Shit, why didn’t I just book a damn table again?
It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it, but on the other hand, maybe this was a good thing. At least there was no way she would’ve walked in here if money was the only thing she was after.
When I finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, she was almost to me and I cursed under my breath before I stood, still not really believing that this bombshell had come here to talk about an arranged marriage.
“Did you answer the ad?”
Her gaze swept over me, quick and assessing, but it didn’t quite meet mine. “That depends.”
I tucked my hands into my pocket, desperate to look more casual than I felt. “Depends on what?”
Finally lifting her eyes directly to mine, she nearly knocked me over with the intensity in them. “On whether you regularly make your potential wives risk life and limb just to meet you.”
A slow, perhaps even a little sheepish, smirk ghosted across my lips. “Yeah, about that. Thanks for meeting me here. I know it’s not fancy.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” she said, her voice crisp and brisk, but not rude or overtly polished. She glanced around at the peeling posters on the walls and the lightbulbs flickering in places. “So, do you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you regularly expect your potential future wives to risk life and limb just to meet you?” she repeated. Her eyes were a striking green, an exceptional shade that couldn’t have been common, yet it felt like I’d seen them before.
“To be honest, you’re the first potential future wife I’ve met, so no. It’s not a regular thing.” I extended a hand toward her. “Callum.”
“Maisie.” She didn’t smile or even relax, seeming almost as tightly wound as Garvey. Her palm barely grazed mine before she was withdrawing from our not-quite-a-handshake. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”
“Sure.” I waved toward the high-top. “Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”
“Gin and tonic, please.” She averted her gaze and slid onto the stool like it was a homicidal dentist’s chair.
I left her to settle in, hoping she would be a little less uncomfortable by the time I got back. Ordering another drink for myself as well, I willed my pounding heart to calm and rested an elbow on the bar, half turning so I could watch her from the corner of my eye while I waited for our drinks.
She sat with her spine as straight as an arrow, checking her phone with a weirdly anxious expression on her beautiful face.Holy crap, does this place really make herthatnervous? Is it a good sign or a bad one?
The last thing I wanted was to marry some snob who thought she was too good for dive bars and burger joints, but that hadn’t been the vibe I’d gotten from her.So what’s on that phone that she’s so anxious about?
The bartender handed over our drinks and I made my way back to the table, sitting down across from her. As she slowly lifted her gaze back to mine, narrow shoulders stiff as a board, I realized that maybe all of this was because she was worried I was some kind of creep.
I didn’t blame her. Not only had I put an ad in an obscure paper searching for a wife, but then I’d dragged her to the shadiest place I’d been able to think of in the moment. Obviously, she’d thought we were going somewhere at least a little bit nicer.
That was ava-va-voomdress. One she’d probably worn to impress, not to risk getting mugged on the way back to her car.
“I’m sorry about my choice of venue.” I looked right into those electric green eyes as I said it. “The truth is that I wasn’t sure you were real when I made the suggestion.”
“You weren’t sure I wasreal?” Her head cocked. “Why not? Emails don’t send themselves. There had to have been a person on the other side of that message.”
“Sure, but, uh, yours was one of only two responses I got to that ad. The first one turned out to be some kind of joke, so there I was, drinking overpriced wine all by my lonesome and wondering if maybe putting an ad in the paper was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done.”
Her dark eyebrows twitched, almost like they’d been about to shoot up before she’d caught herself. “It was unconventional. To say the least.”
“Yeah.” I gave her a half-smile. “I know. You want to know why I did it, don’t you?”
“That’s probably a good place to start.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as her gaze swept across my face. “Putting out an ad for something like this isn’t exactly normal.”
“No, it’s not,” I admitted without hesitating. I’d said in the ad that I wanted to cut to the chase and that was exactly what I intended on doing. “The thing is, I don’t care about normal. I need a wife. That’s it.”
One of her eyebrows finally lifted. Not a lot. It wasn’t a full arch, rather just enough for me to notice. “That’s it, huh? Tell me, Callum, why do you need a wife so desperately that you’d go looking for one in the classifieds section instead of a dating app or a bar?”
I shrugged but gave it to her straight. “My family is old school. Marriages are essentially business mergers to them. They don’t care about love as much as they do optics. I’m not saying that it’s right, but it is my reality. It’s literally my turn toget married and I want someone who gets that. Someone who wants it rather than a wife who’s only in it for the money.”
