“I’m
picking up on that,” he returned mildly. “Excuse me for a moment.” Walking over
to his desk, he opened up the file drawer to the side of his chair and pulled
out a folder. After leafing quickly through it, he moved back over to where
he’d been standing and handed it to Emma.
“You
can sit back down if you’d like,” he said with some amusement.
But
Emma was too wrapped up in the file contents to hear his offer. Leafing quickly
through the pages, she found herself getting angrier and angrier. Her sister
had really screwed up this time. The contract was legal, it was binding, and,
as far as Emma was concerned, it was damning. At least to her. Mason was right.
He could sue. And he would, Emma knew, looking briefly up at where he was
leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his gaze on her face.
She
shuddered, then closed the folder and handed it back to him.
“Tell
me why you need this,” she said quietly. “Jen never said.”
“My
uncle’s will stipulates that I will lose his voting rights within my company if
I am not married by the time I am 40. I turn 40 next month.”
“Did
his will stipulate that you could pay someone to marry you?” Emma asked, with
some degree of scorn.
But
Mason just shrugged. “I don’t really think he cared. He ordered a bride from
Columbia, so he doesn’t exactly have moral high ground here. And he really just
wanted to be sure that I had children to pass the company on to so that it
stayed in the family.”
Her
complexion had been white before, but now it turned green. “Wait. You never
mentioned children,” she said faintly.
Mason
smiled his cold smile again - the smile that made Emma's stomach clench and her
palms sweat. “That’s my uncle’s rationale, not his legal demand. The only
demand was marriage.”
“And
how long does this marriage need to last?” she asked.
“Three
years.”
“Three
years
? Are you kidding me?” she asked again.
“As
I said before, I do not kid.”
“You
want me to agree to marry you for three years,” she said again, out loud,
making sure that she understood what he was asking of her.
“Yes.
That’s what your sister agreed to,” he said almost casually.
“My
sister,” Emma asserted. “Not me.”
“It’s
all the same to me.”
“You’re
a piece of work, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Perhaps,”
he shrugged. “But you don’t even need to worry about it if you find me a
replacement for your sister.”
Emma
seethed. “You know as well as I do that I won’t be able to do that. Not without
breaking the damn confidentiality clause of the contract.”
“Ah,
such a good lawyer. You noted that clause.”
“It
was hard to miss, it being front and center and all.”
“Then
I’ll see you here on Friday,” Mason said agreeably.
“Your
uncle was a moron,” Emma said quietly, crossing her arms and sinking back down
onto the couch. “People don’t put stuff like that in their wills these days.
That’s the plot of a really bad romance novel, not real life. And it cannot
possibly be legally binding.”
Mason
shrugged again. “My uncle was a bit of an eccentric. But a very rich, very
happy, and very successful eccentric. Who am I to judge? But he used the best
lawyers in town, and my own lawyer has assured me that the requirements of the
will are, indeed, binding.”
“I
want to see his will.”
“Why?
Doesn’t really matter, does it? The contract exists, and it isn’t null and void
if the rationale behind it turns out to be untrue.”
“Oh
hell,” Emma muttered under her breath. “I don’t believe this mess.”
Mason
just looked at her. “She’s
your
sister,” he pointed out.
Emma
narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You were prepared to marry her, so don’t
get all high and mighty with me,” she ordered. “And I think I probably should
point out that, if I can’t figure out a way out of this… this…. oh hell.
Whatever this is. Anyway, this is not going to all go your way,” she finished.
“Oh?
And what exactly do you mean by that?” he asked politely. Or as politely as
could be expected when one is holding all the cards.
Emma
closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then continued. “Look. I don’t know what
arrangement you had with Jen, but you and I are renegotiating. There is nothing
in that contract that states what kind of a relationship the two of you would
have, where you would live, how you would relate to each other….”
He
smiled then. That same rather predatory crocodilian smile, but a smile
nonetheless.
“So
Emma. Tell me what kind of relationship you want.”
Emma
seethed. Now was not the time to get flirty or anything other than
business-like, and the man’s arrogant assumption that she wanted
anything
from him at all was unmerited. She glared at him. “I may
need
to marry
you to fulfill the terms of a
contract
, Mr. Parker. A contract I did not
sign, I should point out, but which I
may
choose to abide by.”
“To
save your home,” he pointed out.
“To
protect my sister,” she corrected angrily. Yeah, her home was important to her.
But this man would destroy Jen. And even though she, herself, was prepared to
strangle the woman with whatever item she had at her fingertips when she next
saw her, including dental floss, electrical cords, or strands of celery, Jen
was still her sister. And she would be damned if she’d let this Neanderthal
take away everything that she, or they, had worked for, or that she’d let this
man have her sister arrested.
“Very
noble of you, considering that she practically sold you to me,” Mason pointed
out.
Emma
looked up quickly, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“Why
do you think she sent you over here? She could have called. Written. Sent a
singing telegram. But she sent you, under the pretense of picking up her
non-existent things. So you are clearly her choice for a replacement.”
Emma
closed her eyes. Mason could be right, of course, and some part of her had
understood that as soon as she’d seen the contract.
Opening
her eyes again, she speared Mason with a sharp gaze. “What did you promise Jen
for this arrangement?” she asked. It occurred to her that she had no idea what
Jen had been getting out of this deal. She knew what Mason had needed, but had
no clue what it meant for Jen. And Mason had mentioned Jen disappearing with
his money.
