For the year we’d been… whatever the hell we’d been, I’d always hidden her away from my family as much as possible. Maggie didn’t know she existed. My parents had never formally met her. The media never really found anything interesting to say about her, and they forgot she existed the second I showed up to a gala with a more high-profile woman.
This time it would be different. We were marrying for show. The whole point of the arrangement was that my father had to see it. And if he did, the rest of the world would too.
I hated the idea of Danielle being in the spotlight, her face plastered on magazines and gossip pages. But I didn’t have a fucking choice. This was for Mom and Miles.
Caleb, my favorite driver, pulled to a stop outside Danielle’s apartment, where I’d sat just yesterday.
I’d always hated the idea of her staying here, especially by herself, but Danielle refused any of my attempts to find her a safer place to live.
I glared at the front door of the building that lookedlike it belonged on a house in the suburbs with its large oval window of ornate glass in the middle. It would be so easy to break into the building. There was no alarm system, no cameras, and half the front door was made of fucking glass.
“Sir?” Caleb asked when I made no move to get out of the car. “Do you need something?”
“No.” I sent Danielle a text telling her I was there and then climbed out of the car.
It took her only seconds to come down to open the door for me. Her apartment didn’t have a system to buzz people in, never mind a doorman.
She stood in the doorway of her building in a light blue wrap skirt with sunflowers on it and a white peasant top.
I’d been lost in memories since I left her yesterday, but remembering the time we spent together wasn’t the same as having her standing before me in another one of her ridiculously innocent outfits.
I drank in every inch of her tawny skin, dotted with what might have been hundreds of freckles. Her hair was pulled back from her face with a clip and fell down her back in copper-brown waves.
“Are you coming in?”
I cleared my throat as if that would clear my head. “Yeah.”
She didn’t say anything as I followed her up to her apartment for the second time in as many days. Despite going eight months without being here, it still felt natural, comfortable.
“What are you doing here, Hayden?” Danielle asked, shattering that comfort in an instant.
“We need to go over the prenup.” I settled on her couch and pulled a stack of papers out of my briefcase. “You’ll be entitled to two million in the case of divorce, assuming you remain married to me for nine months or I am the one to file before then. You will also keep anything I gift to you over the duration of our relationship, and I’ll put money into an account for you every month for your personal use while we’re married. Does seven thousand work for you?”
“Seven thousand a month?”
“Obviously I’ll cover dresses and other expenses for things I ask you to accompany me to in addition to that.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“I’m not going to make you pay for clothes I wanted you to have.”
“You’re not listening to me.” She snatched the contract out of my hands. “I. Don’t. Want. Your. Money.”
“You’re going to be my wife, and that means I’m going to take care of you.”
She scoffed as if I’d said something particularly stupid. Danielle always was one of the few people I’d met who wasn’t the least bit worried about offending me. “There are more ways to take care of someone than giving them money.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“I want your respect. While we’re in this marriage, I don’t want you to be with other women. I won’t have people believe you’re cheating on me.”
I glared at her. “That was never on the table,” I saidthrough gritted teeth. “I promise you, I won’t so much as look at another woman while we’re together.”
“Okay then.”
“Anything else?”
“What?”
