The December Deal Read online

  Lena broke from the group and stopped him before he could reach Lilia. “What are you doing?”

  “Pardon?” Drinking. Clearly. And not nearly enough.

  “I may not agree with all of this, but you two have a good thing going on.”

  How many drinks had he had already? Lena wasn’t making a lick of sense.

  She leaned in closer to keep her voice low. “She needs to be able to keep that money.”

  “What are you talking about?” He’d never even thought about taking back the money, and their deal was still in full swing. Why did Lena think it wasn’t?

  “The reason she married you? The money? It was for Dad.”

  He furrowed his brows. There were too many questions to ask all at once.

  “He needed that experimental treatment the insurance company won’t pay for, and the hospital in Denver wouldn’t do it without at least half the payment up front.” Lena’s gaze found her dad, and her eyes teared. “We tried to raise the money, but it wasn’t happening quickly enough.” She crossed her arms. “Because of your check, he was able to go down to Denver sooner to receive these new drugs, and now everything will be paid for so they don’t have to worry.”

  He gazed at Lilia from across the bar—she was picking out songs with Candace.

  From the outside, she looked so carefree, and she was full of spirit to boot. But on the inside, she was just as scared as he was. She hadn’t wanted to lose something—someone—close to her either.

  “I’m glad it all worked out.” He took another pull from his beer. If he could’ve done something, anything to save his dad, he would’ve. He respected her choices.

  And the fact that she’d needed the money for her dad changed his perception—she wasn’t just all about the money for greed’s sake.

  Both of their stakes had been high. Talk about two people being at the right place at the right time—they had needed each other. They were each other’s last resort. And possibly saving grace.

  “Which brings me back to my original point,” Lena said. “If you start bringing feelings into your perfect little setup, it’s all going to fall apart.”

  What had Lilia told her twin sister? Was Lena here as a warning because Lilia wanted her to be?

  “I don’t know what you think is going on, but—”

  “I can see it. I see it in her eyes, too. It won’t work out. You two are too different.”

  “Who are you to know that?”

  For a sister-in-law, Lena kind of sucked.

  “That’s what I thought.” She winked at him and smiled like she’d won.

  What the?

  “She might feel the same way, but you’re going to have to work harder than the occasional kiss.”

  With that bomb, she walked off, heading toward the bar. So Lilia really didn’t feel the same way, or was she starting to and he needed to tell her how he felt? What if she didn’t feel the same and then he still had to be around her for the next eleven months? Tonight wasn’t the night to have this discussion. But he also couldn’t stay here and be this close to her all night without knowing she was his. Really his.

  He started toward her, glancing around to make sure no one else was going to intercept him this time. “My blog is taking off,” Lilia was saying to Candace when he was within earshot, “and I’m beginning to get known, so I really don’t want to change my last name right now.”

  That was part of the agreement.

  He whispered in her ear, “I can’t do this,” then set down his drink on the nearest table.

  “What?” Lilia whirled around and grabbed his arm.

  “I have to go.” He tried to keep his voice down and talk over the noise all at once.

  “You don’t feel good?” Her sincere gaze met his and instead of the warmth he always felt, his stomach squeezed. Tonight was too confusing. The past week had made him a mess.

  This entire ordeal had been a mistake. She could keep the money, he’d never dream of taking it away from her, but he couldn’t carry on the charade any longer.

  “Consequences,” Lena said as he passed by her on the way out the door.

  Yeah, now he understood completely. He was in love with Lilia, but everything else was a lie and he couldn’t take it any longer. He couldn’t pretend he was pretending to be her husband. He wanted to be hers, and he wanted her to be his. For real. Only he’d backed himself into a corner with a fake marriage he had no idea how to go about making real.

  • • •

  “Vincent.” Lilia had to jog to catch up to him.

  The streetlights flickered overhead, and the bitter cold of the Christmas night filled her lungs and pricked at her skin.

  “What is your problem?” She stopped only inches from him.

  Anger coursed through her veins, but she was still in her right mind enough to know that she didn’t want too many ears listening in. In fact, tonight was supposed to be fun. It was Christmas. They were celebrating. And it had been fun—right up until the moment he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He hadn’t even given her the courtesy of a regular kiss. Nope, his lips on hers had stirred the fire that had burned steadily for a week, fanning flames she had to stamp back down deep if she had any hope of surviving the year and not being utterly, emotionally crushed.

  “I can’t do this any longer.” His hands were shoved deep in his pockets.

  “Do what?”

  “So our being married isn’t even an issue for you anymore? It doesn’t even register as a problem?”

  “It was never a problem.” It’s not like she hadn’t known what she was agreeing to—she just hadn’t expected to like him so much.

  “Just a deal.” His gaze dropped to the ground.

  “It is what it is. Why is this a problem all of a sudden?” It was hard enough to deal with her own internal struggle, but if he was going to be outwardly pissy now, she may as well give up. She didn’t have it in her to tell him one thing all the time while feeling another.

  “I can’t live a lie.” His blue eyes set firmly on her as his jaw jumped.

