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He swallowed hard and nodded at me. "Sure. Let's hear it."
"Okay, so my parents want us to come to dinner so they can meet you on Friday evening. I'll prep you for that ahead of time. Once that's done, I figured we'd have some sort of public engagement to do it up for the board members. It's going to be public soon anyway, so we might as well control that."
Ryder was fidgeting, and I could tell he was getting nervous. "After that, it's just straightforward. You move in, we throw a party…."
"Wait," he said, sitting up. "I move into your place?"
I blinked at him. "Well, yeah. I mean, it's not really believable that we're living together as partners in your bachelor pad of a penthouse apartment. You can keep it. We'll just say it's your place for when you need to stay in the city. Or whatever."
He let out a deep breath. "Okay. What comes after that?"
"Well, we throw a party, get hitched. We will go to my father's retirement party together, and then the next week I'll sign my contracts for the position. Once those are finalized, we can start to make a plan to 'break up.' We'll say it’s irreconcilable differences, get the divorce, and we're done."
Ryder nodded his head, his face emotionless. "You make it sound so simple. So, two things. If we're doing this, you have to meet my family too. They aren't going to believe it if they hear it in the papers first. We can do that on Saturday. Secondly, if I move into your house, I want a garage for my bike. Like cleaned out, I can work on it there. It's a safe space."
I lifted a brow. "You're bringing the mistress to our marriage home?"
He shook his head. "No, no. I'm bringing my wife to my mistress' house."
I sneered and rolled my eyes. "Whatever. That's all fine. I don't use the garage really anyway."
He looked over at something on his desk and back to me. "Alright. Should I go buy a ring?"
I pursed my lips. "I'll give you money for it."
Shaking his head, he scribbled something down on a piece of paper. "No. It's fine. I'll get it. It'll make it more believable anyway. Can't have you micromanaging my fake marriage."
"Let's talk about my family," I said with a sigh. "My dad is amazing, but he's hard. He is going to be protective of me. My mother, she's just a bitch. I love her, but she's stuck up, so just ignore her. I'm not sure if my brother will be there, but he's not going to give you much thought. He'll probably try to embarrass me because he still thinks he's sixteen years old."
He chuckled. "I know how that is. I still pick on my little sister."
I paused, realizing I really knew nothing about him. "You have a little sister?"
He nodded. "Yeah. And two younger brothers too. All three are married with kids. They work for my father's company."
"Your father is a businessman too?"
He smiled. "Kind of. They own a local butchery. A meat factory I guess. They started with a butcher shop and grew it. My father is mostly retired, though my brothers can't keep him out of the place. They live a couple hours from here on the coast."
"That's not at all what I expected," I said, my cheeks growing red again.
"I know," he replied bluntly. "You expected the privileged kid, right? No. Not me."
We sat quietly for several moments, and I felt almost awkward. I guess I had been kind of an asshole to him before. I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. He was quiet and sarcastic, so I took it as grumpy and elite. Ryder is not out of his element. It was hard to be in that rich people element, even for me, and I grew up in that kind of atmosphere.
"Don't go feeling bad for me," he said, pulling me from my thoughts. "I don't need you starting up a charity for me or anything. I'm fine."
"That wasn't what I was thinking," I said defensively. "You make a lot of assumptions."
"Look who's talking," he said with a laugh. "And cut me some slack. I'm about to go from a comfortable loner to Barbie's husband."
"I prefer arm candy, cause let's face it, you're no Ken."
We both stared at each other with bitterness, but instead of anger and irritation, I wanted to jump across the desk and take him in his office chair. It took everything in me not to imagine that very thing happening. Ryder cleared his throat, and I shook the thoughts away. "Well, if you wanna send me some notes on you, you know, so I can know you a little better for this dinner with your father, feel free. I gotta get back to work."
I couldn't tell if he was pushing me out because he was tired of me or because he was getting the same feeling that I was. Finally, I stood up and nodded. "Right. Well, thanks for the talk. And for agreeing to this…."
"Business venture?" he said with a smirk. "Though the compensation on my end seems to be a little lackluster."
