Dalton eyed me for a beat, then leaned closer, dropping his voice to a murmur. “Can I ask you something without you throwing your drink in my face?”
I gave him a sidelong glance. “Doubtful.”
He paused. “Why keep lying to her? You’re already halfway gone over this girl, and yet she still doesn’t know the truth. You really think you can build something real on a foundation of bullshit?”
“I’m not trying to build anything real,” I said sharply, more to convince myself than him.
Dalton snorted. “Right. That's why you’re checking your phone every five seconds like some poor bastard who caught feelings?”
I didn’t answer.
He leaned back. “It just seems backwards, that’s all. You want her to fall for you so you can secure the inheritance. Okay. Fine. Classic seduction play. But then what? What exactly is the plan here, Edge? Charm her until she’s too smitten to question it? Wait until she’s in love before you spring the M-word on her?”
I didn’t answer. Not right away. Because the plan had never been about love.
Not hers. Not mine.
But the longer I spent around her, the harder it was to remember that.
“Convince her to date me,” I said at last. “Let her think it’s real. Let it become real enough for her, so that when I ask her to marry me, she’ll say yes.”
Dalton raised a brow. “And after that?”
“I give her whatever she wants,” I said. “A fat check. Endless supply of that coffee she likes. A house in Calabasas. Whatever helps me get out of this with no mess.”
Dalton stared at me. “You really think she’s that easy to buy off?”
“No,” I muttered. “I don’t.”
And that was the problem. Elise wasn’t someone you could buy. She wasn’t dazzled by power or status or things. She did her job because she was damn good at it, not because she wanted a seat at the table. She’d never once looked at me like a meal ticket. If anything, she looked at me like I was someone to survive.
And now I was supposed to trick her into falling in love?
Dalton watched me for another long second, then set his glass with a quiet clink. “So why not just tell her?”
I exhaled slowly, jaw tightening. “Because she’d walk away.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I said flatly. “If I tell her the truth and she walks away, I lose everything.”
Dalton didn’t argue. Because he knew I was right.
I continued, quieter this time. “She’d never trust me again. And even if I wanted this to be something real,” I paused. “It would never be real to her. Not after that.”
There it was.
The part I hadn’t said out loud until now. The part that made falling for Elise the biggest mistake of all.
Because the plan was never supposed to involve me falling. Justher. Just enough to get what I needed to fulfill my father’s last, twisted condition, and move on with everything intact.
But Elise wasn’t just some placeholder bride.
She was becoming the only thing I looked forward to.
The only person who saw through me without trying to tear me down.
The only one who didn’t want anything from me.
