“I’m sorry about your wedding.”
Whatever he’d been expecting, the burst of laughter caught him unawares.
“Yeah, don’t be. I’m not.”
“You aren’t?” Dig, dig, dig.
Evan took several steps back and plunged his fingers into his hair with a growl.
“Not even a little. Not anymore. Lucy and I were together for a long goddamn time, and it clearly meant shit to her.”
“Maybe she just got cold feet? What if you reconcile?” Oh,for God’s sake. Give him some dynamite to blow a hole to the Earth’s core.
“Yeah, no. I can forgive a lot of things, but running off with another guy is a hard line.”
“Oh. Oh! Oh, shit.” She’d left him for someone else. She’d left himat the altarfor someone else. That heartless bitch.
“If I’m glad for anything, it’s that she didn’t go through with it out of some sense of obligation. Breakups suck, but divorces are fucking expensive.”
“You mean emotionally expensive, surely.”
“That’s part of it, but you can lose your shirt if their lawyer is good enough.”
“It’s not a business deal, Evan.”
“Isn’t it? Let’s break it down.”
“That is—you can’t be serious. We’re talking about dedicating your life to someone you love. One rich asshole giving another rich asshole money so they can be extra rich assholes together isn’t even in the same league.”
Heath could read the pity in Evan’s smirk, but refused to bend. Life has a way of ruining everything eventually, but he wasn’t letting it take away his love of love. He would cling to that with his last breath.
“Of course it is. Think about it. The proposal is basically an exchange of currency to reserve an asset until the contract signing.”
“You did not just useassetin that context.”
He held up a finger. “Hypothetical, not literal.”
“Still…”
“Contract signed, you are now legally bound. No sending a breakup text at two in the morning from the stoop of a one-night-stand’s brownstone.”
“You didn’t…”
“Soooo, if either party decides the deal is no longer working to their benefit, you get to have quality time with everyone andtheir lawyer for negotiations. By which I mean arguing for weeks until one side gets sick of it and caves to whatever demand the other won’t budge on, which is typically more currency. Deal reached, you divest and go your separate ways, and everyone avoids you at holiday parties, because once you get drunk, all you talk about is the greedy harpy who took your dog and penthouse.”
Heath stared, unable to stop his rapid, incredulous blinking. “That’s not a country song I’m familiar with.”
Evan laughed. “I mean, obviously not every relationship is like that, just like not every business deal is. I’ve handled plenty of contracts that weren’t even a little sketchy. They’re just also less lucrative.”
“There are more things in life than money, Evan. I’ve met too many people who had it all and were still miserable to believe otherwise.”
“Lucrative doesn’t always mean money.”
“What’s worth selling your soul for if not money?”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Evan’s smile dropped. “They’d run out of booze at the resort before I could finish explaining.”
A shrill whistle echoed through the trees, and Heath sighed as the moment fell away. A few minutes in Evan’s company and he’d forgotten there were other people with them. If that wasn’t a bucket of red flags, he didn’t know what was.
