Chapters 1-3,
The Love Losers
Chapter One
Anthony
“She licked your hand?” asks Jake, leaning back in his side of the booth. It’s Thursday evening, and we’re at the Peanut Bar—a dive bar just outside of Asheville with piles of unshelled peanuts in bowls on each of the tables and the bar, and hundreds upon hundreds of shells strewn across the floor. Ever since its inception ten years ago, this bar has fascinated me, mostly because I grew up in a house with a drawing room, several sitting rooms, and a staff of servants. It breaks my brain to think about eating a peanut and throwing the shell on the floor, but there’s also something freeing about the notion.
I still haven’t done it. Can’t bring myself to.
As if Jake can read my mind, he plucks a peanut from the bowl, shells it, and tosses the shell on the floor while he chews on the nut. He looks relaxed doing it, and I feel a familiar stab of envy. He’s someone who’s comfortable with himself—a man who fits in his own skin.
My skin has always felt like someone else’s, but maybe that’s what happens when your fate is written out for you before you take your first step.
I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose. Right now, there’s nothing I’d like better than to go home, pour myself some scotch, and relax in front of the fireplace in my living room. Maybe read a book. Probably disassociate. And if that makes me sound like I’m eighty-four instead of nearly thirty-four, then so be it.
But I agreed to accept Jake’s help in finding a woman who’s willing to marry me for my money, and these post-interview rehashes are part of it.
Jake and his girlfriend, Lainey, run a business called The Love Fixers—services for people who’ve been burned or broken by relationships. I qualify because Nina, the woman who was originally going to marry me for money, decided she’d prefer marry my college friend for money. If I don’t find someone to take her place by New Year’s, I’m going to lose my trust fund, which was contingent on me marrying by thirty-four—the year my father “built his empire,” in his words. It’s an ironic twist that brings me no joy that his real estate investment company might fold if I don’t get the money, because the Hail Mary deal I’ve been working on for months will fall through. True, I could sell some of my personal investments, but I’m guessing it’ll make nowhere near enough to make a difference.
To put it bluntly: I’ll be fucked.
So even though I’d like nothing better than to slide right past middle age into retirement, here I am. Trying to choose a fake wife, since the past decade of trying to find a real relationship hasn’t worked out. The idea is to find someone who’ll agree to a fake marriage and a year of no dating in exchange for a set payout.
Jake thought this would be easy to accomplish, but it’s complicated by the fact that he can’t publicize who I am. If the board of directors of my company finds out, they’ll want to get rid of me, Smith or not. If the people I know find out, I’ll be a laughingstock. And there’s another problem: only an insane person would agree to marry someone they’ve only known for a matter of days, even if it’s for a million dollars.
Jake’s still staring at me, silently asking for details about the licking, so I sigh and add, “Like it was a lollipop. Then she sucked on my ring finger for a solid ten seconds.”
“Did it feel good?” he asks, his eyes twinkling.
Nothing, it felt like nothing.
I smile despite myself. “Not really. It felt like a complete stranger was sucking on my finger. Usually, I prefer to get through the appetizer course before that happens.”
“None of the food had come out yet?” he asks, sounding more amused by this than a friend probably should be.
“No, I didn’t even have a drink to drown my sorrows in. I introduced myself, and when I held my hand out for a shake, she said, ‘I hear you’re looking for a wife.’ Then she lifted my hand to her mouth, ran her tongue down—”
His shoulders are shaking.
“You’re such a dick,” I say, laughing. “You know, she ordered an appetizer and dessert. I was forced to sit there for an hour and a half with a wet finger.”
“Surely it dried.”
“And yet the memory persisted. Maybe because she kept trying to feed me from her plate. I had to make an excuse so her dessert would be boxed up to go, and she still told me I should come over after dealing with my pretend work crisis so she could lick her chocolate mousse off my body. Didn’t you interview her before setting this up?”
He lifts his palm, silently requesting a second, and since it seems like he’ll spend the next five minutes laughing, I take a sip of my beer.
Finally, Jake says, “I did. She seemed to understand it wasn’t supposed to be a romantic relationship. Maybe the beard did it for her.”
“Very funny,” I say, running my hand along my jaw.
After Nina left, I spent several days in a fog. I didn’t shave, didn’t go to work, didn’t eat. By then, I didn’t love her anymore, but there’s something inherently depressing about being left by a woman who was only marrying you for your money. One day, I looked in the mirror and realized I had a beard, and I decided to keep it.
It was different, and different felt…
Well, it felt like something, which was better than the nothing I’ve been running on empty with for years.
“Or maybe there’s something irresistible about your fingers,” Jake says, wiggling his brows. “Remember that last woman? She kept saying you had the hands of a pianist.”
“I do,” I say wryly. “Seven years of lessons.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Did you ride your pony while playing the piano?”
I roll my eyes right back at him. Jake grew up in foster care, something I didn’t know until recently, and he’s admitted that he has a chip on his shoulder about the rich. So do I. Which means I have a chip on my shoulder about myself.
“The true elite know that pocket keyboards don’t count,” I say, “and it was a horse. My father didn’t believe in half measures.”
“Neither does your mother,” Jake says with a half-smile.
“Don’t get me started on her.”
