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He stares at me, a stone statue, and then finally he shoves one hand in his pocket and takes a slow, lazy sip of his bourbon. “Isn’t that what Ezra is for?”
I shift uncomfortably on the counter and slowly drag my gaze back to him. This is where it starts to get complicated and desperate. “Yes. Only I can’t marry him.”
He gives me a bored, almost impatient look. “Seems like he’s your easy choice and I’m not, so explain to me why you’re here asking me to marry you when you could easily marry your fiancé.”
“I’m going to start at the beginning because it’s a lot and you need the back story. No one, not even Zax or Grey, knows what I’m about to tell you.”
Lenox’s eyebrows bounce in surprise.
“I couldn’t marry Ezra. I’ve known him my entire life. His father and my father were best friends and business associates. From the moment I moved back out to LA, our families had been pushing us together. I wouldn’t say our marriage was arranged, but it pretty much was. Us being together and eventually getting married was a foregone conclusion and was spoken of as when and not if. About two years ago, Ezra asked me out, and I naturally said yes. At first, when we started dating, everything was amazing. He was this dream guy who treated me like a queen. He came in and swept me off my feet and swore to me that he wanted me regardless of our parents' expectations. After about six months together, I moved in with him.”
I swallow, thinking about that time, blinking through the haze of memories.
“The second I moved my things into his place, everything changed. He changed. He became paranoid, aggressive, and hostile. Not physically abusive or anything. He never laid a hand on me in anger,” I tell him hastily when Lenox pushes away from the counter, his jaw and fist locked with a dangerous look in his eyes. “But I’d go out with friends, and when I’d come home, he’d interrogate me on where I’d been and who I’d been with. He’d make comments on the things I’d wear or how I did my hair and makeup. He demanded I dress a certain way, wear specific clothes, and behave a certain way, especially in public.
“I’d challenge him on this, we’d fight, and then he’d apologize and blame stress from work or a hundred other things. He’d buy me expensive gifts and act like that perfect guy again until the cycle repeated itself. After he proposed and I stupidly said yes, things got a lot worse. He began isolating me from my friends, from the life I had, and started demanding that I quit my job. It became too much, too stressful. I was always on edge, waiting for the next event to drop on me, and I knew what was happening. Being a nurse and a midwife, I knew where situations like that could eventually lead, and I wasn’t blinded by love enough to overlook it. I had to get out, and about two months before the wedding, I told my parents I was leaving him.”
Lenox tilts his head, appraising me with quiet observation, though the hard glint in his eyes and the firm grip on his glass tell me he’s hanging on my every word with the serious intent of a man ready to snap.
“That’s when my father stepped in. He told me under no circumstances was I allowed to leave Ezra. That our union was imperative for the future of Monroe Securities. I didn’t love Ezra, but that didn’t matter. My father told me that if love and a happy marriage were important to me in this life, then I’d learn to love Ezra and make myself happy with him.”
I sigh, staring down at my hands in my lap.
“Did Ezra know you wanted to leave him?”
I nod. “I had told him I wasn’t happy and that I wasn’t sure I could go through with the wedding. In response, Ezra apologized again and told me he loved me. He vowed to make me happy and promised he’d change.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No,” I quietly mumble. “He didn’t. It was the same pattern, and I didn’t know what to do. I was having panic attacks for weeks leading up to the wedding. I wasn’t sleeping. I was hardly eating. I was in the middle of my final fitting, literally wearing my wedding gown, and passed out from a panic attack. My father was in Paris working a deal with a French software company, and I called him and told him I couldn’t go through with the wedding. He was furious. He flew home a day early and…” I trail off.
“His plane never made it home.”
“No.” I lift the glass and down the rest of it because clearly I need it, and he used smooth fucking bourbon, so it’s goddamn delicious. I set my glass down, running my finger along the thin rim of the glass. “Originally, all they said was that my father’s plane had gone missing on radar. That was it. That was all they knew for days because of the storm that blew through where his plane was last recorded. Then they found small pieces of his plane, and that’s when everything started spiraling out of control. My father was gone. His plane had exploded. My mother and I were inconsolable. I blamed myself. Hated myself actually.” I swallow and look away, blowing out a breath as grief slams through me, making the backs of my eyes burn with unshed tears.
“And then?” he prompts when I fall silent, but I don’t want to talk about that. Not anymore. So I cut it down to the basics.
“And then I called off my wedding, told Ezra I was done, and I moved out. It was the only good thing to come out of this,” I continue when I’m back in control. “Until my father’s will was read.”
“Why would there be a stipulation in your father’s will about you having to be married?”
I shake my head, my hand flying out and knocking the martini glass in the process. It goes careening off the counter and smashes into a million pieces on the floor. “Shit. I’m so sorry.” Clearly, I’m a hot mess of nerves right now. I move to jump off the counter, but he puts a hand up, stopping me.
“Don’t move.”
“I need to clean it up.”
“You need to stay where you are before you somehow manage to hurt yourself. I’ll clean it up. You keep talking.” He grabs a broom and dustbin from a nearby closet and starts sweeping up the pieces of glass that are littered across his floor. I fall back on the counter, staring up at the ceiling, my legs dangling over the edge.
“I don’t know why my father did that,” I admit. “It doesn’t make sense, and the only thing I can come up with is that my father wanted Monroe to stay in family hands, and he knew I was a midwife, not a businesswoman equipped to run a multibillion-dollar organization, and I was set to marry Ezra anyway. In the meantime, my father’s best friend was named CEO, Ezra his COO, and they made me chairperson of the board.”
“Because you will have a controlling interest in the company?”
I twist my head toward him, watching as he dumps the glass in the trash bin in the cabinet beside the sink. “Only if I’m married.” I rest my hands on my thighs and sit back up. He returns the broom and dustbin, the mess forgotten, as he moves back to his previous spot against the counter. “So now you can imagine how Ezra and his father, Alfie, are frantic that I ended it with Ezra before the will was read. And I use the term frantic lightly. They’re both relentlessly—in their own ways—trying to get me to marry Ezra because I have to marry in order to inherit, and Ezra is the man my father wanted me to marry.”
“What do you mean by relentlessly and in their own ways?”
“Alfie is like my second father. He’s doing this from a place of love and concern for Monroe Securities and for me. Ezra… not so much. Ezra, well, he’s… tell me you have a stalker without telling me you have a stalker.”
