“If you’ve come to plead your case, you’ll be the third to fail today,” he warned me.
Simon had been in his late sixties when I first met him as a freshman in college. He was a professor emeritus who kept coming back even after retiring. Even so, he’d never seemed old to me.
Today? That changed. I noticed the redness in his eyes, the extra slouch to his shoulders, papery wrinkles cracking over his skin. I wondered if he’d changed or my perspective had. Maybe both.
“I came to check on you,” I said earnestly. “I know you have everything money can buy, but you’re missing some things money can’t touch.”
He lifted his eyebrows, forehead wrinkles deepening. “And what would that be?”
“I thought we both knew,” I replied. It was the reason for his proposal earlier. I leaned forward on the chair, resting my elbows on my knees. “People aren’t meant to go through something like this with employees or strangers at their side, Simon. Let me be here for you, as your friend, as your son.”
His already watery eyes seemed to glisten. “You’re a good man, Bryce.”
My chest tightened painfully. “You are too,” I told him. Deep down, I knew it to be true, even if he was misguided sometimes.
“So who are your marriage prospects?” he asked, changing the subject. And for the first time since coming in here tonight, I saw his posture lift. It hit me–the thought of us foundersgetting married? It was giving him hope. Knowing his prognosis, I couldn’t deny him that gift.
“I’m not dating anyone,” I answered. “Never had ‘the one that got away.’”
He seemed to sag.
“But there was a woman earlier today...”
His features brightened again. The old bastard was a romantic underneath it all. “Tell me about her,” he said.
My lips twisted to the side as I pictured Jada’s features going from determined to relieved to annoyed in under ten minutes. “She’s intriguing.”
He grinned wryly. “All the good ones are.”
“She’s determined too.” I knew that at least. She would do whatever it took for the kids under her care—even banging down the door of the acting CEO. And when I looked her up in the company directory, I learned she wasn’t even the daycare’s director. She’d been hired on as a care provider just a few months ago.
“Good,” Simon said. “A billionaire doesn’t need a weak woman at his side.”
I hadn’t considered a woman at my side much at all, to tell the truth. That always seemed to be on the back burner, waiting for a better time. “I’m not sure she’ll be at my side,” I admitted. “She turned me down.”
Simon said, “You must not have had a very good pitch.”
“Pitch?” I chuckled, shifting the throw pillow from behind my back so I could lean against the chair. “You make this sound like a business proposition.”
He gave me an exasperated look. “Have I taught you nothing?Everythingin life is a business proposition, whether we care to admit it or not.”
“Even love?” I asked. I’d heard all my life from the man I admired most—my own father—that marriage wasn’t a contractbut a chance to lay down everything you have for another person and build a life together.It’s not about what you can get,my dad always said.It’s what you can give.
But Simon seemed to think differently. He said, “No one gets married expecting nothing out of the deal. You get married for companionship, loyalty, wealth, to build a family. The reasons are never truly altruistic.” Looking me over, he chuckled. “Looks like you just found out Santa isn’t real.”
I shook my head at the old man, frustrated at his cynicism. “Is that why you want us to sign away half our shares to our brides then? To make a more appealing pitch?”
He shook his head slightly. “You don’t want your wife staying for the money. You want her staying for what money can’t buy.” Done with the conversation, he picked up his book and started reading again.
“This way,” Iris said, and I jumped. Where had she come from? Hadn’t she left earlier?
But she pinned me with an impatient gaze that had me standing up from the cushy leather chair and following her into the hallway.
I felt sadder than when I walked into Simon’s place because I realized he wasn’t just trying to get us to fare better than his children; he wanted us to have a better life than him.
But that didn’t mean I agreed with his methods. In fact, as I went out to my car, I hoped even harder that Jude would have a solution, because marriage shouldn’t be about money; it should be about love.
Maybe to Simon, they were one and the same.
