Page 3 of Never Say Yes To Your Boss

Money up front. Be smart. Even just fifty to start with would be a huge help. And insurance. Then, whatever happens after six months happens. If they lose all their money, then I’m still fifty ahead, and Heather gets taken care of for six months at least.

“Fifty,” I blurt, trying to sound like I’m all sophisticated and ready to deal and that this isn’t my desperate voice and face, butI do just sound like I’m losing it a little. This is a lifeline. In fact, this is more than a lifeline. This is a chance. “Fifty up front. Then the rest at the end of the six months and health insurance for me and my family. Also, anything that I’m given, I get to keep at the end.” I sound like a horrible gold digger, but it wasn’t me who came up with this. If I weren’t desperate, I would laugh this off as a huge joke, and I’d be giving my assurances that I’d get him out of this mess like I’d get him out of a lunch he didn’t want to go to. I’d have a list of people willing to fake-marry him by noon, and it’s just after eleven now. I’d have everything taken care of and the deal sealed by the end of the day. Because I’m good like that. Iammagic with schedules and office stuff, and I’m a great assistant. He’s not wrong about that.

Apparently, he’s not wrong about me as an all-around person either because here I am, cutting a horrible deal. I’m agreeing to a crazy fake marriage scheme and his grandmother’s romance story style will. I’m in no position to argue. Yes, I’m that person who crushed on her boss like the rest of the world, and now I’m that person who is going to be so close to him. So, so close. This might be a big old joke for his book-loving granny, but for me, it’s very real. I’m going to be married to a man I’ve wanted, yearned for, and had all these—gulp—fantasies about, and he’s not going to notice me because I’m just the ticket to his keeping his empire alive for him and his family.

Don’t do this. Run. Run now before it’s too late. This is selling your soul.

But look at him. If there’s anyone I have to sell my soul to, why not him? Philly’s actual golden child. The man that any woman would die for. The man of my dreams for the past two years. I’m saving my family, myself, and everyone. This is the right thing.

Run. For the love of fresh socks, because smelly socks are just wrong, RUN!

“Okay,” he agrees, bursting through my panicked thoughts. He says it like fifty grand is no big deal for him. Like one million isn’t. He’s way too delighted. This is too easy for him.

I should have asked for more. Would that have been wrong? Yes, it would have been so very wrong. Like lying and selling your soul. Like all of this.

With all that golden hair, his golden smile, his kind, huge, and generous heart, and his company that does so much good the world over, Bradford has been likened to an angel, but as he extends his hand and I slowly extend mine, I feel like I just made a deal with someone very un-angelic.

I don’t know if I’m clasping the hand of my shining knight, taking the hand of the devil, or even what I’m getting myself into, but it’s done now. I’ve just sold myself for the next six months.

Chapter two

Everleigh

Idon’t think anyone ever said that getting fake married would be fun. I keep thinking back to those romances I’ve read, and in the few days I had between the talk with Bradford in his office and now—Saturday night and game time—I’ve looked up a few more. And nope. Almost no one is ever excited about the wedding. Everyone feels a little bit like they’re selling their soul. But the good news? Everyone universally gets a happy ending. This means that one day, Bradford may light up at just seeing me walk into a room, and he will be my one and only love.

However, at this point, that feels more like a giant crock of shit than anything reassuring.

The church he picked is also not reassuring.

The place looks like a gothic palace. It’s as though he really is a knight, and we’ve been transported back in time via our sell-our-souls agreement. The building was dark and looming from down the street, but now that I’m pulling open one huge door that is probably legitimately medieval, it looks more like a fortress.There aren’t turrets on the building and no statues that I saw, but there are two twin spires poking into the air, a heck of a lot of stained glass, and all rich golds, heavy reds, ominous shadows, and dark woods inside the place. Very churchy if I do say so myself.

Alright, so as soon as I step inside and take a deep breath to try and get oxygen to my brain and my literal nervous ass to thaw out a little, I guess I do feel a bit better. It’s not horrible in here by any stretch of the imagination.

No, all the intimidation lies in what I’m doing here.

When Bradford told me to be at the church at eleven at night, I was astounded, but then, rich people can be strange. Or maybe he’s secretly religious or something, and this is his church, and due to lack of warning, this was the only time they could squeeze in a wedding.

Yeah fucking right.This whole thing is sketchy. I mean, seriously, eleven? At night?

I suck in a breath that smells like candle wax and wine, even though I can’t possibly smell wine. It just seems like something a church would smell like. Not like mothballs and other woods, but incense. Actually, that’s what it smells like in here. Something burning. I try not to breathe in any further. I don’t like the smell, and my stomach is already rocking out like a heavy metal band. Not only is my butt going numb from the stress, but I’m coming up with really bad similes in my head.

I take the smallest of steps, hoping to prolong the agony while wanting to get it over and done with. My mom and Heather wanted to come. They couldn’t believe I was doing this. They were moved to tears because now my sister can get the treatments we’ve been trying to figure out a way to pay for, and my mom can stop working almost twenty hours a day. Neither of them wanted it to have to come to this, though.

I told them I didn’t want them to come. And I thought I meant it, but now I wish they were here.

There isn’t anyone here. The place can probably fit six thousand people in it, but there isn’t anyone around until I walk through the entrance of the church, up a set of stairs, into the real deal part of the building, and spot an old man garbed in white robes. The priest. There’s a man dressed entirely in black and dwarfing the huge wood altar he’s standing in front of. The whole front part of the church is wood. It’s ornate and carved, and there’s stained glass and also lots of pews. It’s so fancy in here, so ancient. My heartbeat echoes in my ears. It echoes louder in here, bouncing off the stone and brick and the wood. A thunderstorm can roll through here, and it will sound for days and days and days.

My heart drops out of my chest, and my stomach bottoms out along with it when the golden head turns to me, and in the light of flickering candles and whatever else is going on in here illuminating the stained glass and all the rows of wooden pews, jade eyes meet mine.

I immediately feel like an idiot when they widen, then narrow, then darken. Bradford allows the smallest of smiles, but it’s warm and genuine. My stomach settles, and my nerves ease. He’s so gorgeous, so breathtaking, and he’s going to bemine. Maybe that happy ending is already starting because he looks pleased to see me. I’m wearing another thrift store dress, this one a white and gold gauzy number that I’ve had for years. I always felt a little bit like a Greek goddess in it. Heather braided my hair in a fancy fishtail braid and wove a strand of my mom’s old pearls through it. I’m wearing the only other piece of jewelry we haven’t sold—my grandma’s gold locket—at the hollow of my throat. It’s warm on my skin, and my heartbeats seem to vibrate against it.

This is a church—well, more like a cathedral, splendid and ornate, a place for worship—and here I am, an admitted sinner. I’m about to commit a felony. Fraud. Fake marriage. I’m about to make promises I don’t mean and take literal vows. My hands shake. My left hand already feels weighed down with the weight of lies and the thought of a ring on my finger. Does that mean Bradford will own me? Why didn’t I take more time to think this through? To talk this through?

Miraculously, my feet carry me all the way up that plush, rich red carpeting to the altar of wood and stained glass angels. There are angels looking down at me from all sides of the church. It’s a nice touch.

“You came,” Bradford says, as though he doubted I would. His voice is soft and deep, thick with relief. It makes me a little bit giddy to hear him speak. When he gives me his special, wide smile—his golden smile—that has literally sealed hundreds of deals over the years, I practically melt on the spot.

“I—yes.” What choice did I really have?You had a choice. You always have a choice.Did I? Or was my choice made for me by my father and his debts, and then by Heather’s diagnosis, just when we thought we’d dug ourselves out from under everything else?

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