Eight
The wedding ceremony was as beautiful as she wanted. It was smaller than she wanted. But then again, big wasn’t a requirement. And at least this way, she got something out of the relationship, right?
The money was a little better, but that didn’t matter as much as the sex. Living like brother and sister wasn’t part of Rose’s plan for her life. The idea of being married to a man who was always going to be at arm’s length was something she was willing to deal with.
But if the opportunity was going to arise that allowed her to avoid that, then she was going to make sure that she did it as well as she could manage. And she could manage it, in spite of appearances.
The press was there, too. And the next day, her name had been in the paper. For the first time in her life, Rose Sewell—no, Rose Kilpatrick, she reminded herself—was somebody. Somebody worth talking about.
And of course, that was talk around the office, too. Maybe that should have been a problem. It wasn’t. Somebody was going to figure it out for her, she knew. And in the end, it didn’t matter what was really happening. It just mattered what people thought was happening. And that didn’t matter much. It was just how people were going to take it. There was no changing it, and if there was no changing it then she was better off not worrying about any of it.
Rose let out a long, low breath.
“You look tired,” Duncan said. Rose had been careful that he didn’t meet Kilpatrick until after the wedding. There seemed to be some part of Bryce who wanted to be stealing her away from Duncan. To find out that he was as gay as a three dollar bill might have taken something away from his little cuckolding experience.
“Duncan, I’ve been tired since I got knocked up.”
“Speaking of which…”
He looked around. The house was large, and that meant it was easy to have someone just outside of earshot.
“What?”
“Have you… you know. Told him?”
“Told him… you mean about Vi and Sarah?”
“That he’s their…”
She let out a breath. She’d been busy. There were too many things going on to really find the right time. Taking over Michigan Chemical wasn’t what she had in mind for the rest of her life. She was supposed to be doing housework and stuff. Making herself useful for her new husband. Making her life here.
Instead, she was going through ten years of books kept by a man who patently refused to pay anyone else to do it for him, and at the same time, had no special interest in doing it himself.
The finances were precarious at best, and she wasn’t going to hand it off to someone else until she knew enough to know she wasn’t getting swindled hand over fist.
“No,” she said. Having to admit it took the wind out of her sails. Whatever wind had been in her sails in the first place, which wasn’t much in the first place.
“No? What? Are you crazy?”
“I’ll tell him. Once, you know.”
“Once what?”
“Once things have settled down.”
“You should have told him the first day!”
“He’d have tried to get rid of me.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. I’m not an idiot, Duncan. I know who he is.”
“You were more familiar with his cock than his name almost a year, and now you’re claiming to be an expert on the man?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. Maybe you’d be better off trying to actually approach him with this stuff.”
“Maybe you’d be better off not trying to tell me how to run my life.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Well, there’s one thing I can tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to take advantage of this bar. You might be nursing, honey, but I’m not.”
Then Duncan pushed himself up from the sofa and walked over to the bar, and poured himself a heavy glass of honey-yellow alcohol that Rose could smell from across the room. Thanks, pregnancy hormones. One day, they’d work their way out of her system. At least, she hoped so.
Her phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out and jabbed the button to turn the screen on. It was a call. She didn’t know Richie that well, but if she was going to hand the finances off to anyone, it was him. After all, he already handled so many other parts of her finances.
“Hello?”
Duncan turned, taking a drink from the glass with a finely-manicured eyebrow cocked. He was a strange-looking figure, with his eyebrows the way they were. Finely-kept, but at the same time, they were as thick as any she’d ever seen.
The voice on the other end of the line was one that she was careful never to let Duncan hear. He sounded hot. He was hot. And like Duncan, he was as homosexual a man as she’d ever met. She guessed that if she let them meet, it would be a struggle to keep his attention on the work. And she needed some kind of company, with Bryce out of the house so often.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Someone’s buying up stocks.”
“What’s your point?”
“Someone’s buying them, hand over fist. And it’s only a matter of time—minutes—before you’ll be calling him sir and I don’t think you can marry them both.”
“No, probably not,” Rose growled. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Sure. But I need to call you before I allow that kind of expenditure of company funds.”
“Call it okayed then.”
She let out a breath. A sale could be smart. But she wasn’t going to allow a hostile takeover. Not twice in a month, at least. She hoped that would be good enough.
“Something wrong?”
“Same shit,” she said, letting out a long breath. “Different day.”
“Yeah?”
“Someone’s about to buy my company out from under me, and I’ve barely had it four days.”
Duncan nodded, and took a deep drink from his alcohol. It went straight to his head, like it always did. “That doesn’t sound great.”
“No,” Rose agreed. “It doesn’t. But then again, I’ve got an expert on speed-dial.”