He laughs again. “I don’t want to. I’ve got places to be, and once you get started, you have a hell of a time stopping.” His expression sobers. “Don’t give up hope, man. I think this next one really might be it. She didn’t give off a weird vibe at all.”
“You just said that about finger lady.”
He shrugs it off. “But finger lady is a masseuse. I should have been more suspicious, because I don’t think I’ve ever met a normal masseuse. This woman, though. She’s an accountant. Have you ever met an interesting accountant?” He slaps the table for emphasis, and the peanuts jump. “She wants the money so she can open a private accounting firm. Nothing off-the-wall or interesting about that.”
A laugh gusts out of me, but something inside of me feels like it’s sinking.
Boring is better than unhinged, I tell myself. Hell, if she’s a good accountant, maybe she can help you bring the business back to black.
All of that is true, and logically I know I’m not looking for a real relationship, a real wife. That’s the last thing I want or need right now. But I will have to spend a little time with whomever I marry. We’ll have to make a few public appearances together before the scheduled breakup. Is it so much to ask that she be neither boring nor unhinged?
I shake off the thought, which belongs to a version of me that still hoped my eventual marriage would be something more than a farce. “Maybe I should just let this go,” I say. “My sister Emma thinks I should walk away from the money.”
He snorts. “Easy for her to say. Didn’t you tell me she got her own trust fund, free and clear?”
I nod, my jaw tight at the reminder that my father didn’t trust me to amount to anything without external help from someone “stronger,” but he thought my sister would be just fine on her own. Emma would remind me that he’d also paved the way for me to take over his company and hadn’t once considered the possibility that his daughter might be better-suited for the role. She’d be right. Then again, one of the only things Emma and I seem to agree on lately is that our father was an asshole.
“You don’t walk away from that kind of money,” Jake says firmly. “You just don’t.”
He’s not wrong.
Eleven-point-five million is a lot of money. My father might have talked big about creating an empire, but he also inherited one. Both of his parents came from wealthy British bloodlines, imported from Massachusetts. My great-great-grandparents dined with the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore, a fact my father liked to remind us of when we didn’t want to eat our broccoli.
I steel my spine and nod. “Okay. I’ll meet with the accountant.” I lift my tainted ring finger and point it at him. “But if she sucks my finger, you’re fired.”
“What if she sucks—”
I cut him off with a glare.
He grins and nods. “I told you. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. She’s discreet. How about Saturday night? We’ve only got two weeks left, so I say we keep rolling.”
“How many more people have you talked to?” I ask, turning my pint glass in circles.
“We’re talking to two others,” Jake says, “but if you want my honest opinion, the accountant might be our best option. Lainey and I are going to keep looking for people, though. We’re trying a new ad.”
“Okay,” I say with a nod. “Saturday’s fine, but let’s make it lunch. Text me the details.”
Truthfully, I want a break from all of this, an escape, but he’s right. Time is running out, and I’d be a fool to walk away from my inheritance.
Jake slaps the table again, smiling, then downs the rest of his beer. “I’m gonna go, man.”
I motion to his empty glass. “Shouldn’t you wait a minute?”
“Lainey’s picking me up. She’s already outside, actually, but then you started talking about the finger sucking, and obviously I couldn’t leave until I heard all of it.”
“And I assume you’re about to tell her everything?”
His mouth hitches up. “Sorry, I’m a man in love. I can’t hold out on my lady.”
He probably doesn’t mean for it to hit like a jab, but it does nonetheless. My father’s will ensured that I’ll never feel that way about anyone, certainly not my wife. I wonder if he knew that’s what would happen.
I’m guessing he did, and he reveled in the thought of keeping that last bit of power for himself. If he couldn’t be there, he could still control all of us and create a rift.
Jake slaps down some money before I can tell him no, giving me a look that dares me to complain. Yes, he knows I can afford it, even without full access to my trust fund. No, he won’t let me pay for everything.
It’s his way of showing me that he wants to be a real friend to me—someone I can rely on—and I’m grateful for it.
There’s a knot in my throat as he walks out, cold gusting in before the door closes behind him.
I should leave too. My house is a hell of a lot more comfortable than this bar, and with one hundred percent fewer peanut shells on the floor. I could have that scotch I was thinking about…
But my house is also so empty it feels hollow, and there’s a feeling of melancholy that’s settled inside of me, so deep it might as well gild my soul.
A smile sneaks out of me, because I’ll bet Jake would have something to say about me brooding about the melancholy gilding my soul. He’d definitely drop the words “aristocratic” and “self-important.” But I still don’t leave. It’s almost like I’m rooted to the spot. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t been able to bring myself to crack open a peanut and let the shell fall where it may.
Fuck it, I decide. I’m going to do it.
I pick one of the peanuts up from the bowl, rolling it around in my fingers, feeling the rough husk against my irresistible fingers.
There’s a voice in my head that tells me I’m being ridiculous, but I do it anyway. I crack the nut and let the shell tumble over the side of the table, coming to rest on the floor by my shoes.
And I feel…
I still feel nothing, and the disappointment is ridiculous and real, until a woman’s voice reaches my ears.
“Anthony?”
I look up and see the face of an angel—big blue eyes, a generous mouth, and round soft cheeks that make a man want to touch, surrounded by soft waves of golden hair.
It’s Rosie James, the woman who witnessed my life falling apart a month and a half ago.
