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“Good.” The warmth leaves his face, and his gaze becomes sharper. “How about your father? Should I expect him to spit on me when I next see him?”
He raises his brows, his expression so skeptical there’s no way I can bullshit him with a lie.
I sigh and drop my shoulders. “I can’t promise he won’t.”
To my surprise, Jericho smiles wide, but realistically, this reaction is typical of him.
“Your old man still hates my ass. This is going to be fun.”
“I’ve spoken to him, and I will make sure there won’t be any problems going forward.”
“I’ll schedule some time to meet him during the week.”
My eyes widen. That’s the worst idea ever. “I don’t think you should do that.”
“Too bad, Mermaid. I’m going to. Regardless of the past, I’m marrying his daughter. It’s going to look strange if I don’t make the effort to speak to him.”
I remember what Dad said about Sasha asking him for my hand in marriage. Those traditions matter to my father, so maybe Jericho speaking to him will help ease the tension.
“Okay. It’s not like things can get any worse.”
“Oh, they can.”
“What do you mean by that?” I narrow my eyes.
“Sit.” He points to the leather sofa next to us.
We sit across from each other, and he picks up the envelope sitting on the little table next to him.
“This is yours.” He hands it to me. “Read it later. It contains all the things I need you to do and memorize by Wednesday. Think of it as an extension of our contract.”
“Oh.” I glance at the envelope, trying to determine from its weight what could be inside. It’s not heavy, but not light either.
“The person you need to focus on is my grandfather,” he says, and I sense from the seriousness in his tone that he’s about to tell me why he needs a wife.
“Bradford Grayson.”
“The one and only.” He rests back against the sofa and sighs. “He’s retiring at the beginning of next year. He decided to split the company so the Park Avenue branch would be its own cooperation with a new leadership structure. He’s given Knight and me the chance to own it and run it, but we had to earn our stripes. Knight’s done his part. Now I have to do mine.”
I see exactly where this is going.
“Your grandfather wants you to get married,” I fill in. He nods with a strained look on his face showing his disdain for the subject. “He just demanded that of you?”
I’ve heard about things like this happening all the time in the circles Jericho travels in, but there’s something about this request of his grandfather’s that sounds odd. Like it didn’t come out of the blue.
“He thought it would fix my image after a story came out that made our investors crazy.”
I was right, and I’ll bet I know which one it was. “The preacher man’s wife,” I supply again like a human search engine.
He doesn’t appear to be surprised I know about that story—I’d call it more of a scandal, though.
An uneasy look invades his expression. “Yes. It was that.”
I should feel nothing for being right again, but instead, my stomach squeezes with the twist and tightness of envy—my old friend.
God, I used to get so jealous when any girl would simply look at him in high school. Because we were a secret, I couldn’t let the world know he was with me.
I was always watching from the outside. Like I am now.
