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Prologue
March West
“Excuse me?”
“You need to be married by the end of next month if—" the attorney kept talking, repeating once again what I’d thought I misunderstood.
But I hadn’t, since he was repeating himself verbatim.
“What?” I frowned, looking at my grandfather’s oldest friend and attorney. A man I had known my entire life. Now he stood in front of me, and I stared at him like he was fucking demented.
Marriage and I were never going to happen.
I didn’t do relationships.
Hell, I hadn’t done anything more than my hand in the last couple of years.
“The terms of the loan your grandfather stipulated,” Clerence started to repeat, but I placed a hand up, silently asking him to stop. Fuck, was it me, or was the room suddenly really hot? Stifling despite the snow on the ground outside his office. This was the last thing I expected when he called me to ask me to stop by today.
“You’re telling me my granddad added some kind of fine print bullshit in the loan he gave me before he…” My voice drifted off to nothing.
It still hurt to say out loud.
I’d loved the old man. Arthur West had been the one who shared the beauty of building with me. The one who had encouraged me to forge my own path even though we owned the family ranch. We’d always been close. I would have even called the old guy my best friend. I knew he had always worried that as his oldest grandson, I wouldn’t settle down. That I wouldn’t get married and have a bunch of kids he could spoil.
I’d always figured he would get great-grandkids from my siblings, but he passed before he could meet them. I rubbed my chest, trying to make the hurt and betrayal fade, but it didn’t.
“You’re telling me he added some kind of clause to the loan.”
“Yes,” Clerence confirmed with a sympathetic look in his eyes. “Look, March, you know Grayson loved you. He loved all his grandkids, but you were special to him.”
“He loaned me that money,” I huffed, running my fingers through my overgrown hair. I had been so busy with projects and pitching in at the ranch, I’d hardly had time to rest, much less go in for a haircut. “I can pay it back, and just?—"
“That’s not how it works. You took that loan and stopped paying it after he passed. It’s been six years, and now you need to get married by the end of March, or the company will be taken and put into the hands of?—"
“A cat shelter,” I repeated the place he’d mentioned before.
Of all the stupid, idiotic scheming that old fart had ever done, this by far topped it. He knew how to kick me in the ass even from the fucking grave. My grandfather, my best friend, was really playing with my head, trying to hand my company over to a damn shelter who wouldn’t know what the hell to do with it!
“Yes.” Clerence nodded. “Now, all I will need is a marriage certificate and interview your bride by the end of the upcoming month for all this will go away.”
“That easy, huh?” I asked, not hiding the sarcasm that dripped from my tone.
“It could be.” The bald, paunch-bellied man shrugged. He pulled a card out of his front pocket and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Look, son, I’ve known you your whole life. I know what your grandfather slipped in here was wrong.”
“But you didn’t stop him,” I pointed out, and he sighed.
“None of us knew he was sick,” he reminded me, and I frowned.
I was being a dick. Clerence and my granddad had been best friends. He felt the loss as much as I did, if not more. Grief was a bitch.
“If I had known he did it thinking he’d be dying on us soon, I would have pushed him more to change his mind. But you knew him, March. The man was just as stubborn, if not more, as you.” I gritted my teeth.
“It’s a West family trait,” he mumbled and shook his head. Clerence pointed at the card in my hand. “Now, like I was saying, I know you. I know how, for whatever reason, and I’m sure you have ‘em, well, kid, let’s be honest, you’re pretty anti-relationships. This is a pretty shitty deal you got. That number will help you get out of this clusterfuck your grandfather left behind.”