Chapter Two
Rosie
I came here for a peanut hookup.
If there is one thing people should know about me, it’s that I’m a woman who knows how to find and make deals.
My roommate, Joy, is a woman in her seventh or eighth decade—I respect her too much to ask—who’s spending her retirement in the tea freelancing business. I didn’t realize there was a tea freelancing business before I met her, but she pivoted from making tea blends for a local teahouse to throwing tea-related parties and making special, personalized blends for people. I’m here today because she was requested to throw a circus-themed tea on Saturday, and the hosts have decided that in order for it to feel legitimate, they need a shit ton of peanuts.
Obviously, we could get them at the grocery story, but if we get a deal on the nuts, then we get to keep the extra money, so you can bet your ass I’m getting a deal on the nuts.
I heard it from a friend who works in the restaurant business that this bar is the place to go to get nuts for cheap, so here I am.
And here he is.
It took me a second to recognize Anthony. The last time I saw him, he was slumped on his carpet after the first tea Joy catered. She dosed the tea with a special type of mushrooms she grows in her apartment—a first but not a last, because plenty of people want that kind of tea, it turns out. And, by ‘it turns out,’ I mean that I have helped her discreetly get word out about her special brews to the kind of people who might like that sort of tea party.
Discreet really is the name of the game, because I can’t afford to run into any trouble. But I have a second-sense for cops or authority figures, so I’m not worried we’ll get entrapped by a cop with a chip on their shoulder.
Business is booming. So much so that I’ve had to step back from my brother’s girlfriend’s bakery so I can spend more time helping Joy. Claire doesn’t mind that I bailed on her—or if she does, she hasn’t said so. My brother had probably already warned her that I’m not the kind of woman who’s about to get married to a job and stay home barefoot and pregnant. Much to his regret, I might add. He’s the kind of man who would like to constantly have a tracking device on all of the people he loves. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuck one into my footwear.
Joy and I have Anthony to thank for the business boom, in a way. Maybe that’s why I’ve thought of him so much over the past couple of months. Or it could be because I watched his fiancée walk out on him without a backward glance. That’s the kind of thing that leaves an impression, and I keep thinking of the look in his eyes—as if he were being torn in two and didn’t know which way was upward.
I’ve felt that way before. Felt it more than once, to be honest, because even though I’m lucky when it comes to finding deals, I am not lucky in love. Never had been.
Anthony’s grown a beard since I last saw him. It’s a good look for him, and he is, objectively, attractive—tall and broad-shouldered, with slate-gray eyes, thick chestnut-brown hair. Tonight, he has on jeans and a black sweater that make him look like he’s cos-playing as a beat poet.
He’s staring at me intensely, as if he’s still on that mini-mushroom trip Joy sent him on. My throat tightens, probably a reflex from remembering that afternoon.
“Rosie, right?” he asks, his eyes soaking me in. He glances around, taking in the sad, empty bar, with its graveyard of peanut shells, a couple of disinterested drunk dudes staring into their drinks or their phones, the bartender openly watching a gameshow on the TV. Then his eyes make their way back to me and stick. “Are you here with some friends or something?”
A laugh bursts out of me, because this is not a place I’d hang with friends. “No, I’m here for a peanut hookup.”
The confusion in his eyes makes me laugh again, because I’m guessing he’s envisioning me fucking a guy on a pile of peanuts. I sit down across from him without being invited. “I’ve been helping Joy with her tea catering,” I say. “You remember Joy. She’s the one who dosed you all with her magic mushroom tea.”
His lips twitch at the corners. “Not the kind of thing a man forgets.”
“No, I guess not. Sorry about that. She should definitely have asked you first. She’s learned her lesson, though, and it turns out that there are a lot of people who actually want her special tea.”
“Huh,” he says, lifting his eyebrows.
“Why are you here?” I say before I can help myself. “This doesn’t seem like your kind of hangout if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“What if I do mind you saying so?” he says, leaning back on his side of the booth.
Another laugh escapes me. “Then you’re probably out of luck. I’m not very good at keeping things to myself.”
That’s both true and untrue. I can keep secrets, if I need to. I can clutch them close and hold on until my dying breath. But it’s like my mouth takes offense to all this gatekeeping and wants to hold nothing else back to make up for it.
“I was meeting Jake,” he says.
Jake and Lainey are my close, personal friends. They run the Love Fixers together, along with Nicole and Damien, a husband-and-wife private investigator team, and I help them out whenever I feel like getting a laugh or a little rush of adrenaline. I’ve delivered penis balloon bouquets, cookies inscribed with cutting messages, and on one, very memorable occasion, I pretended to be someone’s secret lover.
I happen to know that my friends are helping Anthony. Something to do with finding him a substitute wife since his ex-fiancée dropped him like a hot potato. From my limited understanding of the situation, he has to marry someone to claim his trust fund.
“How’d it go?” I ask, grabbing one of the peanuts from the bowl on the table and cracking it open. Might as well get a feel for the merchandise if I’m going to be dealing with the joker behind the bar. I pop the peanut and drop the shell, all while Anthony stares at me like I’m some mythical creature come to life.
Not bad.
