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I fell silent for a beat, giving her a sad smile as I shook my head. “No, you couldn’t and you still can’t. We’re talking years’ worth of unpaid property taxes that have accumulated. The amount I owe is large enough to make your head spin and your ass drop right off.”

She laughed. “It’ll make my ass drop off, huh? I’ve never heard that one before, but I suppose if the fright is big enough, anything is possible.”

“Exactly.”

Her gaze finally met mine again, soft understanding clashing with worry in her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

“No, but I’d get a million dollars just for trying,” I said, unable to believe that those words were actually coming out of my mouth. “There’s another cash payout after the first year of marriage, for the birth of our first child, and a whole bunch of other milestones. It’s unbelievable.”

“Yeah,” she breathed, visibly trying to compute what I was telling her. I watched her do it in real time, but honestly, I hadn’t processed it either. “Are you actually going to do it?”

I took another long gulp of my wine. Asked like that, the question was a little different than I’d been asking myself all along. This wasn’t a matter of whether I could it. Because I could. I was entirely unattached romantically, without even a potentially troublesome ex holding me back.

She also hadn’t asked whether I should do it. Honestly, I didn’t know the answer to that one. Financially, I absolutely should, but this was marriage. Money shouldn’t ever really factor into that particular decision.

“I’d be stupid not to at least consider it,” I finally replied, giving her the only answer I had right now. “If I marry this guy, whoever he is, I’d have financial security for the first time in my life. Substantial security, at that. I’d also have an ironclad marriage contract to protect me and a tidy prenuptial agreement.”

God, I hated the way it sounded. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, I’d reduced marriage to a list of financial benefits, but those benefits were very real. As I leaned back against the headboard and looked around my bedroom, my gaze lingered on the little crack above the window I’d never been able to afford to repair properly.

I glanced down at the floor next, the old wood worn and in desperate need of some tender, loving care. There was also work to be done on the plumbing, the electrical system, and the kitchen could certainly do with an update.

If I was being honest with myself, the house was the only thing I cared about. Paying off the back taxes would be a giant relief—and shit, settling my student loans would probably be the closest I would ever come to a spiritual experience—but getting to keep the house was the big one.

This place was mine, the one thing my parents had left me that couldn’t be spent or quietly disappear into someone else’s bank account. My mother had planted the hydrangeas out back and my father had built the shelves in my bedroom with his bare hands.

They’d brought me home from the hospital to this very house. It was the only home I’d ever really known, despite the years I’d spent with my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

This was where I’d learned to ride a bike, on the sidewalk right outside, and I’d lost my first tooth in the TV room. Every Halloween, my parents had sat on the porch and handed out candy to kids in the neighborhood, and every year, they’d volunteered at the school’s haunted house.

They’d loved this place and I would do anything to keep it. Even if that meant marrying a man I’d never even met.

Tasha stared at me as I thought it over, an unexpected grin spreading across her lips a moment later. “Okay, don’t kill me for saying this, but I think you should do it.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said. “It’s a great idea, Alicia.”

“A great idea?” I frowned. “Are you crazy?”

She shrugged, still grinning as she let out a dreamy sigh. “Maybe I am crazy, but just imagine it.”

Suddenly throwing herself down next to me on the bed, she practically had stars in her eyes as she launched into the possibilities. “We could spend next summer on a yacht on the French Riviera.”

“We could? I don’t think that’s how marriage works, Tash. Unless you’re suggesting we take my husband with us.”

She waved me off. “Nah. He can just fund our trip while he goes to, I don’t know, a casino or something with his mistress. Where do mysterious rich guys take their mistresses?”

“To bed?” I suggested dryly. “How the hell am I supposed to know and why is he already cheating on me in this fantasy?”

She shrugged. “Okay, I don’t care where he takes her. As long as it’s not on the yacht. With us.”

“Should I even bother pointing out that we don’t know if he, whoever he is, even has a yacht?”

“He’s a billionaire,” she said like that settled it. “Of course, he has a yacht, and if he doesn’t, he should get one.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he’s already cheating on me.”

“He’s rich.”