is that on the surface this must look like a real engagement and marriage. Especially in front of my father. He’s the one who needs to buy this marriage the most. There can be no confusion… no doubt in his mind whatsoever.”
Regina nodded. “I understand. It has to be believable.”
Ryder looked at her pointedly. “It does. Can you make it believable? Can you make him and everyone else believe that you and I are dating, that we’ve fallen in love and that we want to be married so that we can spend the rest of our lives together? How good an actress are you?”
She laughed softly. “I can do it. I pretend to be nice to everyone in a strip club every night. I can put on a show.”
He realized just how right she was, and he gave her a smile and a nod. “Okay then. I think we’ve got ourselves a deal.” Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out an envelope and opened it, drawing out a thin stack of folded papers.
“I’ve had our main family attorney draw up a private prenuptial agreement. In this contract, it states that we’ll be married and that if the marriage ever terminates, you will be paid a lump sum of one million dollars and nothing more or less. It basically outlines the marriage and divorce to a point that you could see for yourself that it’s a business arrangement, though no one else might realize that right away. Please, take your time and read it.” He handed it to her and she read it all, from the first word to the last.
Biting at her lower lip a little, she took a pen from him and signed the last page on the line over her name. It was official. She sat there and stared at her name, wondering what it was that she had just done, and hoping that it was a decision for the best. She was certain that it must be. It had to be. It was even more than she needed and it was happening exactly when she needed it to happen. Not only was it helping her, but it was helping him as well. There was no downside to it that she could see.
He took it from her then and he signed it as well, putting his name not too far from hers and making the document official. His breath was held tight in his lungs all the while he was signing it, and when it was done, his breath came out in a gush of air and emotion, and he prayed that he was doing the right thing. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake with his father, and he was desperately hopeful that this fallacy marriage would not be a mistake. It would be disastrous for him if it was.
Ryder folded the agreement and slid it back into the envelope, tucking that back into his pocket from where he’d pulled it out. “I think it would be best and easier for everyone to believe if we date constantly over the next six weeks and then make the engagement official in public.”
Regina tipped her head slightly to one side, thinking about what was to come. “How big is this wedding going to be? Will we be eloping or will this be something sort of bigger?”
He smiled. “Let’s make it huge. Let’s make it gargantuan, so that it’s really in my father’s face. We’ll go all out with it. Invite anyone you like, make it big, make it fancy, and I’ll pay for the whole thing.”
She laughed at him and he held his hand up with a wink. “Here, let me get you started.” He reached into a different pocket and pulled out a checkbook. With a swift flourish, his hand moved the pen in his fingertips over the paper of the check and a minute later he tore it out of the book and handed it to her. “This is your allowance for this month. We’re halfway through the month, but consider the other five thousand a starting bonus. In two weeks’ time, I’ll give you next month’s check for ten thousand dollars. I hope this will help you for now with what you’re doing and whatever you might need it for.” He smiled at her again and handed it to her.
She stared at it as she took it into her fingers. “I’ve never seen or held so much money in my life.” She couldn’t even wrap her head around the fact that she was holding ten thousand dollars in her hand, and that it was the first of her monthly allowances, for however long she might be legally married to the man sitting across from her. It was completely incomprehensible to her.
“Well, you’ll have a lot more than that to hold before too long. That’s just to get you started.” He gave her a wink and then pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill and set it under the coffee cup before him. He hadn’t taken another drink from it after the first disastrous sip. “I’m sure she could use a one-hundred-dollar tip too, so let’s make her night.”
He was pleased with being able to help the waitress at the diner, and impress Regina all at once. Regina smiled as she watched him, liking what she was seeing.
“You know,” she began with a curious laugh, “You’re not at all who I thought you might be.”
“I could say exactly the same thing about you.” He answered her in return. “Now, that ten thousand is yours to do with whatever you like. I will need to take you clothes shopping this week so that I can present you to my father this weekend. I want you to look the part. When can I take you shopping?” He looked at her and she realized that he was completely serious.
“In two days?” she asked more than told him. She was off from school and she knew she’d have a little bit of free time, especially if she wasn’t going to have to work any longer.
“Two days it is then.” He stood up with a grin and waited for her as she rose from her seat and they walked together out of the diner and back to the parking lot at the strip club. When they got to her car, she reached out and shook his hand.
“Thank you for giving me this chance and for taking such good care of me. It means a great deal to me.” She gave him a grin and he reached an arm around her and hugged her gently before putting her into her car and waiting until she had coaxed it to life. Bit by bit she managed to get it out of the parking lot and on her way home. She was exhausted but she was happy. She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw that Ryder was standing by his car watching her drive away. She could see that he was happy too.
He was watching her go, surprised by her and the kind of woman that she was, surprised that she was working so hard to get an education and that it was in business. He was surprised that she had said yes to him, and that she had even showed up and called him. He was surprised by everything about her, and it made him smile to think of her being in his life for a brief period.