“My cousin threw me out, but I'll soon get an apartment of my own... Well, I was but then this happened and now I’m missing work."
She looked so defeated and he wanted to lift her head up, but he knew it would be unwelcomed. It was unlike him to care about making other people feel better.
"This cousin is the same one you’re planning to return to?" he asked, jaw clenched in irritation. It took a certain type of character to throw out a woman and child in tow.
"I have no other choice right now, and she won’t leave me hanging after she hears that I got attacked..." Her voice tapered off and she closed her mouth in a snap.
"What about her father?" he asked.
Her eyes snapped up to his, glare darkening, if that was possible. "He is not in the picture."
A little growl was not going to throw him off, he wouldn’t be running a multi-billion-dollar company if he could be so easily warned off.
"Are you sure about that?" he prompted and received another quick glare before she turned to look at her daughter who was enjoying herself.
"He’s deceased,” she said in a monotone, before her voice picked up pure hatred. “But not before leaving me in a shit load of debt.”
If she was hoping for some form of emotional response, he gave none. Very little fazed him these days. Still, the woman worried him for some reason.
"I see," he said.
Her nostrils flared after his response, but she said nothing.
"What about your family? I mean your parents," Michael asked. He was curious to know more about the proud spirited woman.
"My parents died when I was young and I'm an only child. I was raised in foster care and the one cousin I have isn't really a cousin, we were foster kids together so… Miranda is my only family." She turned away from him, but not before he caught a glint in her eyes.
He shifted uncomfortably, not knowing what to do next. An idea had been rolling around in his mind since he sat beside the frantic little girl waiting for her mother to wake up, and the day he spent with her while she was awake had only helped cement the idea.
The silence stretched out, but it was not uncomfortable despite the tension between them.
He mused that it was another thing between them. The silences were not uncomfortable pauses, nor were they power struggle or lulls in conversation. The quietness was oddly restful.
Despite the flickers of awareness that seemed to charge the atmosphere, he knew a kind of curious peace and he didn't want to lose it. And that was crazy.
"Why don’t you marry me?"
Trinity went completely still and her mouth fell open.
"What did you just say?" the word barely tumbled off her lips, clearly in shock.
"I asked you to marry me. I know it seems crazy right now, but we can help each other out." He gestured at the bills in her lap, the room around them.
Her eyes narrowed as she continued to look at him as if he had lost his damn mind.
He knew his plan was outrageous.
?TRINITY?
Trinity was at a loss for words. Her mind couldn’t think of any appropriate responses for his proposal. She opened and closed her mouth many times. A marriage proposal from this man was totally unexpected.
“You don’t have to respond yet but think of it. I’ve recently found myself in need of a wife and you’re in need of money. Why don’t we help each other out? I have money, lots of it in fact, and you’re a woman.”
Trinity shifted uncomfortably on the bed, wondering if she was in the presence of a mad man. He was definitely crazy to want to marry a stranger. Everyone with a brain knew that rescuing a woman and sitting beside her hospital bed did not make a relationship.
What part of banged up, in debt, single mother appealed to him?
He didn't look crazy,Trinity decided as she eyed him skeptically. Not that she knew how to identify it. He didn't start acting crazy until now.
