“Marry me.”
~*~
Myles’ face went slack with shock. “Are you drunk?”
Piper didn’t take offense at the question. “Sober as a judge. Baptist wedding, remember? Just hear me out. If you show up with some total stranger in tow that you picked up in Vegas or wherever, your grandmother will, I presume, flip her lid.”
He grimaced. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“As executor of the trust, might she have the option to still not give it to you if she thinks you got married strictly for the money?”
“I’d have to check with Tucker to verify, but maybe,” he said slowly.
“Whereas if you come with me, it’s more believable. We have backstory because of the show. As far as they know, we fell for each other on stage, started dating. Six months is quick but not insane crazy short for getting engaged.”
Myles stared at her. “But I have to be actually married. Legally. License and all.”
“So we do a quick courthouse ceremony somewhere out of town. We have all the legal stuff in place for you to take to your family. Nobody here has to know, and we can just continue on dating as if nothing has changed.” She paused. “Assuming you still want to date.”
“So you’re suggesting we get married and then date?”
“Basically. The terms of the trust are satisfied, you get the money to pay off your investor, and everybody gets to keep their job.”
She could see his nimble brain sorting through scenarios, trying to find all the angles. Her own mind hummed, bouncing like a prize fighter just waiting to knock down the next question or objection. They could really do this and he’d be able to save his business.
“Where would you live?”
“As far as anyone here would be concerned, we’d just be dating, so I’ll keep my place.”
“What about holidays? Thanksgiving. Christmas. Your family will expect you there. And mine will think it’s weird if you don’t show up with me.”
“Your family’s in Madison, right? It’s less than two hours away. I’m sure we could juggle it. Work is always a convenient excuse to need to change the time of something. We could make this work, Myles.”
“Okay, say I consider this—and that’s a big if, because this may be the most madcap scheme I’ve ever heard—how long would we keep this up?”
“Long enough for you to gain access to the trust and…” Piper hesitated.
“And what?”
Nothing risked, nothing gained. This wasn’t any crazier than the rest of what she was suggesting. “And long enough for us to figure out whether we want it to be a permanent thing or not.”
“Permanent?”
For all that she’d learned to read his expressions when they’d worked toge
ther on stage, she couldn’t read him now. Had that been the point to scare him away from her? Pretending a casualness she didn’t feel, she kept her voice light. “That’s kind of the point of dating, isn’t it? Deciding whether you want a permanent relationship or not. We’d still be doing that, albeit unconventionally.”
“Fair point. And if it doesn’t work out?”
She shrugged. “Then we get a quiet divorce, no harm, no foul. Tucker told you there was no contingency in the trust to take the money away if you did. And I’ll sign a prenup relinquishing whatever rights I might hold over it as your wife.”
He scrubbed both hands over his face and back through his hair, making it stand up in the back. “You realize this is completely insane, right? You’re suggesting actual, legal marriage with the same casual attitude you might take to leasing a car.”
“I trust you. I wouldn’t be here with you now, wouldn’t have made this offer, if I didn’t. I’m suggesting that you actually like me. You—I presume—trust me. You know I can act, so I can sell whatever needs selling to your family to legitimize things. If nothing else, we’re friends, with an obvious potential to be more. I have no other encumbrances to keep me from helping you out with this, and it’ll either end as quietly as it begins or...” Piper didn’t want to give too much thought to exactly how much she wanted to believe in that “or”.
“Or we decide to stay married. What then? Do we just come out and tell your family and our friends about this lunacy?”
Stay married. Wouldn’t that be something? To jump into this with the intent of helping a friend and find forever. It wasn’t why she’d offered, wasn’t what she expected. But if that was how it played out? She’d consider herself lucky that the gamble payed higher dividends than she’d counted on.