  She stepped closer to him. “Well, you better figure it out because this lie has been sold and I’m not taking it back.”

  “I won’t make you give back the money.”

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “Very.”

  “And what about your company?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Because although you had no solution for an entire year, now you’re just going to come up with a new answer? If we split up, you don’t get to keep your company. You have a perfectly good plan in place.” Panic found a place firmly in her throat. What was she going to do? He was just leaving her like this? One week in and she wasn’t even good enough as a fake wife? “This is just the answer to you? I have lied to my friends and family for you. I’ve lied to myself.” She’d been lying to herself from the first moment she’d seen him. She wanted him for real; she was just better at hiding it when they were strangers. They weren’t anymore. They were friends. They were confidants. The breath hitched in her lungs. They were nothing now. Everything about them was fake.

  “You didn’t just get nothing out of this deal.” He ran his palm through his thick, brown hair.

  “You’re right. I sold my soul to do the right thing. Lesson learned.”

  “I didn’t want any of this. All I wanted was to keep my company.”

  “And you did. Congratulations. Job well done.” Her dad had gone through the treatment one time and had enough money to do it again and keep going to improve his health. She wouldn’t change a thing.

  “It’s more complicated than that.” His head shook, and his lips tightened.

  She had a feeling it wasn’t. Their relationship was black and white—and written on a piece of paper.

  “I’ll stay with my parents tonight and come by tomorrow.” For what, she didn’t know. She could stay or move out, but either way she needed time to think.

  “That�
��s not necessary.”

  “Then what exactly are you asking for here?” She rubbed her lips together, keeping her mind off what they were really talking about. Because if she thought about it, she’d cry.

  “I don’t know.”

  She took one more step closer, until she was as close to him as she was ever going to get again. “The next time you start dropping statements about living a lie and finding another solution, you’d better know the outcome you desire. Or don’t bother.” She whirled on her heels and walked as fast as she could on the icy sidewalk back into the bar and straight into the bathroom. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry. Then she’d have to explain more than the sham that was her marriage.

  • • •

  Vincent heard the downstairs door creak. He opened an eye—it was barely light outside. His head pounded as he sat up to find his sweatpants and a hoodie. One too many shots of whiskey had put him in bed after he’d left the pub. Lilia’s face had haunted him—he couldn’t stop picturing her angry eyebrows knitted together over big, brown eyes that hated him. There was no way to blame her for that either. One minute he’d been kissing her, and the next he was pushing her out the door.

  The Skype call he’d had no business answering had put him over the edge. Lilia had left her laptop on the kitchen table, and as he’d grabbed the whiskey bottle and a short glass, her computer started ringing.

  The man’s face on his profile picture had looked a little too friendly. Vincent had stupidly clicked the answer button.

  “Hello?

  “Where’s Lilia?” A tanned man with an Italian accent moved his head to try to see around Vincent.

  “She’s not here right now. Who are you?”

  “I’m her fiancé. Who are you?”

  “I’m her husband.” The bottle of whiskey slammed down hard on the table, and he glanced at it to make sure he’d not broken it. She was engaged to someone else? How had that not come up at the coffee shop? His body heated and his heart pounded, and he clamped down hard on his teeth.

  There was a bunch of Italian he didn’t understand coming from the screen, and he took the opportunity to unscrew the top of the whiskey and swig right from the bottle.

  Before he could ask questions like how long have you known each other and how long have you been engaged, the call disconnected.

  He watched her from the top of the stairs and stopped himself from retreating and letting her course go unaltered. He had questions. And, if there was still a chance to save this, then he should. Whether she stayed or went, his heart ached. He really hadn’t handled last night well. He should’ve manned up and told her he wanted a future with her. At this point, he wasn’t sure which was worse: telling her he had feelings and watching her leave, or not telling her and having her stay.

  And then there was the whole fiancé thing—his embattled gut said he’d been cheated.

  “It’s early.” He was off to a stellar start. Maybe next he’d point out her jeans were blue.

  “I was trying to be quiet.” She slid big, puffy red earmuffs off her head.

  “You were. It was the door that gave you away.”

  He watched her, unsure of his next step. Was she there to move out? Was she coming back home to shower and stay? Her stare did not bring warmth; instead he felt like a stranger.

  “About last night … ” He’d started the sentence with no idea how to end it. He kind of hoped she’d jump in and assume everything was fine and they could move past their last spat on to the new one brewing in the back of his mind.

  She said nothing.

  “You don’t have to move out.” Getting to the point, it was. With a throbbing head and a slew of known mistakes, he wasn’t looking forward to knowing what she’d decided.

  “If our deal is over then I do.”

  “It’s not over.”

  “It sure seemed that way last night.”

  He rubbed his forehead, wishing he’d stayed in bed. These were very good points, and he had no comeback. “You can do whatever you’d like.”

  “Not according to this.” She produced a thick, folded band of papers and shook it in his direction.

  Their prenup.