It’s pretty obvious I’m imposing on Anthony, but for some reason, I can’t get myself to up and leave. My brothers would probably say it’s because I’m stubborn. And I am stubborn, but it’s not just that. It’s the look I saw on his face the day of the mushroom tea—like he was being torn apart. It’s the emptiness I see behind his eyes now.
This man needs help, and even though I know next to nothing about him other than that he dislikes being drugged and has an obscenely rich mother and a very large trust fund, I want to help him.
Sighing, he stares off into the distance, like the answer to life might be written in the snow clouds hanging in the sky outside of the very dirty windows. “It’s not going well.”
“Really, what happened?” I ask, not expecting him to tell me but still not ready to give up the ghost and leave.
He gives me another disbelieving look, and when I don’t apologize or flinch, he shrugs. “She sucked on my ring finger within five minutes of meeting me.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Rookie mistake. She should have waited ten.”
He laughs then, a real laugh that lights him up, and I can’t look away from him—it’s like he’s gifted himself with a new face, one that has dimples beneath that very fine beard.
I clear my throat. “Was she hot?”
He shrugs, and it’s my turn to laugh. “Why do I think you’re about to say, ‘Not handsome enough to tempt me?’”
He gives his head a micro-shake. “I’m not Mr. Darcy. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding a wife.”
I gives him a dubious look, taking in the whole of him—those unexpected dimples, the short beard and thick, full hair. The gray eyes. There’s still emptiness behind them, but I’m pretty sure it’s not because he’s a secret serial killer. It’s the look of a man who’s not living his truth.
I’d like to know more about this man, and about what his truth is. Then again, I’d always like to know more. It’s what gets me into seven out of ten of my scrapes.
“I know all about Pride and Prejudice. I have a younger sister,” he explains, as if I’d questioned his knowledge of Austen.
“Good for you. You know, you wouldn’t have any trouble finding a wife either,” I say. “Finger lady would’ve married you in a heartbeat, I’ll bet.”
His lips lift again. “Ah, but I wouldn’t have married her.”
“Not even a fake marriage?”
“My fingers might not have survived it.”
My lips twitch upward as I glance down at his hands, resting on the tabletop. They are nice hands, strong but elegant, like he should be in one of those ads for watches or Fitbits. “You don’t think she’d be able to keep her hands off you? And this is a problem?”
He shrugs. “I’m not ready for anything like that. Not yet.”
“Poor you, so attractive the ladies just can’t keep away.” I glance back up at him. “You know, if you’re looking to keep things chaste, you should do away with the beard. Beards make women think about oral sex.”
He’d just cracked open a peanut, and it falls through his fingers as he stares at me.
I laugh reflexively. “Sorry. I can’t help myself. My brother Seamus says I should be muzzled. I think my other brother, Declan, agrees with him, but he’s too much of a gentle giant to say so.”
Anthony lifts one of those strong, elegant hands to touch his beard, and I feel a surprising shiver course through me. He’s not my usual type, but I can see why he’d be someone’s type. “Why?”
“The oral sex thing or the muzzle?”
“The former.”
“Oh, because it feels really good against a woman’s inner thighs.” I shrug. “My guess is that you’d be getting less of a feral vibe if you shaved the beard and went back to those fusty suits.”
I’ve surprised him again. To be honest, I could see where this would become an enjoyable game—making this man who thought he’d seen everything gape with surprise. “Fusty?” he says with as much offense as if he’d spun the thread himself. “They’re nice suits. My mo—”
He cuts himself off, but not quick enough to elude me. “Were you just about to say your mother picked them out?”
His smile crests, almost as if those dimples found an excuse to pop and now they’re so dizzied with their success they want it to happen again. “No,” he lies. “It was just a word that sounded like mother, but I can’t think of it right now.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He sobers. “Sometimes. I can keep a secret when I need to.”
I can relate to that a little too much, so I don’t push. Instead, I say, “Anyway. Your mother might have respectable taste in suits, but they’re not really suit daddy suits. You’ve got a sexier vibe going on now—like some kind of beat poet gone wrong. Are you sure you don’t want some action? It might help you get over—” I wave my hand.
“My ex-fiancée leaving me two months before the wedding so she could be with my college friend?” he says dryly. “Or the fact that she was only marrying me for money, and she still left?”
“Both of those things,” I say, feeling a surge of sympathy for him. “Maybe take advantage of the hot beard and have some fun.” His eyes hold mine for a beat, and something molten passes between us. So I hastily add, “That’s not an invitation, to be clear. I’m not looking for that kind of thing either.”
“A fake spouse or sex?” he asks, his voice a pitch lower.
“Either. I left behind a…situation when I left New York City.”
He cocks his head. “What kind of situation?”
“Don’t tell my brother.”
“Which one?”
“The one who lives in the house next to Lainey and Jake and is marrying Lainey’s best friend, Claire. Well, she doesn’t know it yet, but I do. I found the ring in his drawer.”
He huffs a laugh. “So I know before she does, huh?”
“Surprise! Please don’t track her down and tell her.”
“Claire’s my mother’s old assistant,” he says, nodding, and I’m amused to remember it’s true. Claire worked with her for a while before opening the bakery.
“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t tell Claire’s boyfriend. My brother is a big dude, and he may have a gentle giant thing going on usually, but he’s way overprotective of me. I don’t want him to get into any trouble out of some ham-handed notion of protecting me.”