“$750,000,”
Mason responded.
Emma
was actually surprised. “That’s all?” she asked.
“It
worked out to $250,000 a year.
And
she was going to be married and live
and travel with a very rich man. So there were bound to be perks.”
“How
much did you give her up front? How much did she walk away with?” Emma asked.
“$300,000.
So the rest is yours. We can work out the details on Friday. It’s less than I
promised your sister, but you’ll still end up getting a pretty good amount of
money.”
“I
don’t want the money,” Emma stated firmly. “Why in the hell did you give her
anything before you married her?”
“I
had no reason to distrust her. And she knew as well as I did that I’d get all
of it back and more if she broke the contract.”
“Unless
she shoved it all off on me.” It was hard not to be bitter. Her sister walked
away with $300,000, and she was the one who would end up in a relationship with
a cold-blooded crazy man for three years. All for the sake of family, God help
her.
“You
could walk away any time you want to,” Mason pointed out reasonably.
“She’s
still my sister,” Emma replied. “And while I may be angry as hell at her right
now….”
With
a shrewd look at Emma, Mason said, “That’s what she’s counting on, you know.”
“Yeah.
I know. She knows me pretty well.”
Mason
crossed his arms over his chest, looking formidably down at Emma. Geez, he was
big. And solid. She glared back at him, but he was unmoved.
“So,
Emma. That leaves us back where we were a short while ago. Friday. Our
appointment at my lawyer’s office is at 1:00. We can take care of the
contractual details beforehand. Meet me here at noon, and we’ll go from there.
Shall I send a car for you?” he asked politely.
“No
thank you,” she responded through gritted teeth.
“Very
well. On Saturday, we can start moving your things in here.”
At
that, Emma visibly started. Her eyes flew to his, and she crossed her arms in
front of her defensively. “Oh no,” she said firmly, her eyes moving around her,
again taking in the starkness of his home. “I’m not living here,” she stated.
But
Mason quietly responded, “You are.”
“No,
I’m not,” she argued.
“Emma,
you are,” he repeated with exaggerated patience. “You will be my wife.”
At
that, Emma turned white as a sheet. Surely he didn’t intend….
But
he just shook his head in annoyance. “Oh for… Not in that sense,” he assured
her.
“So
why do I need to live here?” she persisted.
“I
have social functions, Emma, which you as my wife will be expected to attend.
And we’ll be hosting functions. Either way, you and I will be seen as a couple.
There will certainly be expectations that a husband and his wife will share a
home,” he said logically.
But
Emma was not moved by a logical argument. “There are no expectations,” she
stated firmly. “You are marrying for money. I am marrying under duress. Nobody
is going to believe that we met and fell in love, and we don’t need them to. If
I understand correctly, all you need to do is to be legally bound to a woman
for three years. And after that, we divorce and go our own way.”
But
Mason just sighed, looking down on Emma with some impatience. “Not exactly,” he
said.
Looking
over at Mason with narrowed eyes, Emma asked, “What do you mean by ‘not
exactly’?”
“You
and I know the details of this marriage. As did Jen. As does my lawyer. But
nobody else will. I have a reputation that I need to uphold. I work with many
business people who value families and respect marriage – I do not expect them
to understand this kind of an arrangement.”
“But
if you took Jen to court, or pressed charges against her for stealing, it would
all be out in the open,” she pointed out.
He
shrugged. “It would hurt Jen more than it would hurt me. The contractual
details would be buried behind the ‘arrested for theft’ part. And ultimately,
you’d be hurt too – you’re a lawyer. You can’t have a thief for a sister and
still retain your reputation.”
Emma
closed her eyes and seethed. This was a nightmare. No wonder her sister skipped
town. And left her to clean this up, she thought. Only it couldn’t be cleaned.
She was going to be stuck, once again, dealing with a mess made by her sister.
And this time, it was serious.
“So,
Emma, you will live here. You will, in almost every sense of the word, be my
wife. And you will play the part.”
Acting
as this man’s wife would be the easy part, Emma thought. The hard part would be
trying to figure out how to keep her own life separate from all of this, and
how to keep on living it. Because she had no clue how the hell she’d inform her
friends, her parents, her grandmother, her dog…. Oh my
word
, she
thought.
Chaos
. That could be a deal-breaker. Maybe her dog would get
her out of this! Her big, lovable, slobbering, mess of a wonderful dog!
“I
will live here,” she said at last, “on three conditions.”
“You’re
not really in a position to bargain,” he pointed out.
“Neither
are you,” she countered. “You’re the one who needs a wife in less than a
month’s time.”
“Point
taken,” he said dryly. “Compromise is the key to any good marriage,” he added
with a half smile. “What are your conditions?”
“I
have a dog. He comes with me.”
“A
what?”
“A
dog. A big lovable dog. We’re a package deal. You marry me, you get my dog
too.”
“How
big?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“65
pounds.”
He
sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’ll get a dog house.”
She
crossed her arms. “He is not an outdoor dog. He likes couches, pillows, and
beds. I crate him when I’m not home, but he does not get relegated to the back
yard.”
“My
house is not exactly dog proof.”
“Look.
I’m considering marrying you and moving in here to save your damn voting stock
and my sister’s finances. The least you can do is put away your cherished
knick-knacks and accept some fur in your life.”