Dropping his chin onto my knee, Munchkin looked up at me, brows knitting together, his big brown eyes full of concern. It was almost like he was asking, “And then what?”
I sat up, pulled him close, and gave him a kiss on the top of his head, right between his pointy little ears.
“Obviously, Munchkin,” I whispered into his fur, “I told him yes.”
Ford
Chapter 11
As soon as I got back to my apartment, my suit was off. After an endless evening like the one I’d just had, buttoned up in my tux, smiling and shaking hands with every last snooty guest, all I wanted was a pair of comfy sweats and total silence. I grabbed a bottle of water from my fridge, downed half of it in one go, and parked my ass on the couch.
Finally. A moment to myself.
Thank God Emzee said yes to my plan.
For a brief moment, I’d seen the refusal on her face, and I was sure she’d back out. It wasn’t a small ask, and she’d already done more than enough to help me out with the Claudia situation. But of course she said yes. She always did.
That was one of the reasons we were still such close friends after all these years—she was the kind of person who could roll with the punches, who was always down for whatever crazy schemes I came up with. Dumb stuff like putting on British accents at a college party full of people we didn’t know, or committing ourselves to the twenty-five hour and nine minute straight total running time that was the eleven-film Star Wars marathon (she’d even brought over two batches of Storm Trooper cookies), or the year we’d spent Christmas Eve driving all over Chicago to rearrange people’s lawn decorations so that pairs of deer appeared to be humping. Emzee had been cool like that ever since high school—ever since I became her “hero.”
And tonight, that hero worship shit had really paid off. Because I knew I’d been pushing my luck with this whole charade. In fact, luck was a very good word for what it felt like I had with Emzee in general. How many guys in my position would have ended up with a ride-or-die like her? Still, I’d known that I was skating on thin ice when I dropped the surprise engagement bomb on her with zero warning, right in front of my parents and Claudia. Especially after we’d decided to do the exact opposite and call the whole thing off.
The thing was, once I’d realized how brilliant this plan was, there was no way I could have just walked away. We both knew that my mother never would have stopped until I was shacked up with Claudia and cranking out the grandchildren.
I shuddered at the thought.
Sure, my ex was hot—smoking hot—and yeah, she knew how to walk the walk—but that was about it. She was predictable, she didn’t have a sense of humor, and the times she’d flashed her mean streak with Emzee or a valet or a waiter had turned my stomach. The truth was, I’d lost interest in her ages ago. It had just taken me a while to do something about it. The thought of spending my entire life with her made me want to throw myself off the Willis Tower.
The thought of spending my entire life withanyonemade me feel that way.
I just wasn’t down with the whole ball and chain lifestyle. I liked my freedom. Liked being able to do whatever I wanted. I was way too young to settle down just yet.
That’s why Emzee was the perfect choice for this whole charade. A year married to her would hardly be a hardship at all. She was laid back, fun to hang with, and eager to say yes. In other words: jackpot.
I finished my water, crushed the bottle, and leaned back into the supple, full grain leather of my couch.
I loved my apartment, how completely and utterly masculine it was. Leather and reclaimed wood and steel everything, modern and rustic at the same time. Claudia had always been trying to change it; to change me. First she wanted me to clear out a dresser drawer for her in the bedroom, then she started bugging me to buy new furniture—a velvet Chesterfield, which I vetoed, and a wood frame bed instead of my black platform model, which I agreed to—and then there was the day I came home to find that she’d put a floral shower curtain and matching rugs in the bathroom. That’s when I realized she was trying to lock me down, one flowered curtain at a time, and I knew she had to go. I couldn’t live like that.
Emzee never would have pulled that kind of shit. She’d never try to change me.
I put my feet up, taking a moment to appreciate how fucking brilliant my plan was. I had to admit, I’d even impressed myself.
Of course, my mother would have preferred Claudia, but I knew she’d come around eventually. After all, a daughter-in-law was a daughter-in-law, and Emzee checked a lot of the same boxes that Claudia did. She’d do the right things and say the right things, and it wasn’t like Emzee was some kind of upstart. She was wealthy, and not only that, she’d been a member of Chicago society since she was a child. Like it or not, she was well aware of the ins and outs of the invisible rulebook that governed our social class. She could roll with it.
She even ran her own charity, for fuck’s sake, something Claudia had never managed to accomplish. Not that she had ever tried to tackle something like that, but I knew it got under her skin that Emzee had something on her resume that Claudia didn’t. My ex had brought it up enough times—completely out of nowhere—that it was obvious the charity’s success annoyed her. Claudia couldn’t say enough disparaging things about See Yourself. How self-aggrandizing and unnecessary it was, essentially just some vanity project, how it was wasteful to throw all that money away handing out cameras and photography training to a bunch of aged-out models.
I knew Claudia was just jealous, but I’d gotten sick of her trash talk pretty fast. In fact, it had been yet another sturdy nail in the coffin for our relationship. There was nothing wasteful about using one’s connections and wealth to help people in need, regardless of who those people were. In fact, helping others was one of the best things a person of privilege—or any person, really—could do in their life. Guess Claudia wasn’t familiar with the concept.
No matter, though. She was gone. And this engagement to Emzee meant that Claudia couldn’t just manipulate her way back into my life, not even with my mother’s help.
I finally had control of my life again.
Everything was coming up Ford.
Letting out a yawn, I checked my phone. It was after three a.m. Time for bed. I padded down the hall and walked into my bedroom, a place that had always been my sanctuary.
It was set up for seduction. A big, luxuriously comfortable king-sized bed dominated the space, covered in expensive, black silk sheets. The lights were dimmable, the curtains dark, the mood beyond sexy. If a woman was in my room, she knew what was about to happen.
Shucking my sweatpants, I slid under the covers naked. It was how I always slept.
