“How over it is with your ex, for starters.”
Bree turned her head into the pocket of Jase’s shoulder and rubbed her face on his t-shirt, letting out another sigh. “One, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t extremely over,” she told him firmly. “Two, it should have been over a long time ago. I was more pissed that I had to get new sheets and get tested than I was that he was cheating on me. Honestly, I never should have agreed to marry him.”
“You were engaged?”
She titled her head back. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Engaged? Less than a month.”
Jase pursed his lips. “How long were you together before that?”
“Eight or nine months, I guess.”
“Why did you say yes when he asked?”
She moved her head back into the pocket of his shoulder. “He proposed at my grandmother’s eighty-fifth birthday party. Did the whole speech and got down on one knee in front of everyone. It caught me off guard. I didn’t want to embarrass him or myself in front of all my friends and family.”
“Wow, that’s…”
“Underhanded?” Bree suggested.
“I was going to say an asshole move, but sure, we’ll go with underhanded. Why’d you stay engaged?”
Bree traced a small circle on the t-shirt stretched across his chest. “I didn’t actually see him more’n a couple of times between when he asked and when I caught him.”
His fingers rubbed back and forth across her shoulder. “You never set a date?”
“No. He wanted to. I didn’t see the rush. The more he pushed, the more I resisted.”
“Why?”
“Why did he push it or why did I keep putting it off?”
“Both,” Jase said.
“Money.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that, darlin’.”
“Sooo…there’s a stipulation in my grandfather’s will that says I won’t receive the entirety of my inheritance until I’m married.”
“That’s kind of old school,” Jase observed.
“It was my grandmother’s idea. She fell in love with my grandfather when she was fifteen years old and married him when she was seventeen. She wanted the same fairytale for me that she had. And yeah…she’s kind of old school about some things.”
“So how much money are we talking about?”
Bree hesitated. She hated telling people how much she was worth. Their attitudes changed as soon as they found out she was wealthy. People she thought of as friends would either start ignoring her, making assumptions about her because she had money, or start sucking up to her.
Jase squeezed her gently. “Now I’m kind of scared to know. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”
Bree bit her bottom lip, then decided to go with her gut and trust Jase. “That I get? Slightly more than five million dollars,” she said quietly.
He let out a whistle. “Shit, darlin’, you are loaded. And you don’t get any of that until you get hitched?”
“I get a portion of the interest as a living stipend.”
