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“How do you know?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
No. If this man wanted information, he would get it. “But you’re going into business with my father. Even AIH can’t touch him.”
“Our contract is written in such a way that his company will be under threat by me if certain conditions are not met.” He didn’t sound triumphant or guilty. Just matter-of-fact.
“What conditions?”
“Do you really want details? Suffice to say, measurables over which I will have full control for the next six months.”
“You wouldn’t manipulate things so my dad lost his company. You just wouldn’t.” That was so…ruthless.
Oh, man. He would do it because this man had a ruthless streak about as wide as the Golden Gate Bridge.
“I don’t plan to, no. I intend to rebuild your father’s company and use it as a springboard for other things.” No modesty in that statement.
“Provided I go along with your deal.”
Max nodded, no ambivalence about that reality evident in his manner. “That is part of it, yes.”
“What is the other part?”
“Your father in rehab.”
“What? How?” She’d tried, but it was too hard.
Too hard to hold her dad accountable, too hard to push when she was better at avoidance and she loved him so much.
She’d change the world, but it wouldn’t start at home.
“It’s part of our contract. However, although your father has signed everything and is as we speak on his way to a very exclusive, very discreet rehabilitation facility with a success rate of over seventy percent, I haven’t signed the contract yet.”
“And you won’t if I don’t marry you?” She could barely believe the mercenary tactic. “How could you hold his health hostage like that? That’s monstrous, Max. You have to know that.”
“You forget, I’m holding his company, too.”
“I don’t care.”
“I realized that.”
“So, you adjusted your plans accordingly.” The man was a monster.
But he wasn’t. Darn it. She knew Max better than that. He was ruthless and pragmatic to the point of emotionlessness about some things.
But he wasn’t a monster.
Just a very determined shark who didn’t mind getting some blood in the water if that meant feasting.
“What are the terms of the marriage?” There had to be some.
A man like Maxwell Black didn’t make this kind of offer without covering all the contingencies.
“The usual terms, I would imagine, with a well-structured prenuptial agreement.”
“Because you don’t anticipate it lasting.”
“No.” Brutal honesty.
But then, could she expect anything else with this man?
“Is there an expiration date?” she asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?” A year ago, he’d had a very definitive end date in mind for their affair.
“Either of us can end the marriage at any time.”
“But there will be consequences as laid out in the prenup?”
“Naturally.”
“For both of us.” She didn’t know why she was so sure of that, particularly considering the conversation so far, but she was.
“Absolutely.”
“Why, Max?”
“Because contrary to your unexpected and rather inexplicable offer, you don’t believe in uncommitted sex.” He began to eat like their discussion was no more earth-shattering than planning a follow-on date.
Maybe for him, it wasn’t.
Only she didn’t believe that, either.
She pulled some of her earlier nonchalance around her as she began to eat as well. He didn’t have to know it was a facade over roiling emotions and cacophonous thought. “As you said, people change.”
“No, I said circumstances change. It takes a lot more to change people.”
“How can you be so smart about some stuff and so ignorant about other things?” she wondered aloud, not even really asking him, just astonished by the reality.
“What am I ignorant about?”
“Love.”
“The refusal to succumb is not ignorance, it is an informed decision.” Max sighed, sounding as close to tired as she’d ever heard him. “You know I don’t believe in forever, this gives you the trappings of commitment you need.”
“With an out clause for you.”
“Since divorce law in this country allows the eventual dissolution of any marriage so long as the party seeking dissolution is committed to her course, that is already an out clause.”
For the most part, that was true. “You must have a time line you believe our so-called marriage will fall into.”
“There will be nothing so-called about it. You will be mine, Romi. Make no mistake. And I will be yours in every way the law dictates.”
“You sound like a caveman right now.” And she liked it. Way too much. “Or a throwback tsar.”
“Sue me.”
She almost laughed, but couldn’t quite release the tension. “How long?”
“Until?”
“The sell-by date.”
“That is crass.”
“The time line then.”
“Most negative repercussions outlined in the prenup are nullified at the ten-year mark.”
“Ten years?”
“Is practically a lifetime.”
“Not even close.” But married to someone incapable of love? She very much feared he would be right.
“So, let me get this straight. You want sex with me?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re willing to blackmail me into marrying you?”
He offered her a piece of flatbread. “Yes.”
“No complaint about the terminology.” She accepted the bread, a sense of unreality surrounding her.
He shrugged. “Much of business is done in the same way. Terms don’t change realities.”
“I offered you a night of sex.” And he’d turned her down.
“I want more than a night.”
Right. “You want ten years.”
“Maybe more.”
“And maybe less.”
“You may be ready to walk away before I am.” He didn’t sound concerned about that, but he also didn’t sound like they were just words to placate.
Idiot. Really. Mr. Brilliant Businessman-Corporate Tsar had no clue.
“But fidelity until divorce?” she asked, that sense of unreality nearly drowning her.
“Nonnegotiable.”
“What about children?”
“Children?” he asked, like he’d never heard the word before.
“You know, the little people that call you dad.”
“Papa. Russian children call their fathers papa.”
It was such a curious mix, the bits of his heritage he refused to let go and the elements to his character and life that were purely American.
“Well, do you want any babies that will grow up to call you papa?”
He went completely still, a bite partway to his mouth. She wasn’t even sure he was still breathing. His expression was indescribable, but something about what she’d said had struck a chord deep inside him.
“My mother would like a grandchild.” The words did not match the awed tone in his voice.
He resumed eating, but she wasn’t fooled. He was no more nonchalant about this conversation than she was, if for very different reasons. Or maybe just fewer reasons. The idea of having his children unraveled something inside her.
“What about you? Would you like a child?” she pressed.
A n
ew emotion flickered in Maxwell’s gray eyes. Yearning. “Yes. I would like a child.”
“Would having a child change the sell-by date on the marriage?” She wanted to know.
“People with children divorce all the time.”
That was not what she’d wanted to hear, true as it might be. “Would you want to see your child only a couple of weekends a month?”
