Chapter Three
The distinct flavor of intrigue hung in the air like the heady scent of lilac trees in the spring as Kenzi walked into the sleek and stylish offices of Billionaire Marriage Brokers.
“What time is good for you?” The receptionist, a petite redhead with vanilla-milk skin, glanced at Harrison, asking with her eyes if he needed her help. He waved in greeting and ushered Kenzi down the hall to his office door.
“I have to hand it to you, this place does not look like a wedding planning business. Where’s the pictures of blushing brides?”
“That’s not our focus.” He pulled a chair out around a glass circular table. Nice subliminal message for a lawyer to plant in his clients’ heads. Glass equaled see-through equaled honesty. “Before I can tell you anything else, you’ll need to sign a nondisclosure agreement.” He went to his desk, typed for a moment, and the printer began spitting out pages. And it just kept going.
“Harrison, my dad’s will isn’t that long, and it covers all of his worldly possessions.”
“Never let it be said that I am not thorough.”
“But you don’t mind if I call you boring?”
He smirked. “Just don’t say it too loudly; Trish might hear you.”
“Trish?TheTrish?” Kenzi leaned back in her chair in an effort to look down the hallway. She’d heard snippets about Trish for years and years and years. Harrison denied that there was anything more than a professional friendship between them, but Trish was the only woman who lasted longer in Harrison’s life than a football season.
The printer heaved out the last page as if it had run a marathon. Harrison gathered them up and tapped them twice to align the pages. He settled next to Kenzi at the table. “I’ll walk you through this fast.”
“I shouldn’t, but I trust you,” she said, hoping to move this along.
“What’s not to trust?”
Twenty minutes later, Kenzi could feel the padlock click shut on her lips. She was allowed to disclose the nature of her marriage to family—but she wouldn’t. The whole point of this was to keep the marriage off Raquel and Lunette’s radar until after the vote. Even then, she wasn’t going to tell them the lengths she’d gone to secure her place as CEO. It was the old “what they don’t know won’t kill them”—or make them want to kill her.
“As I said before, Pamela is a matchmaker. What I didn’t tell you was that she specializes in the billionaire market. I know what you’re thinking: Why would a billionaire need a matchmaker?”
She placed a hand on his forearm. “Actually, Harrison, I’ve known my fair share of billionaires, and a surprising number of them are introverts who wear ill-fitting tee shirts and flood pants because they are so wealthy no one has the guts to tell them how badly they dress.”
“It’s not just that, although Trish—” He paused, warning her with a look not to jump into that subject again. “—has no problem telling people how to dress.”
A light went on inside Kenzi’s head. “She picked out your shoes, didn’t she?”
Harrison’s neck darkened to a nice shade of embarrassment. “The point is, sometimes a man needs a wife, and sometimes a woman needs a husband, but they don’t need them for long.”
Kenzi wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Well, we had a case a year or so ago where a man left a ski resort to his grandson. However, the grandson hadn’t run a ski shop, let alone a resort. He needed a life coach, a crash course in business management, and a makeover. Pamela matched him with a highly trained woman who got him through the first year of business and even managed to save his resort from being shut down.”
“But why not just hire her? Why marriage?”
“For each couple, the reason is different. Some need the proximity. In this case, marriage was a requirement for the man to inherit.”
“Huh.” A matchmaker for the ultra-wealthy? For some reason, the image both fit Aunt Pamela with her strong sense of intuition and mysterious—though slightly eccentric—ways and didn’t fit Aunt Pamela and her sleek business, no-nonsense demands for high standards.
“Shall we sign the official retainer?” Harrison passed her a much smaller stack of papers.
She stared down at the first line: Whereas, Kensington Donegal (heretofore referred to as BRIDE) …
Her hands began to shake. She’d been a bride once, and that didn’t work out so well. This whole thing was absolutely bat-crap crazy, to borrow one of her father’s expressions. What had she been thinking? A wedding. Marriage. A bride. And—gulp—a husband? The half of her lunch she’d eaten threatened to return all over the top of Harrison’s glass table.
“Thanks, Harrison,” she said, pushing the papers back to him. She pushed and pushed until her elbow locked and they were as far from her as possible. “I think I’ll pass. I’m not ready to throw myself on the altar, so to speak.”
“It’s not for everyone.” His face closed as if guarding a secret.
Kenzi glanced at the tabletop, wondering if things were really as clear as they appeared. “I signed the nondisclosure, so you don’t have to worry about me telling anyone about this place.”
