AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Me too.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, my dad took over the company. The plan was always for me to go to business school and go to work for the company after I graduated. He wanted me to eventually take over.”
“And what did you want?”
His brow furrowed. Was it weird that no one had ever asked him that before? “I used to help my mom make furniture, and that’s what I liked to do. But the business end of it? No thanks. Besides, I was a total fuck up. Partying and drinking. That’s pretty much all I did. So, my dad gave me an ultimatum. I could go to college and clean my act up, or he’d cut me off completely. I chose college, but like everything else in my life, I half assed it. And when I barely graduated and started to work at Wilder Days, let’s just say dad was unimpressed with the job I did.”
“I mean, you were fresh out of college. I doubt anyone expected you to be a rockstar.”
“No, but the least I could’ve done was show up to work sober.”
She cringed. “Yeah, I can see where a dad-slash-boss might not enjoy that. Did your dad fire you?”
Knox rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “He should’ve. But he never got the chance. He died about six months after I started working for him.” He saw the sympathy in her eyes, but he plowed on with the story before she could express her condolences again. “He’d remarried by that time, and since I was still a fuck up, my stepmother’s son took over the company, and my inheritance was placed in a trust, per my dad’s will. The only caveat on the trust is that I need to be thirty-five and ‘settled down’ to the satisfaction of the attorney who created the trust. There are other specifics I’ll be let in on when I meet with my dad’s lawyer. But my lawyer told me the best way to show that I’m serious and ready to settle down was to be married.”
Tenley sighed. “And let me guess. He told you this right before you grabbed me off the street.”
“Yep.”
She crossed her legs into the lotus position and Knox tried—he really, really, did—not to think about how flexible she looked. “Is that why you embezzled?”
There was a time when that question would’ve pissed him off. But doing prison time had beaten that outrage out of him. Everyone in prison said they were innocent. “I didn’t embezzle. I was set up.”
Her brow furrowed. “By who? The stepbrother?”
He shrugged. “Probably. He has the most to gain. My inheritance goes to Thadeus if I’m still deemed a fuck up by the time I’m thirty-five. Which, by the way, is less than a week from now.”
Tenley whistled. “Wow. That’s…a lot.”
“Yeah. I’m aware.”
He imagined this was when she’d take her leave. She’d gotten everything she needed out of him when he drove her out of town. She’d done him a solid by getting him out of that police checkpoint and providing a place to sleep. There was absolutely no reason in the world for her to follow him to his parent’s old house in Stars Point. Not when his life was so clearly a disaster. No sane woman would ever—
“I’ll do it.”
Knox blinked at her. “You’ll do what?”
“Pretend to be your fiancé. I can help you get your inheritance.”
“But…why?”
She shrugged. “Sounds like fun.”
He snorted. “No. Trust me when I say that dealing with my stepbrother will not be any fun.”
Her grin showcased an adorable dimple in her right cheek. “You’d be surprised how easy I am to entertain.”
Nope. Not touching that one.
“Besides,” she went on, “I don’t have anything else going on at the moment.”
Knox narrowed his eyes on her. “You want a piece of the inheritance, don’t you?”
Her grin grew even wider. “You really aren’t just a pretty face are you, Cheekbones? I have a strict policy about not doing anything for free. But that just means I’ll be extra motivated to help you.”
That was both sad and scary. The sad part? He wasn’t even mad at her for having a self-serving motive. The scary part was why he wasn’t mad at her. Truth was, the thought of going home alone to face Thadeus and all the shit from his past was terrifying. But not as terrifying as the idea of Tenley walking away from him.
How the fuck had she made him need her after one day?
CHAPTER 9
