“Okay.Let’s focus on what’s important.”Sitting up straight, he folded his hands on the desk.“Have you gotten a look at her?”
“Completely by accident.I don’t know if the old man expected me to accept prior to ever setting eyes on her or what.But we met.”Had we ever.I couldn’t get that mouth of hers out of my mind.That hair.What would it look like, hanging loose, wound around my fingers while I worked her mouth up and down my cock?
“Is she, you know…” His lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace.“Somebody who would expect their father to set them up with a husband because they can’t get one on their own?”
I nodded toward the monitors playing the feed from downstairs.“I’ve asked myself a couple of times what she would look like in some of the outfits the women are wearing down there.There’s a tall brunette in a tight leather dress that zips up the front.”He found her and grunted softly.“Take a few inches off her height, and you could be looking at the same woman.”
“Oh.Okay, then.”He lifted his drink in a salute.“What’s the problem?Don’t tell me you’re going soft.Were you secretly hoping to marry for love one day?”
“Fuck off,” I growled out.I could never get away with that kind of reaction with my closest friends, not anymore.I was the last single man in the group, the sole survivor of whatever insidious virus had infected us.Maybe I had natural immunity or something.If I rolled my eyes and gave them shit about falling in love, I would end up getting lectured about how my time would come or some nauseating shit like that.
“Fine,” Dante replied, chuckling.“All it takes to get what you want is probably a shit ton of money, which is not a problem for you, and marrying a hot woman.Is that the situation in a nutshell?Am I missing anything?”
“No, that’s about it.”
“I’m not seeing the issue.I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want a marriage.I don’t want a wife.I wouldn’t…” I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a husband, having no example from the deadbeat father I’d never met.It came too close to falling out of my mouth, that admission.Then, there were the relationships with women I cast aside in favor of an uncomplicated career.Work was my life.I had no time or patience to learn how to be a partner.
Taking a breath, I concluded, “I don’t want somebody looking over my fucking shoulder all the time, invading my personal space, all that.”The intensity behind my words surprised me the way they came out like gunfire.
“I agree, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
He had to be fucking with me.“Marriage.Relationship.Wife.What are you not getting about this?”
With a blithe shrug, he asked, “Who says it has to be that way?Do you know how she feels about it?Was she, you know, fluttering her eyelashes when you met?”
“More like she wanted to rip my balls off.”Not that she’d be the first woman to want to.I’d been accused of being a dickhead, a robot, a user.All because I was capable of seeing sex for what it was—a fun diversion that was over once it was over.
“Use that to your advantage.If she hates the idea, chances are she won’t want to be involved with you at all.Get married on paper, make her old man happy, live your own separate lives.This is a business arrangement,” he reminded me.“Treat it like one.Set the expectations right off the bat.If anything, she might thank you for it.”
His simple advice was a pin inserted in the balloon of uncertainty that had been growing by the hour since the meeting with Alessandro.“Would you believe I didn’t think about that?”I asked, sinking back in the chair while he snickered.“I was too busy wondering if I could look myself in the eye every morning over the bathroom sink if I went against everything I always said I wanted.”
“Sometimes you have to compromise a little.I mean, you couldn’t have imagined somebody would tie marriage to the biggest deal of your life.”Again, he raised his glass.“Until now, that is.”
“I’ll drink to that.”Now, I could enjoy the velvet smokiness of Dante’s exquisite scotch.There I was, too busy asking myself how I could fit a wife into the life I had so carefully constructed when it was all about setting expectations, the way Dante said.I didn’t have to change anything about my life beyond maybe sharing a house for the sake of keeping the old man happy.I could work it out, get everything I wanted, and not have to sacrifice anything major.It would all be worth it in the end.
His desk phone rang, and he answered the call, murmuring into the receiver while my attention drifted back to the action on the monitors.The tall brunette was nowhere to be found.Had she left for the night?Or was she in one of the rooms, unzipping her dress for a lucky partner?Maybe they were doing it for her, peeling the leather back to reveal the ripe flesh underneath.
Juicy and ripe like the body under that fitted suit.Having Mira Rinaldi around the house wouldn’t be easy if the idea was to keep my hands off her, but the house was big enough that we didn’t need to cross paths often.
This was going to happen.Not that I’d ever had a doubt since there was no guarantee I would ever come across an offer like this again—the opportunity to double my properties’ portfolio overnight.The difference was that I was no longer wrestling with doubt over what I would have to give up.
“Sorry about that,” Dante offered, replacing the receiver in its cradle.“My business manager telling me he sent over the prospectus for my potential expansion.”
“You’re still pursuing it?”I asked, my interest piqued.
“Absolutely.You aren’t the only man with big plans.”There was a gleam in his eye when he observed, “No matter where I set up shop, people will come.No pun intended.”
Chuckling, I stood.“I’ll leave you to it.”
“You know, you should consider heading downstairs, working out any lingering tension.Consider it my wedding gift to you,” he added with a grin.“That and the mask I’d give you to wear.”
It wasn’t a bad idea.I deserved a night of relaxation after the day I had.
But…“I don’t take chances if I can help it,” I reminded him.“No offense.When I’m this close to landing a deal, I can’t risk being recognized.”
“You know I have to offer.And congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.Let me know if you two set up a registry.”He was snickering as I left his office, taking the back stairs for the sake of discretion.A door at the bottom led to an alley where my car and driver waited.I wasted no time ducking inside and breathed easier once the door was closed.With the publicity this deal would bring, my face would be all over the place.I didn’t need complications.
