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“Hello.”
The voice at the other end remained quiet. Was this her stalker?
“We need to have a very long talk, you and I.”
Chapter Eleven
Warrick spent the bulk of his day thinking about Isabelle, as had become a regular tradition pretty much since he’d run into her at the courthouse. Earlier this morning, she’d seemed agitated for lack of a better word. But he hadn’t asked her about it because he’d been distracted by deflecting the early morning call from his aunt Vera. Same fucking foolish conversation, different damn day.
At first he’d been surprised anyone in his family had discovered he was seeing Isabelle. Or perhaps they always assumed he was seeing someone and the call had been merely a habit.
No matter. He wasn’t about to confirm their very accurate suspicions that he’d finally found someone special.
If he’d even hinted at a possible relationship with her, a legion of investigators and then lawyers would have already been dispatched to first rake Isabelle over their pretentious coals and find her complete life before having met him lacking in all ways.
No. He wouldn’t do that to her. Not ever.
In the distant past, his family and their endless bevy of spies, gumshoes, and attorneys had always found the women he dated deficient in some way. While he’d still been a law school, the couple of women he’d had more than three dates with were scrutinized harshly. He’d never been truly serious about anyone, but the one time he’d even mentioned the family prenuptial agreement in passing, the girl he’d been dating had been completely insulted. She’d said those foolish documents were archaic and should be outlawed. While he agreed with her in theory, the worst part was that a family member overheard the argument. It soon became the basis for the way his family treated any of the women he dated from then on.
Although, it had been literally years since he’d played that idiotic game. It was the primary reason he’d kept his relationships short and completely uncomplicated thereafter. That procedure had served him well.
Until Isabelle.
He’d told his aunt that he wasn’t seeing anyone special so they’d leave Isabelle alone. He had no doubt as to his family’s ultimate intentions. If he’d told them she was out of the ordinary in anyway, or that he was falling in love with her, there would be a hoard of private detectives finding every possible detail about her life since birth, documenting it, and after that report was issued the barrister brigade would descend.
Finding out if she was a worthy contender for the insane amount of money he’d already inherited was the singular goal of his misguided rich family members. He didn’t want to play the game. Not ever, but certainly not right now.
Not with Isabelle. She deserved so much better treatment.
He didn’t care if his family had spies who’d discovered her. He was keeping Isabelle to himself for as long as possible. The moment he confided to her the true reasons for his contemptuous marital attitude, he’d have to show her the laughable three-inch stack of paper comprising the Harper family prenuptial agreement.
If he managed to keep her by his side through that, and she didn’t run away as far and fast as possible, then immediate members of his family would descend into town. They’d want to meet her. They’d want to talk to her. They’d want to ask her a flood of personal questions.
They’d also want to know how she felt about New York, living there, and how they could all conspire to get Warrick to cooperate and to move back there to live rich and idle, thereby giving up his foolish prosecutor ambitions for good.
Even if she made it through that torrent of misery, by then they’d have the initial report about her life. Given that no one on earth would pass their ridiculous tests of worth, she’d be dismissed.
If she stayed with him anyway, they’d promptly pick her apart day by day, week by week, until she ran for her life to escape his egregious family. And he wouldn’t blame her.
Five minutes after Isabelle ran for her very life, his family would then hand him the standard document containing this year’s list of already wealthy marriageable debutants and other worthy rich contenders to marry his substantial pile of money.
It would be a lie to say that he hadn’t already been thinking about this. Isabelle was the first in a very long time to tempt him into considering his limited options with regard to marriage.
If she didn’t sign the prenuptial agreement, and he married her anyway, he’d have to return all the family money he’d been given the day he turned eighteen. “Happy Birthday, now sign each and every paper in this enormous stack of documents, impacting you until the day you die.”
