Page 26 of Made For You
“At your ex’s wedding?”
“It’s a long story. So, what do you say?”
“Dean!” I called out, and my friend immediately rushed out from the cabin and brought a stack of papers with him. The contract that would bind her to me for the next six months.
When I didn’t offer my thanks to my friend, Aurora did, and I didn’t miss the twinkling wink and smirk he sent to her in response.
“Please read it over. It’s pretty straightforward—time frame, required functions, name change, stipend.”
“Name change?” she questioned as she quickly flipped through the pages to find the section that required her to change her last name during our marriage. To make the ruse more believable to my family, it was one of the conditions. That’s what I explained to her as we traveled along the coast of the bay.
“We’ll handle all the paperwork for you and get all your new legal documentation like social security card and license.”
“What?” Her eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “How?”
I shrugged. “Lawyers. People. It pays to have money.”
The boat’s motor rumbled, but I was fairly certain I heard her mutter, “Must be nice.”
“The stipend… is that like a monthly allowance on top of the one-million, or part of it? Also, how will the payout occur?”
God, she was fucking smart. I could guarantee no one else Dean chose would have even thought of that. They would’ve been more excited to gain my name and be associated with my family.
“The stipend is part of the one million. You’ll receive the first quarter of it the day we turn in the license. We will deposit the second quarter of these allotments each month for six months. And when we terminate the marriage, you’ll receive the remaining half.” This set-up was how I was to guarantee the woman I chose stayed married to me for the six months. Dangling that last half-million over their head was my ticket to keeping her close.
“Makes sense,” she said, as if she were discussing nothing more than the daily news.
“Now, these functions may be an issue. Some of them fall on weeknights, and that doesn’t work for me. Can we switch them out for something on the weekends?”
I respected she wanted to keep her teaching job and saw that as her priority, not being my wife, but I wanted to argue that she wouldn’t have to work anymore. Or at least not while we were married. I was hoping she would take a year off to make it that more believable. But the longer I sat and thought about it, I realized her job was perfect. It was why I’d chosen to find someone at the teachers’ convention, after all. No one would question her motives if she kept teaching, especially not the tabloids. They were going to make her life hard enough as it was.
“I’ll have my assistant look over the calendar.” I asked her to search my suit jacket for a red pen to make the amendment. Her handwriting was curvy and fun, just like she was. Dean liked to say my scrawl was akin to a doctor’s. One he could barely read.
She flipped the contract to the front, then started reading over the second page of the document. I watched her at first, enchanted by the way she bit her bottom lip when she reached the halfway point on the paper. That was the section that discussed the vows and that we would keep up all marital appearances as needed. The “as needed” included housing, bedroom and public displays of affection. As much as I needed to keep my hands to myself with regards to Aurora, it wouldn’t be a hardship to play house with her.
The setting sun’s reflection shimmered on the water, and a fuzzy memory of sitting by a lake with my mom popped into my mind. The sun looked almost the same as it does now.
Shaking my head to rid myself of the vision, I lifted the silver tops off the large salad plates. The spinach and lettuce mix was a dark-green, contrasting with the sliced strawberries, pears, and mandarin oranges. The chef bottled his homemade salad dressing, and it sat in the middle of the table.
“Eat,” I commanded as she flipped to the next page of the contract. In the short time it took for me to set up our meal, she had already read halfway through the document, which amazed me.
She lifted her head, eyes sparkling, as she smirked in my direction. “Is this part of the ‘obey’ section of the vows?”
Fuck, this woman was testing me in the best sort of way.
“Not even close,” I replied as I offered her the dressing.
As we ate, she continued to read over the contract, asking a few questions here and there, but Aurora was brilliant enough to figure almost all of it out. Even the legal jargon.
With her final bite of food, she reached into the suit pocket and found the black ink pen.
“Before I sign this, are you sure this is what you want to do? Don’t you want to marry someone for love?”
“This is the only way. Love isn’t in the cards for me. All it ever did was destroy my family.”
Aurora nodded; her lips turned downward as the pen hovered over the signature line.
“You barely know me,” she whispered without looking up. And I knew what she was really saying. She had no idea who she was signing her life over to. Even if it was temporary.
