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Warrick had completely forgotten about dinner. Quickly, he said, “Colton’s right. Dinner awaits us.” He steered Isabelle toward the already set up dining room and gave his friend an apologetic look. Colton followed them, but the vaguely wary expression also came along.
That meant they were going to have a private discussion sometime in the near future. One where he would have to explain his out-of-character actions thus far. Colton looked prepared to deliver it, and Warrick definitely needed to hear it.
They had a casual dinner prepared by his personal chef. The meal was served and cleaned up by two more house workers he employed. He didn’t keep live-in help here like the way he’d been raised, but instead had a daily staff to keep things in order, the rooms clean, and him fed.
After dinner, Warrick showed her the sunroom at the back of the house, where he spent lots of time. The view of the mountains at dusk was spectacular. They sipped coffee, enjoyed quiet conversation with nonvolatile subjects, and watched the sun drop below the horizon.
Once dinner was cleaned up, his daily staff departed, leaving the three of them all alone. Warrick cleared his throat and brought up the subject he’d avoided thus far.
“In answer to your earlier question this evening regarding the length of our previous relationships, you’re right. They don’t typically last very long. A month would be a generous number.”
Isabelle nodded as an unforgiving uncertainty now coated her features. Perhaps he should simply let her go. But even as the words let her go danced across his brain, he knew he couldn’t do it. She would be the exception to that number.
“A month, huh?” Her eyes widened briefly. She took a long last drink of her beverage, put her mostly empty coffee cup down on the table, and crossed her arms as if contemplating the meaning of life. Perhaps he needed the answer, too.
He opened his mouth to assure her she was different and special and they might last much longer, but didn’t want to lie to himself or to her. He closed his mouth, leaning back into his comfy chair.
“Why?” she asked all of a sudden. “Did a previous lover break your heart? Were you previously married and your bitter old hag of an ex-wife ruined any future form of wedded bliss?”
He and Colton shared a quick look, his friend’s eyebrow lifting in question. Probably wondering if the story was about to change like everything else tonight.
“No. Nothing like that.” Warrick should have lied and told her there was someone in his past who’d hurt him. But truthfully, his perception of marriage had long ago been tainted by his parents, his grandparents, and every other marriage in his haughty family. “Let’s just say that growing up, my family didn’t have a particularly good track record for happy union s. I made my choices long ago not to participate because of them and all their foolishness.”
Given the large sums of money at risk with every marital union , lawyers had always been called in ahead of time to officiate the wedding agreements before any silly emotional sentiments or vows could be spoken. Even if two parties started out companionable, they never ended up that way. Not ever.
Since even a separation was not allowed without an encyclopedia-sized prenuptial agreement being whipped out to slice and dice the wealth through a long and complicated legal process, and then never contemplated as a possibility because of the public scandal it would cause, divorce was also never allowed.
His parents despised each other. His grandparents on both sides of the family had been bitter hated rivals to the end of their long miserable lives all to keep the wealth from being divided in a way that was detrimental to future generations. What the fuck ever!
To his way of thinking, marriage always fucked up the financials.
Warrick had decided long ago, never to take a stroll down the possible disastrous path of short-lived wedded bliss. As an adult family member who’d already received a portion of the fortune in question, Warrick had already signed a complicated document prepared by his parent’s lawyers long ago, for if he ever chose to walk down the aisle. But he never had before.
He never planned to wed anyone.
He didn’t want to trigger his parents’ lawyers who would then promptly send him a ream of paper for his intended to sign in triplicate with a circus of witnesses alongside a notary public or better yet even more lawyers after a single romantic question.
A foolish prenuptial agreement waited. That hated document was always going to be required for a marriage into his prestigious family.
The aspect that had made the bigger impression on him was more visceral memory. Every example of marriage he’d ever witnessed in his life eventually equaled, at best, permanent and bitter disinterest, even as both parties were shackled to one another for eternity to avoid a crass public scandal.