“What’d this guy do to you?” Anthony asks, his voice strained and a little rough-edged, as if he actually cares about the answer.
“Like I said, no one in my family knows. But it turned out he was married. Had two kids, too. He was using me for some excitement, and I figured it was a good time to get out of town. It didn’t hurt that my brother Declan needed me. But name a crappy relationship malfunction, and I’ve been through it, I guarantee you.”
He swears under his breath, his gaze sympathetic, almost warm, then says, “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to feel used. That’s the worst part of all of this. Getting to know someone, letting them in, and then realizing they were only in it for what they could get out of you. And it’s not the first time.”
“Was it always about money?”
“Usually,” he says, swallowing. My gaze follows his Adam’s apple as it bobs in his throat. It’s nothing personal. I’ve just always thought there was something seductive about a man’s throat, is all, and he has a nice one.
“Why don’t you try dating only rich women?” I ask.
His lips lift. “Have you met rich women?”
Yes, and most of them are catty, shallow, and exacting. But for all I know, he’s the exact same way. His mother is certainly exacting. I’d know. In addition to catering the mushroom tea, I worked with the catering staff at Anthony’s ill-fated engagement party.
Sighing, he adds, “You know, my mother got married three times before she decided to give up. If it weren’t for my trust fund, I’d give up too.”
I whistle. “Three times, huh? No one can say she didn’t give it the old college try. What happened to the dudes?”
He gives me a wry smile, then glances at the bar. The bartender is still watching the gameshow, slack-jawed as if he’s been scarfing weed brownies in the back. From his glaze-eyed look, I’m not far off. When he glances back at me, Anthony’s gaze more…alive than it was when I got here ten minutes ago, he asks, “Would you like a drink?”
“Hell, yes. Or possibly half a dozen.”
Chapter Three
Anthony
“You really let your mother plan the wedding?” Rosie asks, waving a peanut at me. It’s her twelfth. Yes, I’ve counted.
“Like I told you, she got married three times. I figured she was some kind of expert.”
She narrows her gaze at me. “You didn’t answer me before. What happened to the guys?”
I stare back at her, not entirely sure she’s not fucking with me. “You honestly don’t know? It’s all anyone around here seems to talk about.”
“Believe it or not, you and your family have not been a topic of great interest to me.”
I laugh, the opposite of offended, because I’ve never enjoyed the scrutiny, the whispers, the knowing glances. A lack of interest is the greatest gift she could give me.
“I wish more people felt that way,” I say, watching her.
“You still haven’t answered,” she points out.
“They’re dead. All three of them. There’s this rumor running around town that my mother’s a black widow.”
“Is she?” she asks, perking up—interested now, although in my mother, not me.
“No,” I say with a rough laugh. But I’m not amused anymore, not really. This will never be a subject I enjoy talking about, nor one I can take lightly. “Her first husband got struck by lightning—”
“He didn’t,” she says with a gasp, her hand rising to her chest. “You’re fucking with me. You have to be.”
More genuine laughter escapes me. “I assure you, I’m not. It was on the news. And her third husband died in a plane crash.”
Her mouth drops open, a perfect pretty oh of surprise.
I smile wryly. “My mother’s crafty, but it would be a stretch to credit her with controlling the weather or causing a plane to crash.”
“She’s unlucky in love,” she says, repeating what I said earlier, shaking her head slightly as if in commiseration. “The statistics are skewed against her.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“I feel like that sometimes too. Roman’s not the first married man I’ve unknowingly dated. Will you believe it’s happened twice? The first one hurt the worst, but it made me feel cursed when it happened again. It’s like I’m wearing some invisible sign that only assholes see.”
I see her, but then again maybe I’m an asshole too, in a different way, so I feel no need to point it out. “My mother’s three husband all died in strange accidents. There’s a lot I’ll believe.”
“And what happened to your father?”
I speak through the sudden vise around my throat: “An accident in our yard. He fell from an apple tree and broke his neck.”
She shakes her head again. I hear the silent unlucky. Cursed.
My whole life, I’ve heard those words spoken, hinted, implied…I can’t escape them, so I decided not to care about them. It’s an approach that I’ve applied to too much of my life, probably.
“You can throw salt over your shoulder if you want,” I say with a slight smile. “People have been known to do that in our presence. The kids in my class used to dare each other to go on a date with my sister. See if she was a black widow too.”
“Fuck them,” she says with animation, and my smile grows wider. I like the way she says what she’s feeling as she’s feeling it. She’s a woman who feels things strongly and wears those feelings out in the open rather than tucking them away. “I hope you gave them a lesson.”
“I did, and my sister tricked me into glitter-bombing my own bedroom as punishment. She believes in fighting her own battles. A little like you, I’m guessing.”
Her lips lift up. “You’ve got that right.”
“Do you want the salt now? Maybe some sage?”
She blows out a breath that makes a few strands of hair hanging from her ponytail waft out, and I find myself reaching over to tuck them behind her ear. Her hair is soft against my fingers, like spider silk, and when my finger touches the back of her hair, it feels like my finger starts to buzz. As if Rosie James gives off an electrical charge. “If something like that could cure bad luck, then I would have won the lottery years ago. So you figured your mother was some kind of wedding expert?”
