Page 224 of The Billionaires

“And your custody will not change if we get divorced?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Once the child is used to being around me, the courts will not rock that boat. Bob—my lawyer—thought a couple of years should do the trick, but I decided to make it three just to be safe.”

She blushes again. “And just to clarify… we can’t date anyone in that time?”

Shit. “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot to ask if you’re currently single. If you aren’t and want to see a boyfriend on the side, that would actually be a problem, so if that’s?—”

“It’s not that,” she says. “The opposite, sort of.”

I watch her face in confusion.

The color we call red is really electromagnetic radiation at a wavelength between 625 and 740 nanometers, and Jane’s cheeks seem to traverse that whole spectrum before she says in a choked voice, “I’m twenty-three, and I’ve never gone all the way.”

Wow. I’m speechless—apart from the extremely inappropriate solutions that are coming from Yoda, such as, “Fix the problem, I can.”

“Fifteen million?” is the best I can come up with.

She doesn’t seem to hear me. Cheeks going into infrared territory, she adds, “In three years, I’ll be twenty-six—and I hope to have had my GD by then.”

“I take it you’re not talking about Gadolinium, the rare-earth element with the atomic number of sixty-four?” What? Why even bother talking when you say nonsense like that?

Jane blushes some more—which is an odd reaction to my chemistry trivia geekout. “GD stands for Grand Deflowering,” she whispers. “Not letters in the periodic table.”

Fuck me. Yoda is turning into the Hulk. “Twenty million?” I venture.

“I can’t believe I just told you about my GD,” Jane says. “I never talk about it with anyone. Ever.”

“Look on the bright side,” I say. “Talking about it just netted you ten extra million.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t accept that much money. Not when you’re just being a good dad.”

“I will not accept your help without properly compensating you,” I say firmly. “Twenty million to me is like three months’ salary for an average person.”

“But it’s a fortune to me,” she says stubbornly.

“Which will make me feel better about depriving you of your GD for three more years, as well as the other unforeseen headaches this arrangement will bring.”

She sits there, deep in thought, and mindlessly grabs a piece of sushi that has a piece of chinook salmon on top—which coincidentally matches the current shade of her ever-changing cheeks.

“Okay,” she says when she’s done swallowing.

“Okay… as in, yes to my proposal?”

She smiles weakly. “You’re not going to take a knee again, are you?”

“I will if it helps.” I stand up, ready to get into position.

“No need,” she says.

I sit back down. Then, on a whim, I reach out, grab her slender hand, and hold it in the air in front of me as I solemnly say, “Jane Miller, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” This time, I remember to pull out the ring box from my left pocket, the one that contains the engagement ring my dad gave my mom twenty-eight years ago.

At the sight of the ring, Jane’s eyes get misty, which sends a pang of guilt down my chest for putting an innocent woman through this. “Yes,” she says in one gasp.

I slip the ring onto her finger—and in a sign from the universe, it fits perfectly, like it was custom made for Jane.

CHAPTER 9

JANE

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