“Jada, there’s something I need to talk to you about, and it needs to be off the record.”
As she chewed her bite, she gave me a confused look. “Is everything okay? Did Dr. Martins say something?”
“Nothing medical,” I told her.
“Then what’s going on? You’re worrying me.”
Just say it, Iordered myself.Say it.
“It’s a long story, but I can’t continue running this company unless I’m married. And I like you. I want to date you. So will you marry me?”
A weak, awkward laugh brushed past her lips. “That’s not a good joke, Bryce.”
I rubbed my temples. “God, I wish I was joking.”
Her eyebrows pinched together, furrows forming in the middle of her forehead. “You want to date me, so we need to getmarried? You hear what you’re saying, right?”
“If you’re not interested, I understand. But I do have to get married in December, so if you’re not interested, we really can’t continue. I know it’s a crazy thing to ask?—”
“It is crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “I barely know you. And you want me tomarryyou so you can keep your job? And likely with some crazy prenup that will have me paying you by the end of it? No thank you.” She stood up, dropping her napkin on the table.
“Actually... if we get divorced, you’ll have fifty percent of everything I own.”
She narrowed her gaze at me. “You should have had Dr. Martins checkyouout,” she said, and then she stormed out of my office.
After she was gone, I muttered to myself, “I’ll take that as a no.”
23.Jada
I went down the elevator,getting that nauseous feeling again. When I stepped out, I moved out of the path of people so I could take shallow breaths until my stomach quit tossing. That French toast was a mistake—something I never expected myself to think.
But instead of going to work, I found Rei. Her fine hair fell out of her ponytail while she sprayed pungent disinfectant on a water fountain. The glowing number of “bottles saved” blurred in my vision. “Want to see if it’s Bryce?” I asked her, feeling like a mad woman.
Understanding widened her eyes. “You got his handwriting?”
I nodded. “You have the sticky note, right?”
“Follow me.”
She led me to a janitorial closet the size of my bedroom and shut the door behind us, leaving us in the flickering artificial light of a lone, uncovered bulb.
A sharp stabbing feeling pricked at my temples, but I reached into my purse for my notebook and flipped to the page where Bryce had written his number. Somewhere in a dark corner of my mind, I wondered why I cared whether the secret admirerwas Bryce or not. I guess I had to know if all our interactions were a complete sham or just most of them.
Rei produced a note from a shelf of cleaning supplies, and asked for my note. Once I passed it over, she held them both in the light, squinting between the two to determine the differences... or similarities.
“It’s...” Time seemed to suspend as I waited for the rest of her sentence. “It’s not him,” she said, seeming genuinely confused. “I really thought it was him.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I silently took my notebook back. There was no sense of relief that followed, because I didn’t know how long the marriage plot had been in place. Did Bryce only stop construction during naptime as a ploy to get a chance at his proposal? Or was it a genuine act of care for the children?
I hated this situation, especially because for the first time since my parents’ passing, I was actually considering a real relationship, until Bryce went and ruined it with an outlandish proposal.
“Are you okay?” Rei asked, studying me.
My lips quirked to the side. “It sounds stupid, but I thought I was going to have this Cinderella story with Bryce. You know, regular girl marries Prince Charming.” I shook my head. If life had taught me anything, it was that fairy tales don’t last–if they were real at all.
“But this is good news,” Rei said. “It wasn’t him! You can keep dating him and see where it goes.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I quickly blinked to stem the flood of emotion. “Something else happened this morning, and I’m just not sure he’s interested in me for the right reasons.”
