I nod.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby in a second,” Kade says to Larkyn before she leaves. And then he turns to me, and I know he’s about to give me a big brother speech.
“Alright, let’s hear it. I’m not cut out for marriage. I’m making a big mistake. I jumped into marriage too early.”
Kade just stares at me.
“Out with it.”
He reaches into the pocket of his suit and pulls out a stack of papers. His life could have been my life. If I was normal. If I wasn’t addicted to drugs and alcohol. I could have worked in a big office in a suit and gone to client meetings where I drank fine whiskey and made deals like him.
Instead, I wear jeans and a company T-shirt every day. My office is surrounded by patients who are detoxing and cursing and vomiting. Trust me, detoxing isn’t a pretty sight. There is nothi
ng fancy about my life. The only part of my life that is anything like I expected as a kid is the high-rise apartment. And that is just because of my inheritance.
I may not be trusted or want to work in the family business, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t earned every drop of money that I inherited. I just earn mine by staying sober and keeping out of the newspapers, while Kade earns it by working hard in a fancy office.
If Kade only knew the truth, that technically I’m not sober anymore. I broke my ten-year sobriety, and that’s what led to me making a stupid decision and getting married to Millie in the first place.
Kade tosses the papers on the table without a word. I glance down.
“What’s this?”
“Your prenup.”
I frown as I pick up the papers that he had drawn up for me. I don’t read them over, but I see mine and Millie’s full name on them. Rose—her middle name is Rose. Beautiful.
“Hey,” Kade snaps his fingers in front of my eyes. I dazed off thinking of Millie.
“We don’t have much time to talk before Larkyn comes looking for us.”
“Why are you handing me a prenup? We’re already married. And what are you doing getting involved in my business anyway?”
“The prenup is to protect you. It doesn’t matter that you are married, you can still sign a prenup after, especially since you got married so fast. That, or you can get it annulled now before things get messy.” He tosses a second set of papers in front of me—annulment papers.
That pisses me off. “That’s all Millie and I are to you, a big joke? One you can just toss some papers at and make go away?”
“No, actually. I don’t think you are a big joke. That’s why I want to protect you. Because when this fails, and it will because you haven’t known her long enough, you will be protected.”
“I don’t need a prenup!” I stand up.
Kade does, too, in his incredibly calm way. “If she truly loves you, she’ll sign the prenup. It’s incredibly generous and just protects the family assets you wouldn’t want to give up anyway.”
“You mean you wouldn’t want to give up. You’re the only one who cares about the business.”
“Read it. It protects the healing and recovery center too. She could get half otherwise.”
I hadn’t thought of that. My life’s work—Millie could take part of it. She could demand it since we are legally married, even if everything else is fake.
Kade holds the paper against my chest, begging me to take it.
“And if she signs it, you’ll leave us alone. You will accept our marriage. You won’t secretly be betting on when it will fail. You won’t tell me I told you so if it does.”
Kade nods.
I snatch the papers and head home, intent on getting Millie to sign them, but end up mindlessly driving around for a while to blow off steam.
Millie will sign them because she doesn’t give a fuck about my money. And this is all fake, I try to calm myself as I drive.