“Isaid, did you receive the initial deposit?” Rhodes Barrington had been talking, but I’d been too busy ogling.
“Oh—yes. Elena paid me.”
“Ipaid you. Elena facilitated it,” he corrected me. “And she told you about the signing bonus?”
I nodded. “Five hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s right.” He frowned. “It’s a ridiculous sum of money, as is the total amount I’m offering to pay you.”
“Which is what?” Elena had withheld this information, but she said it was one of the more generous offers she’d seen recently.
“Five million dollars.”
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. I must’ve misheard him. “What did you say?”
He leaned over his desk and enunciated the words slowly, as if I wasn’t capable of understanding them. Which might’ve been correct.
“Five. Million. Dollars.”
I sat up straight. “Where do I sign?”
At that, Rhodes Barrington did something completely unexpected: he laughed. “Not so fast. I need you to understand the terms, Ms. Harris.”
“You should start calling me Rory,” I said. I wasn’t going anywhere—for five million dollars, come hell or high water, I was singing that contract.
“You need to understand the contract terms,Rory. I am requiring a long-term commitment. We are to be married as soon as possible, and our marriage must last for five years.”
I gaped at him. Elena hadn’t said anything about five years.
“That’s non-negotiable, for reasons I’ll get into in a moment,” Rhodes continued. “But I need you to understand that upfront. You’re signing five years of your life away.”
“But…” I wrung my hands together. “I have a little brother and sister. I’m their guardian, for all intents and purposes. I can’t just up and leave them for that long.”
That would break them. It was exactly what my mother had already done—left them when they’d needed her most.
“They’re staying with my grandmother right now, but she’s in her seventies.” I looked at him, beseeching. “Please, I want to make this work. Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“I’m not sure.” The billionaire frowned. “Elena didn’t mention that you had dependents.”
He stared off into space for a moment. “For fuck’s sake, this is ridiculous.”
Petrified that he was going to ask me to leave, I started babbling. “Maybe we can make it work? Like, I can go visit Josie and Bo every couple of weeks, and they can come stay here, and I don’t know, maybe with all the money you’re paying me, I can move them closer? Like, down the road? And they can come over for dinner?—”
“Stop.” He held up his hand, and I snapped my mouth shut.
Taking a deep breath, he looked at me. “I know you are a person and that you have issues of your own. Your own problems.”
I nodded.
“The thing is, I don’t care. I only care aboutmyselfandmyissues and problems. Which is why I wanted to hire you—to help me withmysituation. I do not care aboutyoursituation,” he said coldly.
I believed him.What a jackass.
“The exorbitant amount of money I’m offering is to help you make the arrangements necessary to perform the contract. All I’m asking is: can you commit to a five-year term? If not, this conversation is over.”
I couldn’t walk away from five million dollars.Could I?I thought of my Grammy, of the farm, of the foreclosure notice tucked under her calendar. But could I leave my baby brother and sister for five years?
“I don’t think I can do this,” I said, feeling sick.
