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“Competitive?” I huffed. “I was a teenage boy. All teenage boys are competitive.”
“But you still are.”
I wrapped her hair around my hand, using it as leverage to lift her face toward mine.
“I fucking swear to you, this time I’m not being competitive.”
She nodded. “All right.” She chewed on her lip. “Then what is it?”
I could smell the wine on her breath and a sweet scent of citrus in her hair. Holding her against my chest made my cock twitch. Something I was fucking certain shouldn’t be happening right now. We were two old friends sharing shitty family sob stories.
“I told you the attorney read my father’s will today.”
“Yes, and it went horribly wrong.” There was innocence in her eyes, mixed with something wildly alluring.
“Depends whose side you’re on.”
“Well, I’m on yours, of course.” Her smile was cute.
I traced the side of her jaw. “See, what the attorney told me today is that I’m supposed to inherit almost all of my father’s assets. More than half a billion dollars—if I want it.”
She gasped. “Jer, that’s incredible.” I don’t know when she decided to shorten my name, but it seemed like it was something she had always done. As if we were closer than we actually were.
I shook my head. “There’s a catch.”
“You have to work for the company and be a stuffy CEO the rest of your life?”
“Oh no. That would have been kind of my father. Generous by his standards. I think I might have been able to stomach that.”
“Then what? What do you have to do to gain your inheritance? What could possibly be so bad?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Evie had laced that Italian wine with truth serum. I wasn’t going to tell anyone what my parents had done. I swore I’d never repeat how they planned to trap me in the family business and ensnare me with a bloodline that would always tie us together. It was humiliating. Forcing me to live a life I didn’t want.
I looked into her big brown eyes. Soft, trusting eyes. And I spilled my fucking guts.
“I have to get married. And I have to get my new wife pregnant. And then. Only then. Do I get half a billion dollars.”
6
Evie
At first I giggled. And then I la
ughed. The laughter turned to snorting as I doubled over. I gripped Jeremy’s clean white shirt. I shook harder, the more I tried to reign it in. I inhaled his cologne every time I giggled. Damn he smelled good. It should have been enough to sober me up, but the nearness of him made me more tipsy.
“Evie, I’m serious.” Jeremy looked pissed.
“No—not possible.” I sniffed ridiculously, trying to control my laughter. “You’re totally bull shitting me right now.” There were now tears in the corners of my eyes. I had to stop, but the wine made it nearly impossible.
He gripped my upper arms. “I’m dead serious. I have to get married and have a baby.”
My face fell, and suddenly I was quiet.
I cleared my throat. “This isn’t a joke?” I whispered. “That’s what the lawyer told you today? Your father put those exact words in his will? He actually demanded you become a father? That’s… I don’t really have words for it.”
“You think I would make something like this up?”
I wiped the corner of my eye. “I don’t know. It sounds like something out of a romantic comedy. Guy walks into a bar and needs to find a girl. I could write the script.” I squeaked, forcing myself to get a grip. “Really? Jane Austen? I spilled my sad spinster story about wanting to have a baby, and now this? The golden boy bachelor returns home after a decade and is forced into fatherhood? You can’t write this shit, Jer.”
