Page 24 of Not His Bride

But Lilith deserves more thought than that, and I’m trying to listen. She wouldn’t care about some interchangeable date I could recycle with anybody else. If I’m planning something for her, it needs to be specific to her.

If I think back to the time we spent together before I ruined everything, there’s only one time she looked genuinely happy. It wasn’t when I said her name at the altar or even as we sat together at our wedding reception, before Debbie played that video. It was upstairs in the bridal suite. The minute I caught her Phantom mask and realized we’d both obsessed over the same show. She cared more about the chandelier argument than she did about what I thought of her family’s launch in Portugal.

I thought about all that as I signed the annulment paperwork earlier today. I’ve already given it to my lawyer. All for her.

But back to my chance at making it up to Lilith. I want her to have the thing she wanted, the one thing we shared before the whole arrangement got pulled apart on video.

I make the call. It’s not even a hard decision; maybe the easiest one I’ve made all year.

I’m still behind my desk when I call my chief of staff, one hand resting against the edge while the other holds the phone to my ear.

She answers on the second ring. “Good afternoon, Mr. Cortez. What can I help you with?” I trained my employees to be efficient and cut out nonsense.

“Find out what it would take to put on The Phantom of the Opera privately.”

There’s a beat. I turn toward the windows, looking out over the city while she processes that.

“Privately, as in a performance for an event?”

“Privately, as in I rent the theater.”

“Okay.” Keys start clicking on her end. “That’s doable. We can probably arrange a concert version fairly quickly. Maybe some projection work instead of the full—”

“I’m going to stop you right there. I need you to think bigger.”

The typing stops. I loosen my tie and sit back against the edge of the desk. “No concert.”

“Gallagher, the actual production is a very different request.”

“I know, but I need it all. A full cast, with all the sets, costumes, orchestra, a technical crew.”

Another pause. She’s likely wondering why she works for me. That is, until she remembers that I pay her a very healthy six-figure salary.

“The chandelier?” she asks.

I smile. “Especially the chandelier.”

She lets out a breath that tells me she’s already calculating how many people she’s going to have to call because of this. “How soon?”

“As soon as humanly possible.”

“That could mean flying people in. We’d need a venue that can accommodate the production, licensing approval, union crew, rehearsals—”

“Then you’d better start making calls.”

“I am.” The keyboard starts up again. “I’m just making sure you understand this isn’t the same thing as buying out a performance. You’re effectively asking them to start a production from scratch only for you.”

I glance down at the copies of the annulment paperwork still sitting at the corner of my desk, my signature dark across the final page.

A few weeks ago, I would have asked how much something like this would cost before deciding whether it was worth doing. Today, that question doesn’t even occur to me.

“What’s the point of being a billionaire if I can’t go all out when I want to?”

“Right, Mr. Cortez. How many guests am I planning for?”

“Two.”

The typing stops again. “Two hundred?”