Page 5 of Fake Wife
“I’m sorry,” I say, scrubbing a hand down my face. I yank on my tie again, loosening it and popping the top button on my shirt. “Can you please repeat that?”
Next to me, my dad blusters. He’s either gleefully excited about this or annoyed at Eleanor’s latest antics.
My money’s on both, actually.
Hal Merryweather adjusts his reading glasses and shakes the papers in his hand pointlessly. We all heard it. Hell, the old man wrote the will himself.
“It essentially says Miss Eleanor has bequeathed to you her house and all of her land in Cannon Bluffs.” He clears his throat and I wave him forward. I already knew that. It’s the second part that has me practically shitting my pants. “As long as you find a woman, fall in love, and get married within six months from the date this will is read.”
Damn. Yep. Sounds just as horrible as it did the first time, except maybe worse.
Eleanor’s parents, my great-grandparents, whom I never met, came to Oregon during the gold rush. They were one of the first settling families on the coast. The original house on that land was built by my great-grandfather. It had two bedrooms and a small living room and kitchen. The fucker was tiny, based on the pictures I’ve seen. It also held a family of eight. Six kids crammed into one tiny bedroom. Eleanor used to tell me stories about growing up in the house like it was best time in her life. The current house was built almost seventy years ago when Eleanor and her husband, my late grandfather Roger, decided they wanted to start a family.
As the last surviving member of her family, she not only owned all of her family’s thirty acres of land in Cannon Bluffs, but also held enough to stock to make either my father or me majority shareholder.
She knew me well enough to know I don’t give a crap about the company. I’ll run it when I have to, I’ll work when I need to, but I’m not a business guy. I’d rather kick back with my buddies, grab a couple of beers, shoot some pool, and build shit with my own two hands than sit behind a desk for the rest of my life, pretending the work I do actually matters to people other than increased stock options and annual bonuses.
That’s my dad’s role, so she gave him most of her stock. The rest is to be equally divided between all remaining board members, but that doesn’t matter. They get richer, and my dad is given the prestige of being 72 percent owner instead of a mere 48 percent.
Big fucking deal.
Next to me, my dad chortles as I absorb Merryweather’s words.
Find a wife. Six months. He’s rattled off more specifics, such as the marriage has to last for two full years before I can claim ownership, but until then, it’s held in a trust in my name. I can move in if I want, but I could lose it to a bulldozer if I fuck this up.
If Eleanor weren’t already dead, I’d shake her until she told me what the hell she was thinking.
Except I already do know. Two weeks ago, in a rare show of serious emotion instead of playfulness, she had turned to me and tilted her head.
“Aren’t you done having your fun, Corbin?”
“No, I want to live the rest of my life having fun, just like you do.”
She laughs and a cough hits her. I pour her a glass of water and she brushes aside my concern. Her coughing fits are coming more frequently and I’m worried, even if she assures me everything is fine.
“Be serious, Corbin. I want that for you.”
“What?” I laugh. “A wife and kids?”
No fucking way in hell. Lane men aren’t built for families and faithfulness.
She pierces me with an intense expression, one she so rarely wears. I sit up and pay attention. She might joke around a lot, be half crazy by some people’s standards, but she’s wicked smart. “Yes, dear. It’s time. You’re thirty-two years old and you can’t judge all marriages based on your parents’. Mine still holds the best years and memories of my life, even if Roger’s been gone for decades. Do this for me, or at least consider it.”
“I will, Grams.” I’ll do anything for her, even promise her the impossible.
“I know you will.” She grins and turns back to the ocean. “I have a feeling you’ll do it sooner than you think.”
That woman. The memory slams into me with g-force power and knocks me back into my chair. She knew. She freaking knew she was dying, and this was her last request.
Reality is settling in, and next to me, my own damn father is rubbing his hands and excitement is glimmering in his eyes.
Well, fuck him. He’s not getting the land or the house. The last thing Eleanor ever wanted was for her home to be bulldozed and a tourist megamall constructed in its place. Dad’s tried for years to get Grams to sell him most of the land so he can do that very thing. If I can’t keep it, it’ll all disappear due to his greed.
Like hell I’ll let that happen.
“I’ll do it,” I declare. My hands curl into fists.
“Seriously, son,” my dad says. “You can’t manage your own life; you think you can find someone else to take care of?”
