Page 41 of Accidental Vegas Vows

“Then move in.”

I locked eyes with him, expecting to find a hint of humor in them, a nudge that told me he was joking. But I found nothing but steady sincerity. “You saying that feels a lot like the first time you asked me to marry you in Vegas.”

His lips formed a hard line for a moment as my quiet statement hung heavy in the air between us. “I know.”

“And you wanted me out of your life as much as possible days ago.”

“I know that, too.”

“This is a massive one-eighty,” I added.

“I’ll make it as worth your while as I possibly can,” he offered. “You want more than double pay? Fine. Triple. Quadruple. Name your price. I’ll pay for your rent while you stay with me. I’ll buy you a fucking car. I’ll… I don’t know, Liv, I’ll pay off your student loans or something. Just, please, help me with this. As my employee, as my wife, as my friend, just… please?”

That crease along his forehead came back tenfold, and even without the extravagant offers that tempted me, my chest ached for him. He was desperate, that much was clear, and he had far too much on his plate — and my people-pleasing tendencies were rearing their fucking head.

Maybe I could keep to myself in his house. It was big enough for that.

“You’d genuinely pay off my student loans?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t be serious,” I breathed.

He took a step toward me. “I’ll pay them today.”

“I owe, like, fifty-eight grand.” I blinked up at him. The idea sounded impossible, improbable, far too good to be true. Especially when I was considering taking his offer without that. “You said Blackwood’s having financial troubles.”

“That’s the company. Not me personally,” he explained. “I’ll pay it.”

I shook my head, searching for the right words, the ones that evaded my tongue. They swelled in the back of my throat, catching behind my teeth, that angry part of me that hated myself for what we’d done nights ago telling me to keep this to myself. Don’t do it. You know what will happen. You know how this will end. “I’ll do it, Damien, but you don’t need to do that.”

Chapter 14

Damien

Itook the rest of the afternoon off. Everything else was able to be put on the back burner, and the moment after Olivia had left my office, I’d written out a check for sixty grand, placed it into an envelope with her name on it for Ethan to deliver, and left out the front doors with Noah by my side.

“Where are we going?” Noah asked, slipping into the backseat of my driver’s car with the work tablet I’d given him and his toy car clutched in his hands.

“Shopping,” I grinned, ducking in behind him and shutting the car door behind me. He pouted as he shimmied up into the car seat I’d strapped him into this morning — the same one that caused me to be ten minutes later than I was expecting because I had to arrange for it last minute.

“I don’t like shopping,” he groaned, his head falling back against the little cushion as I fumbled with the straps. Have they changed since this morning? Surely they didn’t. Where the fuck does this one go?

“This will be fun shopping.”

He eyed me, his excitement lingering just beneath the surface. “Toy shopping?”

“You can absolutely get some toys,” I chuckled. I finally secured the last strap, not giving two shits about the honking car behind ours. “And anything else you want.”

His eyes went wide as saucers as I sat back in my seat and gave the go-ahead to Harry. Within seconds, we were moving. “Can I get a stuffed animal?”

I raised a single brow. “Of course.”

“What about a Lego set?”

“Yep.”

He made it so easy to tell when he was thinking hard about something. His face scrunched up, his little finger tapping against his chin as if he’d learned it from television. “What about… one of those little robots that you can play with?”

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