I shrugged. I was an artist, and while my paintings were good, I wasn’t Salvador Dali or Claude Monet, and I never would be. I’d sold every piece I had ever created and even had a few commissioned by a local gallery. Of course, if you asked my mother, she would tell you it wasn’t because I had talent—which I did, thank you very much—but because I was her daughter. People wanted a piece of her, and my art was by proxy. But I wasn’t going to devalue myself entirely. I was capable of earning money. I could do what Rhyan was doing upstairs if I had to.
Yeah, sure you can. If you’re so brazen, why does the thought of cleaning up a crime scene send your stomach into an alligator death roll?
I ignored the stupid voice and focused on Rule’s question.
“Whatever you want me to do,” I whispered, refusing to back down. If I did, I would probably fall apart, and while my mother was a good actress, I wasn’t. It was going to get messy, but I was tired of being the fucking pawn on the chessboard, used and discarded for someone else’s gain.
“You’re willing to sell yourself to clear your mother’s debt?”
“Yes.”
I held his stare, refusing to acknowledge the butterflies that had erupted in my belly. I wasn’t scared of this man. He wasn’t going to hurt me. He had no reason to.
The question was: would he help?
I saw the moment something clicked for him. “Under one condition.”
“Anything.”
“We have to get married.”
Well, the good news was he wasn’t married. That or he didn’t realize bigamy was a crime.
The bad news was he was batshit crazy.
I stared, waiting for the punchline because surely I didn’t hear him correctly. Why in the world would he want me to marry him? I didn’t understand what that would possibly gain either of us.
“Why?”
“That way, you can’t back out.”
Why he thought I might, I didn’t know. Plus, marriage didn’t meanforever and ever, amen. Not in the world I grew up in. Didn’t he know divorces were all the rage in California? For every marriage, weren’t there like five divorces? It seemed like a reasonable guesstimate, at the very least.
“This was my idea,” I countered. “I won’t back out.”
“I know. Because you’ll be my wife.”
“I don’t even know you.” I wondered if he heard the rhythmic thump of my heart. It was so loud, banging against my ear drums with every breath, and it had nothing to do with fear. This man was basically manipulating me the way everyone in my life had, but for some stupid reason, I was okay with it. Something told me I shouldn’t be, but being left behind to deal with a woman who paid someone to kidnap her own daughter was the worst kind of hell I could imagine at the moment.
Kinda sad since … you know, dead bodies and all.
“You’ll get to know me,” Rule said. “We have time. Do we have a deal?”
I pretended I was giving this serious consideration, but there was no way I could. People didn’t do this. They didn’t barter and trade themselves to pay debts or as an excuse to escape a shitty situation. Or maybe they did, and I was as sheltered and clueless as the media portrayed me to be.
“Couldn’t we maybe start slow? As friends?” I asked, still not sure what the marriage angle did for either of us because his excuse was flimsy at best. Divorce was always an option.
“No,” he said firmly, standing tall.
His dark eyes were determined, as was the set of his jaw. I knew this wasn’t a negotiation, and if I didn’t give him the answer he wanted in the next five seconds, he was going to walk out that door and leave me to clean up my mother’s mess and risk beating my mother to a pulp for what she’d done to me. An image of both of us in orange jumpsuits came to mind.
“Fine,” I said because I didn’t look good in orange. And because I could tell he was expecting me to refuse.
I swear his eyes softened, and the hint of a smile pulled at his mouth. “Good girl.”
That alligator death roll my belly had been doing stopped suddenly and reversed, sending my heart rate into hyperdrive. Though manipulative and misplaced, his praise filled my chest with helium and momentarily lifted my feet off the ground. Sad, I know. But I couldn’t remember a time anyone had praised me for anything. Unless you considered my mother telling me she was proud I’d watched my calorie intake while imprisoned in some lunatics basement. Not exactly the same thing.
Before I could ask him what I was supposed to do to prepare for the upcoming nuptials, Rule took my wrist firmly in his hand and led me back to the living room, where my mother was still weeping while she peeked through slitted eyes to see if anyone was watching. Sure enough, as soon as we walked in, the sobs became more intense.
