Page 61 of Billionaire's Accidental Marriage
“You could do something like that. Maybe if someone spends so many dollars or whatever in one of your boutiques, they get a fifteen percent discount at the spa. Or vice versa. Plus, you could also do things like a loyalty card program, where they can trade in points they accumulate through shopping for discounts and mini-services at the spa.”
I snickered. “I could do that, couldn’t I?”
He smiled. “Yes, you could. It would keep you in connection regularly with the spa without forcing you to work two jobs and choose between the lives you love so dearly.”
I giggled. “I knew there was a reason why I made you my work husband.”
He chuckled. “I’m good for some things. You just have to trust me a little bit.”
I grew sheepish. “I’m sorry I got upset with you earlier.”
He shook his head. “Don’t apologize for being passionate about something. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“But, while we’re on the subject, I also have a lot of ideas tumbling around in my head on how we can link our boutiques with my Mom and Pop shops. I mean, it’s practically heaven-sent, if you ask me, and that way we could get you on the roster for future small-town functions and events out there in Vegas.”
I felt a future emerging that made me excited to be alive. “Well, I can’t wait to discuss them with you, then.”
As he scooted his chair next to mine and turned to face the woods, he slid his fingers between mine. He held my hand tightly as if letting me go might risk losing me altogether, and I reached across the table to grab his coffee. I passed it to him before I picked up my orange juice. Together we sat in silence as the last of the darkness was chased away by the sun. I loved working with Mike like this. I enjoyed hearing his opinions and getting his view on things, even if it made me upset, and I wondered if parenting our child with him would be the same way.
This could be your life if you stopped believing that hard work equals struggling.
The voice in my head was so stark and so piercing that it almost knocked the wind out of me. I had to set down my glass in order to steady myself, and I started drawing deep, even breaths through my nose before letting them out through my mouth. I mean, everyone had a voice in their head. Everyone had a conscience that talked back to them sometimes. But, the voice had never been so strong and so present.
The voice had never sounded like my father before, either.
And yet, struggling was all I knew. My entire life, all I had been doing was surviving. Just getting by. Rejecting my father’s help, my father’s money, and my father’s reputation in order to carve a life out for myself. Then, he goes and dies and hands me a life already put together? It went against everything I had worked so hard for. It went against everything I had wanted for my life.
But, it had also been the biggest blessing he could have ever given me.
All my life, I equated struggling to getting what I wanted. I equated struggle to success, and then things got easier. Once the success came and once the time was put in, the “easy life”—for lack of a better phrase—was warranted. Yet, none of this felt like struggling. Ever since I had brokered that deal with Michael for him to take fifty-fifty ownership of the boutiques with me, things had been smooth sailing.
With Michael at my side, it didn’t feel like struggling. With his encouragement and his ideas, it no longer felt like I was merely surviving. And the truth of the matter was that I didn’t feel I deserved any of it. I didn’t feel as if I had worked hard enough and put in enough blood, sweat, and tears in order to pull this off, in order to have a working business model that was primed for success.
In some ways, it made me feel selfish. There were so many people out there who would willingly chop off their own leg to get the kind of life I had been handed. But the mere fact that I had been handed it made me wonder if I were even worthy of having it.
“You’re going to figure this out, okay?” Michael asked.
His soothing voice pulled me out from the depths of my mind. “Do you really think I deserve all of this?”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
I leaned heavily back in my chair as he scooped my legs into his lap. “I mean, this. All of this. I’m married to the most eligible bachelor in Florida—”
“Former eligible bachelor.”
I giggled. “I got to marry the love of my life who helped me dig my businesses out of the red after being handed them instead of building them from the ground up like every other businessperson out there. And now, I’m sitting on the back patio of what is easily the largest home I’ve ever stepped inside, and I’m actually contemplating bringing up the idea of moving in.”
He paused. “Wait, you are?”
I pulled my feet away from him and sat up. “The point is, do I really deserve all of this? It all seems so… easy. And I was taught that no one deserved anything unless they worked hard for it. My father was adamant about that principle all his life.”
“You want to move in?”
I snapped my fingers. “Focus, Michael. I need you here.”
He shook his head softly and leaned forward, his knees touching mine. “You want to know what I think?”
