Page 16 of One Wealthy Wedding

“Do what?”

I advance on her, my heart pounding, my strides eating up the floor. This is definitely a bad idea. Cat and I will be at each other’s throats. But I need a fast track to a better reputation, and what better way than the woman who is basically American royalty? Even if she does hate my guts.

“You don’t need to marry a stranger. Marry me instead.”

6

Cat

“What did you say?” Surely, I misheard him.

“You should marry me,” Theo says, all confidence.

I narrow my eyes. “You’d rather chew glass.”

“Oh, I would,” he says readily. His green eyes glint with amusement. I don’t trust it.

“Why?”

He steps in closer and cocks his head. His sun-streaked hair spills over his brow. “Are you really in a position to be asking questions?”

Not really, no. Damn him.

“What gives?” I ask. “You’re not the marrying type.”

He ignores me and takes his time seating himself back on the barstool. I step back behind the bar. I need a barrier. It feels like he’s taking up all the air.

His gaze cuts to mine, serious for once. “I need a wife. And it has to look real. I need you to pretend to be in love with me.”

An involuntary choked sound comes from my throat. “Excuse me? Did you fall and hit your head this morning?”

“Hear me out.” He leans forward on the bar.

I scoot back until I’m pressed against the shelf behind me.

“I need to clean up my reputation.” He sips the whiskey, his throat working. The tattoo just peeks out over the collar of his shirt.

“I must have misheard you. You, Theo Archer, owner of the world’s second-most expensive car collection, who got arrested for skydiving naked, the man who’s slept with half of Manhattan, want to clean up your reputation?”

“Last one’s not true.” His white teeth are flashing in a self-satisfied smile. “Only 10 percent.”

“The point stands. What cleaning up? And how does making this a real marriage help you?” My negotiation professor’s reminders are loud in my ear. Find out what the other party really wants.

“I’m courting a number of European investors. We need a marquee investment. We need to make a splash. We’re unknown over there, and we need to be a household name quickly. But try as I might, I’m not the right candidate. I’m too young, too bold, too handsome.” He winks, and I roll my eyes. “I’m close in age to their daughters. But a marriage would change that. Suddenly, I’d become one of them. The ole ball and chain, right? Ski trips in Gstaad and family planning. An ancestral home in the UK somewhere. You have one of those.”

“So marry you and what? Pretend to be your doting wife? I don’t think I’m that good of an actress.”

“You don’t have to be. I’ll do the doting.” He looks so confident, so self-satisfied. A real marriage to Theo would consume me. It’s an impossibility. Like time travel, or my father suddenly repenting for his sins.

“You’ll come to events with me, make me look more respectable,” he continues. “Tell investors about our plans to spend three weeks in France every summer, and how your relative was in the House of Lords. That sort of thing.” He makes it sound easy, but marriage to him would be anything but.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” He can probably see the way my pulse is racing. I know it, because I feel each jump and skitter like a startled rabbit. Imagine how much worse it will be with his hands on you and his ring on your finger.

He raises a brow. “Thought you were desperate, princess. Or did you want to start asking strangers on the street to marry you?”

He’s got me there. I am that desperate. Theo is my only option, and I’d be an idiot to refuse him, even if pretending to be his loving wife is absurd. Absurd, and if I’m being honest, probably a good idea. A unified front means my father will have a harder time undermining me.

Damn you, Theo.

---