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Practical. Pragmatic. Ready to make a deal. Ready to work.
Because there was one thing I was sure of—Clayton didn’t actually want to marry me. That made no sense. So a deal could be made. I just needed to know what he really wanted.
I hoped that I didn’t look like a woman who’d spent any time reliving those hot moments against Clayton’s office door.
When Clayton pulled up in his sleek sports car, I was outside with the dogs and I put my hand to my eyes, the sun off his windshield nearly blinding.
“Hey, Veronica,” he said, smiling as he walked up to me. Thelma didn’t know what to do with herself. She was trapped between wagging her tail and growling. I completely understood the feeling. “You look lovely.”
I rolled my eyes, which made him smile even more.
“You ready to talk?” I asked. He blinked and I was pleased to have knocked him off balance right out of the gate.
“You’re considering my offer?”
“I’m considering talking about your offer.”
“That’s progress.”
“Don’t get too excited, buddy. Let’s go inside.”
Instead of heading for Dad’s old office I led him into the screened-in porch. The only place that still felt safe on this ranch. If he had any feelings about this, any thoughts, he was silent about them. I’d brought in my computer and paper and pencils. Set up an impromptu office with Mom’s old sewing table.
He looked…comfortable back there. He wasn’t wearing a suit and tie but, instead, a pair of broken-in jeans and a leather jacket. A black T-shirt underneath it. Clayton’s weekend look.
I remembered it well.
“Where are your sisters?”
“Sabrina went back to Los Angeles and Bea went back to Austin.”
“You’re here by yourself?”
“Why? You have nefarious plans?”
“No.” He glanced around. “I just know you never liked this place. I thought your sisters would make it easier for you to be here.”
I shrugged, but his insight was dead-on. Being at the ranch by myself wasn’t comfortable. “They’ve got shit to do.”
Thelma and Louise followed us. Thelma jumped up on the wicker couch she now called home but Louise, the opportunist, came over to see if Clayton had any shrimp on his person. She sniffed his shoes thoroughly.
“Where did these dogs come from?” he asked, tilting his shoe just slightly so Louise could smell the bottom of it.
“They’re mine. Well, Bea’s initially. But they’ve adopted me.”
“Lucky you,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Go away,” I said to the dogs, who ignored me and settled for naps around the room.
“You look like you’re ready to do business,” Clayton said.
“I am.” I sat down at the old table and gestured for him to have a seat in the rocking chair in front of my desk. “Five years ago, you and my father made a deal. If we’re going to…do this—”
“Get married.”
“Then the deal you make will be with me.”
“All our cards on the table?”
I nodded. He nodded.
Excellent. Agreement right off the bat.
“In order for me to pay off my sister’s debts. And set up a trust for them as well as take over control of my mother’s foundation, you are demanding—”
“Offering.”
I laughed without any humor. “Demanding we get married.”
“Offering.”
“What does that marriage look like to you?”
He was silent for a second and I realized I’d surprised him. “Like what we had,” he finally said.
“So, I love you blindly and you lie.”
“We were friends,” he said. “I didn’t lie about that. I didn’t lie about wanting you.”
“Would you have dated me if it weren’t for the deal my dad gave you?”
He looked out the screened windows at the hummingbirds around the old birdfeeder that Trudy maintained. His silence told me a terrible story. A horrible truth.
“You know, I think even considering this is a mistake—”
“I started dating you because you were funny and sweet and so sexy it practically killed me.”
Halfway through his words I was shaking my head. Denying him. “You’re lying.”
“Whether you believe it or not does not make it less true.”
“I’m just supposed to believe that you saw me one day in the office and fell for me?”
“Why not?”
“Because men like you don’t fall for women like me!” I cried.
The silence after my words was thick and deep. And embarrassing.
His cheeks got red. The tips of his ears.
I pushed away the humiliation. “If I’m going to stay in this room,” I said, “much less consider talking about marriage, I need one thing from you.”
“What?”
“Honesty. No lying.”
His eyes met mine, and after a long second, he nodded.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you ask me out that first time?”
“James Court.”
“What? What does he have to do with…anything?” I remembered him briefly at the funeral being an utter piece of shit. But that was sort of his thing.
“Your father offered him the deal.”
“The marriage deal?”
He nodded again. Slowly. Like he really didn’t want to tell me. And things started making sense. “He asked me out. Just before you and I started dating.”