I shrug, my fingers tingling slightly from the contact with her skin and the soft silk of her spun gold hair. “Maybe. I don’t care about any of that stuff. The pomp, the circumstance. It’s all a bunch of showboating. I figured it would give Nina a chance to bond with her, but she basically let Mom do whatever she wanted. The only thing she cared about was the money. That’s obvious now.”
She snorts. “Should have been obvious when she suggested you get married the second you told her about the trust fund.”
We’ve been at the bar for a couple of hours now, and other than an older man with a sunburned pate, who may have actually fallen asleep in a booth by the door, we’re the only customers left. It’s unclear whether the bartender cares or has any plans to close the place down.
I don’t want him to. I don’t know why, but all I really want to do right now is sit across this woman—half angel, half devil. She’s easy to talk to, and we’ve spent half our time talking about nothing and the other half discussing our personal horror stories. She’s told me about discovering her ex-boyfriend’s picture-perfect family, and I’ve spilled the whole sorry mess of my story:
Meeting Nina, thinking she was different.
Confessing to Nina that I was from a wealthy family and would be not very wealthy if I found someone to marry before I turned thirty-four.
Agreeing to get engaged to Nina when she enthusiastically offered.
Realizing Nina was exactly the same as the other woman who’d used me for my father’s fortune…
Through it all, Rosie has listened, which isn’t to say she hasn’t made plenty of comments.
She makes an amused sound, not quite a laugh, then says, “You know, I’ve heard your mother designed a real horror-show of a wedding for you.”
My mouth lifts. “I don’t even know the half of it. Like I said, I stayed out of it.” I pause, but a few too many beers has me admitting, “My mother hasn’t cancelled it yet. She’s told everyone it’s going to be a New Year’s party now, but the arrangements are still in place.”
“Seriously?” she says, leaning forward, her whole countenance buzzing with life. She’s so invested in my ridiculous life story, I can’t help but laugh again.
“Seriously. She says she’s only doing it to be supportive, but I expect she also wants it to be a slap in the face for Nina.”
“It would be,” she says, her eyes sparkling with wicked amusement. “If you use her wedding to marry another woman. Would you invite her and your traitor friend? Tell them it’s a New Year’s party, and whoops, it’s a surprise wedding.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Jake suggested it too. But I figure I’d better find someone to marry before I get ahead of myself.”
She watches me for a second, dozens of things dancing in her blue eyes, and for a moment I’m nearly transfixed by them. By her. I’ve never met anyone this alive before. Maybe I’m drunk, but it seems to me that she could hardly help but animate everything she touches.
“I really want to see that happen,” she finally says. “I want to see the look on her face when she realizes what’s happening.” Another second of silence passes before she says, “I’m going to find you a wife.” Then she smacks the table open-handed, and the sunburned-pate guy flinches awake and makes a startled sound before recognizing where he is and settling back in for dreams of sugarplums and warmer climates.
My lips twitch with amusement. “I don’t want to double-dip.” Rosie starts to laugh, clearly amused by this phrase, and I add, “Jake set up a meeting for me this weekend. An accountant.”
Her lips press together. “He’s going about this all wrong.”
Bemused laughter bursts from me again. “Why’s that?”
She gives me an assessing look, her eyes a little glazed, and I realize we’ve each had four or maybe five beers. More than enough that I’ll have to call a town car and bear the indignity of coming back in the morning to retrieve me car. “Mark my words, you are for a female accountant what a sample sale is for rich white ladies. She’s going to be all over a guy like you.”
I’m oddly offended by this. Maybe because Rosie is nothing like what I’d imagine an accountant might be, so it’s as if she’s saying I’m very resistible for her. “Care to make a wager?” I ask before I can stop myself.
New energy seems to buzz and zip inside of her, as if this mention of a wager is feeding some unseen hunger, and I feel…
I feel something again.
I’m definitely not bored. I haven’t been bored this entire evening.
“What kind of wager?” she asks, her eyes lighting up.
“If this meeting goes south on Saturday, then I’ll let you find someone for me. But if it goes well, then I get to find someone for you.”
I’m not sure what possessed me to say that. Most of my friends are married or happily coupled-up, and my one habitually single friend is now fucking my ex-fiancée. Besides, I don’t like the idea of setting Rosie up with anyone. Maybe it’s because I have trouble imagining anyone who’d be able to keep up with her, and I don’t want her to be bored either.
But she gives me a broad grin and holds out her hand. I take it, feeling a surprising stirring inside of me, but I ignore it and give her a firm shake. My father always said you could make the measure of a man through his handshake, and he used to make me practice it with him—squeezing my small bones until they ground together, because being a man also meant taking a hit and not letting it show.
“I’m going to win,” she says, her eyes bright with the prospect. “I always win wagers.”
“I believe you. Something tells me you have a victory dance too.”
“Of course I do. It’s obscene.”
I can’t not smile at that.
“Do I get to tell Jake about the competition?”
“You should,” I say. “A man should know what he’s up against.”
Sunburned Pate stirs again, scratches his pink head, and glances at the TV. The gameshow that was on earlier has slid into paid programming, but the bartender is still watching it with sulky, glazed disinterest. It hits me that even though I’ve been here a lot over the last several months, I’ve never thought to ask his name.
