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He moved me closer by gently pushing at the small of my back, and I willingly tucked myself into his chest. Though I wished I could say that I felt a similar lack of urgency—and it was a thrill to hear him say that all he wanted to do was be with me—I knew I had to get up soon. I had promised to hang out with Brooklyn before the party, and Mack insisted we needed two hours to get ready. Time was of the essence.
“I want to stay in bed all day,” I mumbled against his chest.
“So stay,” he urged.
“But we need to eat breakfast. And you need to get work done. And I told Brooklyn and Mack that I would see them both—separately—before the party.” I didn’t mention how I was putting off finding out about my acceptance or rejection, knowing he would make me check if he knew. After all, his paying for school was his end of this marriage bargain.
Nathan grunted. “Let me guess: Mack wants to get ready together before the party.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed, turning to grab his phone. “Well, it’s still early,” he said. “Wanna do breakfast together? I’ll cook.”
I’m not sure what face I made, but it was enough to prompt Nathan to add wryly, “Ciara, I can cook eggs, bacon, and toast. I can even make a mean frozen waffle, if it comes to that.”
I laughed, sitting up to stretch. “Well in that case,” I said, “I’m starving.”
After we took our showers, I followed him to the kitchen, plopping onto one of the bar stools. Grinning, I asked, “So, bacon and eggs, huh?”
His mouth twitched as if hiding a smile. “You’re that skeptical of my cooking skills?” he asked. “I’m a thirty-five-year-old man who’s been living on his own for almost fifteen years. If I didn’t know how to make the fundamentals, I’d starve. That cooking class was difficult; I don’t usually burn water.”
“Difficult, huh. What was different about the cooking class?”
He shrugged, looking suddenly shy. “You.”
My heart stuttered, and I cleared my throat, trying to get my blush under control by changing the subject. “You’re…different from what I imagined a rich person to be,” I said.
Nathan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, cooking for instance. You could have someone, a personal chef, come in and cook your meals, no? You have enough money to do it.” I looked at my hands, feeling suddenly shy. Though finances were rarely discussed in my house without the underlyingWe don’t have any money, I knew Nathan and I would have to discuss it at some point. It seemed like as good a time as any.
Nathan snorted. “I could. And it would be convenient. But my family would never let me live it down if I did it.”
I raised my eyebrows at this. “Why?” I blurted, so surprised that it just slipped out. “Aren’t rich people notorious for doing things like that?”
Nathan stopped what he was doing, an eyebrow raised. “Doing things like what?” he asked archly.
I shrugged. “Blowing money on things that are easily learned. Like cooking.”
Nathan reared back. “Wow.”
“I mean,” I continued on, babbling, “you always see it in those reality TV shows. They have big kitchens but no one uses them, or the house looks immaculate even though none of the people living in it actually clean it…”
Nathan pulled a pan out of the cabinet and put it down rather forcefully on the stove; I jumped. “Maybe that happens in other families or on those shows you seem to be using for reference,” he said shortly. “But it doesn’t happen in mine.”
I blushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend…”
Nathan returned to his task, tearing open the package of bacon and turning on a burner on the stove. It wasn’t until he had taken the eggs and butter out of the fridge that he blew out a breath and he turned to me.
“It’s fine,” he said. “And I’m sorry for reacting the way I did. Avoiding frivolous spending was one of the first lessons my mom taught us, but for some of my other family members—Zeke, in particular—it didn’t stick. He’s terrible with money, and everyone in the family knows it.He’slike those celebrities you see on TV—buying fucking yachts and blowing money on gadgets he’ll never use, or gambling it away and then having to dip into his inheritance to make up for all the money he’s lost. It’s still a sore point for me, especially since his lack of restraint with the Hemingway money is the whole reason I had to make sure he wasn’t overseeing the estate.”
My stomach soured. Even though Nathan didn’t reference our marriage, I knew that it was one of the stipulations of his mother’s will—that he be married before taking over the estate and oversight of his family’s assets.If Zeke wasn’t so terrible with money, I wouldn’t be standing here with Nathan today.
“I get it,” I assured him, trying to put my hurt feelings out of my mind. “And your reaction makes sense. I guess I just don’t know a lot about how the rich—or wealthy—live. Other than what I hear or see on TV.”
He put the bacon in the pan. “Yeah, what you see on TV are common misconceptions,” he said. “You always see them throwing around literal hundred-dollar bills, or, if they’re rappers, buying jewelry, or doing some other foolishness. They never show the boring parts—setting up a trust for the kids, or paying taxes, or estate planning. The things that onehasto do to protect assets and the family. It’s stuff that my mom ingrained in all of hers and Dad’s kids, but especially me as the oldest.”
My heart ached at the sadness etched into Nathan’s face and the tension in his jaw. While I wasn’t always around him, when we were together, I never saw him mourn his mom. We rarely even talked about her even though she died not too long ago. I wondered how he was doing, but the wound was so fresh, I never wanted to bring it up. But he had to be reminded of her death every time he saw me—after all, I was only with him because of her dying wish to have her oldest son take on the estate and be married.