  He made quick work of the stairs and came to a stop closer to her than he should have. Her pomegranate smell danced around him, and he refused to let it soothe him. He reached out and took the thick packet out of her hands. He pretended to read as his lips tightened together. She didn’t get to take the high road—not today. “I forget, did it say anything in here about not being able to have a fiancé on the side?”

  “What?” Her forehead wrinkled, and if he didn’t know better he would’ve thought she was genuine.

  “Your Italian fiancé.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She rolled her eyes and walked around him, whirling around when she was at the foot of the stairs. “How do you even know about Zenzo?”

  “Zenzo?” That was the dumbest name he’d ever heard. “It doesn’t matter. So it’s true then?” He threw their prenup on the couch as he walked closer to her, this time keeping a foot between them.

  “No. I mean, he asked me, but I turned him down.”

  “When?” Vincent should’ve been relieved at that news, but now he was too worked up about her being in another relationship.

  “Before you and I even met.”

  “It would have been nice to know you were in love with someone else when you decided to marry me.”

  “We weren’t getting married for love, if you remember.” Her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms, her balled fists making it clear he’d succeeded in making her mad.

  He remembered all right—the one decision in his life he’d ever made on the fly would forever haunt him. “But we still got married.”

  “And you got exactly what you wanted out of the deal.”

  Had he? Looking into her brown eyes, he wasn’t so sure. “Of all the women I could have made it down the aisle with…” He shook his head as his hands moved to his waist.

  “What?”

  His eyes widened for a second—he had not meant to say that out loud.

  “Just exactly how many women did you ask to marry you before me?” She stepped closer, but he refused to back down.

  The number wasn’t one he wanted to say out loud.

  “How many?” Her voice quieted.

  “A couple.”

  “I’m just the girl who happened to need something in return. Perfect.” Her gaze didn’t meet his, and her demeanor shifted—anger no longer bubbled out of her small frame.

  “I’ll void the prenup.” If he lost the company to his uncle, there was still a chance Barry would keep him on to run things, he just wouldn’t have the final say, which was far beyond anything ideal, but it was something. He’d made a very costly mistake last night and again just now. On so many levels.

  “Oh no you won’t.” She jogged up the stairs.

  “Lilia—”

  “I’m staying. Well, sort of.”

  His brows rose, and his gut started to rumble. He didn’t like where this was going at all.

  “People know we’re married now; we’ve made the rounds. I’ve decided to go back over to Europe for a couple of months to work. It’s perfectly understandable that I’d need to get back to what was making the blog successful, so it shouldn’t hinder our deal.”

  “You’re leaving.” It was hard to breathe as he looked up at her from the first floor. Instead of bending over and trying to gulp to fill his lungs, he slid his hands in his sweatpants pockets and tried not to look devastated. The last twelve hours had been a roller coaster of unwanted emotions, but her leaving wouldn’t fix anything. And he wanted to fix what they had—to go back to last night when he’d swayed to the music with her and pressed his lips to hers.

  “It’s a win-win. We stay married, and when I come back, we can be seen at dinner together so no one gets suspicious. By the time the year mark comes around, no one will think twice about the divorce. They’l
l chalk it up to my schedule.”

  “Win” wasn’t the word he’d use to describe what he was hearing. She was leaving him without leaving him. She was smart, and this would’ve been the perfect plan had he not wanted to be around her. But he did. He desperately did.

  “When?” He cleared his throat, trying to remove the burning that threatened to take his voice completely. “When are you leaving?”

  “The first. I have to line up a couple of jobs, then I’ll be out of your way.”

  Her gaze fell to the carpet before finding his eyes again. The coldness had been replaced. Hurt. Her brown eyes were filled with so much hurt. He’d done that. He’d taken a perfectly innocent deal and complicated it and then managed to hurt the woman he loved.

  “I’ll talk to Jan about canceling the reception.” He could not fake that everything was okay for an entire night when his world had just crashed around him. In fact, some time off and away from Casper was sounding pretty good.

  She didn’t look back. And he didn’t say anything. Her mind was made up, and his pride stopped him from chasing after her. He knew how she felt now; there was no question that she didn’t feel for him what he felt for her. He’d been a fool to think she would.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lilia met Lena for coffee at the same fateful spot she’d met Vincent almost two weeks ago—she even picked the same table by the window and same chair where she’d first seen his brilliant blue eyes. Ever since their after-Christmas talk, she’d only passed him while coming or going. There were no more events to hold hands at, no more chances for kissing, no more laughing. There was no more eating dinner with him, talking to him by the fire, and no more of him. He barely looked at her now.

  She pulled one foot up to her chest while she waited for her late sister to get her hot chocolate.

  Her eyes burned. She’d put makeup on heavily today to mask the redness under her eyes that wouldn’t go away. She teared up over the slightest thing—everything in her life was clouded by sadness. She didn’t even know Vincent very well—how well could you really know someone in three weeks? And she’d married him only for the money, so she hadn’t just broken up with the love of her life. He probably thought she was a gold digger—and why would he honestly be interested in a woman who was only interested in his money?