“I need to go talk to him about the peanuts,” Rosie says, smacking the table again. “He looks like a man who’s about to give me a deal counter to his interests.”
I wonder if that’s what I looked like to her too.
But, for the life of me, I can’t think what Rosie James would stand to gain by helping me find a wife before the end of December.
“Would you like a ride home?” I ask. “I’m going to call a town car.”
Her face crinkles with amusement. “Why don’t we both take an uber? Together?”
I’m already shaking my head. “The last uber driver in Marshall turned out to be a murderer. I’d prefer it if you took a town car.”
“Neither of us live in Marshall,” she says, rolling her eyes. I guess she has a point, but it’s where my mother and her brother live, and it’s kind of hard to forget a thing like that. “And you can come with me if you’re so desperately worried.” She seems totally unfazed by my reference to the murderer. Too bad—I’d thought that was my ace in the hole.
“Why don’t you want to take a town car?” I ask. Truthfully, I’m a lot less worried about getting picked up by a murderer than someone whose car smells like unwashed feet, or perhaps the pot-smoking son of someone on my board, but I don’t need to tell her that.
She gives me an amused look. “Because I want to see you in an uber. But first I’m going to get myself a deal on some peanuts.”
She gets up and sidles over to the bar, where the bartender slowly animates—as if he could hardly help himself with Rosie close. And even though this is a matter between Rosie and the stoner bartender and is arguably none of my business, I find myself getting up and following her. Like I could hardly help it either.
Ten minutes later, the bartender, Dominic, is her best friend. Five minutes later, he’s telling us all about his dead-end job at the bar we’ve been at all evening.
He says the owner of the bar doesn’t value his ambition because she threw out his idea of decorating the bar with nutcrackers and a tree-nut medley nuts for Christmas. I guess she was worried about the possible liability issues of putting a bunch of drunk people around nutcrackers. According to Dom, the building is also owned by a “slumlord,” an accusation I listen to with tongue in cheek, because I own this building.
I own it, not my father’s company. I bought it years ago, because I looked at it and saw not what it is but what it could become. In my mind, it was something special—a place that would become a real community.
But my life is nothing if not a story of stalled potential. I allowed the bar to stay, and the rest of the building houses nothing but rats and stored building materials for some of the builders we work with. My dream is a warehouse full of other peoples’ building supplies.
“What about a ladies’ night?” Rosie asks, glancing around as if she, too, is taking in the potential and ignoring the blaring lack of charm, from the spiderwebs in the rafters to the slight unwashed funk that might be the bar or the man who tends it. “Have you ever tried one of those?”
“You think women would come here?” he asks in awe, as if he’s not talking to one of the most naturally gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. Still, there’s no denying he has a point. I don’t think women would come here—mostly because Rosie is one of the only women I’ve ever seen in here.
"If you offer half-priced drinks on a weeknight, they will,” she says with a wink. “People will do a lot for a half-priced drinks.” She gives the place another glance, this one absorbing the obvious deficits. “Maybe give the place a little lift, though. Women like pretty things.” Her eyes light up. “Ooh, you could give away some kind of swag with the bar’s name on it. That always works well at parties, and they can share whatever you put out with their friends. You know, spread the word. Why don’t you give me your number, I can help you build some buzz?”
Both Dom and I are gaping at her now.
“You want my number?” he asks, his blood-shot eyes widening.
“Of course,” she says, “we’re friends, aren’t we? I’m going to help you. And when ladies’ night is a huge success, maybe the owner will be willing to take some more…unconventional risks.” She winks at him, and he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out.
Her gaze shifts to me for a half a second. She gives me a sly, knowing grin, then glances back at Dom, “Hey, where do you get the peanuts? These are the best peanuts I’ve ever had in my life…so crunchy and delicious…and my friend needs to acquire some for this event she’s holding.”
“How many do you need?” he asks without hesitation. “Whatever you want, they’re yours. On the house.”
I stare at Rosie James with awe.
For years, I’ve struggled to win the loyalty of the people who work for me, most of whom have been there long enough that they worked for my father. All of whom see him as some sort of God of real estate investment. Me, not so much. Hell, last year, my head of HR informed me bluntly that morale was low and convinced me to hold a team building exercise at a retreat in the mountains.
No one caught me in the trust fall.
I’m too closed off, I’ve been told. Cold. Reserved. Dead inside, according to Nina and probably the vast majority of the people I’ve met.
But it took Rosie all of fifteen minutes to win this bartender over so thoroughly that he gave her exactly what she wanted. Only…
She gave him something too. She made him feel special and important. Motivated. Because from the look on his face, this stoner is going to be holding a ladies’ night within the week, come hell or high water, if only to impress her.
“Thank you,” Dom says. “Thank you.” Turning to me, he shakes his head, bemused, and says, “You’re one lucky man, brother.”
I nearly snort. “One lucky slumlord.”
His gaze shifts to me, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Rosie, who has the instincts of a cat, reaches across the bar and gives him an honest-to-God hug. He hugs her back a little too tightly, and I find myself fisting my hands.
Dom must notice, because he pulls back so abruptly he nearly staggers into the shelves behind the bar.
Five minutes later, we’re sliding into an old car that smells like locker room shoes with a sack full of Dominic’s nuts.
