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“What?”
I roll my eyes and pull out my phone, showing him the texts from Ezra. The desperate ones, the obsessive ones, the threatening ones.
Lenox’s face grows hard, his jaw visibly clenching, but that’s his only reaction.
“And with the press and Ezra all over me, the clinic I was working for kindly asked me to leave as it was too distracting for them and their patients. It broke my heart, but I understood their position. No one wants press hanging outside a women’s health clinic.”
“So now you’re jobless, dealing with a company you don’t feel comfortable dealing with, managing two men who want you married to their family so they can take over Monroe on your behalf, and you have the press hounding you about all of this and your father’s plane and guilt over that.”
I point at him. “In a nutshell. Wow, you just took a long story and paraphrased it into like two sentences. I need to learn that trick. I also need to be married, but I can’t marry the man I’m supposed to marry, which is why I’m here.”
“How about you lay it out for me without paraphrasing.”
I swing my legs back and forth. “It’s simple. If I’m married to you, I don’t have to marry Ezra. If I’m married to you, I’ll inherit Monroe and though I don’t care about the money from it, I don’t want my father’s company falling into other hands. It needs to stay in my family. My father’s will never stipulated who I had to be married to, just that I had to be married in order to inherit. It doesn’t even say I have to stay married, though my attorney advised I remain so for at least a year after so it can’t be contested.”
“And if you don’t marry? What happens then?”
“I can’t claim the shares and neither can my mother, so they will escheat to the state, which means the state will become the owner of the stock and then sell it. Monroe will no longer be owned by my family, and the state, with controlling interest, will be able to do basically whatever it wants.”
“I see.”
Looking up at him, I try to keep my breathing steady. “I’m so glad you do because I can’t let that happen, and I can’t marry Ezra. I just can’t. I’ll never get out of it. He’ll never let me go. I just know it. I love my father with my whole heart. He was a great dad and did everything for me, but I can’t sacrifice my life like that even in his name. I want to marry you—well, that’s a lie—I need to marry you so I can get them off my back for good. And I need you to come to Vegas with me, marry me, and after that, attend the Monroe Securities conference with me and tell me what I’m missing with all the tech lingo.”
“Vegas?”
I smirk at his surprised tone since I did quickly tack that on the end. “Yes. Las Vegas, Nevada. Party capital of the world. I need you to come to Las Vegas with me tomorrow for a Monroe conference meeting thing, but I figured it was perfect since it’s super easy to get married there. Two birds, one stone.”
Now he starts blinking. “Tomorrow?”
“You’re fixated on that of all things?” I hop off the counter and cut our distance, getting right up in his face. “Yes, tomorrow. Las Vegas. Monroe Securities is hosting a huge company conference, and I’m about ninety-nine point six percent positive you could be an invaluable asset there. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not following.”
“Bullshit, you’re not.” I poke his chest and then do it again for good measure. “You might not want anything to do with me, and you might enjoy playing dumb to the people who don’t know any better, but don’t forget who I am. I know you, Lenox Moore, though I seriously wish I didn’t. I know all about your skills with a computer and I am desperate. My life is all kinds of fucked up, and not only will my ex-fiancé be there but also his father, and since both are actively trying to hitch me to the altar like I’m some piece of cattle they can prod with their brand, I cannot show up alone.”
His head dips, his stare hard. “Do I look like someone’s plus-one? I’m not a bodyguard.”
“Funny, since you’re the size of an NFL tight end and Asher calls you Thor.”
“You have cousins.”
I shake my head, immediately cutting him off. “They can’t help me with this. I need to be married, but I also need someone who speaks the language and can help me navigate through it while keeping his mouth closed. This isn’t my world, Lenox. I deliver babies and help women with their reproductive health. Medicine is my practice. But since my father died, I’ve been a mess, and this marriage stuff… it’s not a joke. I need your help.”
That’s when he falls silent. And it lasts a thousand years until he grits out, “They’ll never agree to this.”
I laugh bitterly at that. I don’t even know why. He’s talking about Grey and Zax because they’re what matters to him. Not me. Never me.
“They will because I need this. Because you’re the only one. Plus, they’ve always hated Ezra, and they know you’ll never touch me again.” It’s true. He won’t. He regrets that he ever did, and it’s just another reason why I hate him.
“I can’t marry you, Georgia.”
I stare at him for a long, hard minute, ready to tear him apart for dismissing me so flippantly. My insides boil as frenzy claws at my skin.
“For real? Just like that?” I hiss out a harsh breath, running my hands through my hair and clasping them at the back of my head, glaring indignantly at him. “You do realize I’m not looking for love in all the wrong places, right? This is a business arrangement.”
“You have nothing I want.”
Ouch. I mean, sorta. If I allow it to ouch. “I’ll have fifty-four percent of Monroe Securities, and I know about our latest tech. It’s part of what this conference is about. You’ll get that info, even if I shouldn’t share it with a hacker.”