She gives me a victorious look as the driver, a man who looks like he last showered in May, takes off from the curb. My nose twitches from the stench, and her expression turns even more self-satisfied.
“What’s that look for?” I ask as the car glides through the streets “Because you got Dominic to give you the nuts for free? I’ll admit to being mildly impressed. I wish I were half as good at working people. Things would go more easily for me at the office.”
She reaches over and pokes my chest, her finger lingering for a second longer than it needs to, a look cresting in her eyes before disappearing. “Hey, I didn’t ‘work’ anything. I like Dom, and he really does have a shitty job.” She arches her eyebrows. “And a shitty landlord.”
“So you picked up on that…” I say with a snort. “I’ll have you know I’m a very responsive landlord. The last I checked it’s not my duty to clean the floors for them.”
She laughs, her eyes bright with it, even in the near dark of the interior of the cab as it navigates dim streets. “Is it weird that I like the thought of you scrubbing floors?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t savor the thought of you doing menial tasks. But I can assure you that I have scrubbed floors before. It was my mother’s favorite punishment.”
She shakes her head in amusement. “What’d you do? Break a priceless dish? Get a B-?”
A smile slips through, and I shake my head right back at her. “If you grew up in a house like that, wouldn’t you try to throw a few inadvisable parties?”
She grins. “Hell, yeah.” She lifts her hand for a high five. “Give it to me up here.”
She lifts her hand for a high five, and I laugh. “I’m not giving you a high five. We’re not thirteen-year-olds.”
“Speak for yourself. And don’t leave me hanging. It’s rude to leave people hanging.”
Her eyes are sparkling, her lips parted slightly, and something stirs in the numbness inside of me. I want to please her. I want to see her smile again. So I lift my hand and slap it against hers, feeling a surprising burst of sensation from the contact of her skin against mine.
She curls her fingers around mine and squeezes before letting go, her grin wide and blinding—almost so bright that I have to look away.
“I knew you had it in you,” she says.
“I didn’t know I had it in me,” I mutter.
“Anyway,” she says. “I feel compelled to point out that I wasn’t working Dom. People need to vent. They deserve to have someone listen to them.”
My mouth quivers with a withheld smile. “If you like him so much, I should ask him to be your date when you lose our wager.”
She grins. “Look at you, being saucy. Maybe I’ll ask him to be your date when you lose.”
“Alas, he’s not my type.”
“What is your type?” she asks, leaning in closer to keep our conversation semi-private. Her leg presses against me for just a second—a hot, searing second that has blood rushing to places it definitely doesn’t belong. But I’m tipsy, heading toward drunk, and a gorgeous woman is sitting in the backseat of an Uber with me, asking about my type. That’s all this is. I’m not interested in her. I haven’t been interested in anyone or anything, not really, in longer than I can remember. There’ve been glimmers of it—especially when I first bought this building, with its colorful graffiti and vast interior, but those feelings of inspiration, of future joy, always seem to dance out of reach.
I swallow. “Right now, no one. I meant what I said. I’m taking a break from all of that.”
She gives me a dubious look. “From my experience, men don’t like going two days without sex, let alone months.” She glances down at my hand, resting on my thigh. “Then again, you do have big hands. I’ll bet—”
“Your brother might have been right about the muzzle,” I say tersely, my dick feeling every word from her mouth. It’s not a great start to the no-sex desert I’m sprinting toward. Because she’s not wrong. If I manage to find a woman who’ll agree to a legal but fake marriage, neither of us will be able to publicly date for the duration. The thought hadn’t really bothered me before now.
She shrugs. “Oh, I know he was right.” Her gaze lingers on my face for a few seconds before she asks, “You really must have loved her, huh? She seemed kind of awful, but who am I to talk? I’ve always had horrible taste in men. You probably would have seen through Roman or those other jerks in half a second. That’s the thing. It’s always easier to see someone else’s relationships problems clearly.”
I consider that for a moment, then sigh and look out the window, finding myself staring at a billboard advertising a therapy business. “I didn’t love her. Not anymore. I thought I did when we first met, but she became a completely different person after she learned about the money.”
She studies me for a long moment, like I’m an equation she’d like to figure out, then says, “And what happened nearly broke you anyway.”
In her voice is something unexpected: understanding. Because it had felt like confirmation that the only likable thing about me is my ban account balance and investment portfolio. And what would it have felt like to let myself fall for a woman only to realize she wanted exactly what all the others had?
I keep looking for meaning, and all I find are empty wells.
Then she does something unexpected. She layers her hand on top of mine, her touch awakening something deep within me, and says, “You inherited your father’s business, didn’t you?”
I nod, my vocal cords no longer feeling especially functional.
“And do you like your job?”
I give her the only honest answer I’ve ever made to that question: “No. I loathe it.”
“So what will you do if you get the money?” she asks, her eyes shining. “Are you going to say fuck it all and buy yourself a haunted mansion in Scotland?”
I’d ask her why Scotland? or maybe why haunted? but my attention is diverted by the question itself.
Because no, I won’t. I’ll stay at my job. I’ll try to maintain my father’s legacy the way he would have wanted, even though I know nothing I do would ever please him.
But I won’t do it out of love.
Maybe I’m like Dom, drawn to her by her charism—the one thing I’ll never be able to buy—but I find myself asking: “What’s your number?”
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