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I feel the air leave my chest. If I wait four years, my mother gets a fifty-million-dollar reward for watching me fail. Have her attorneys somehow been privy to this information? Is she living off of dividends and interest until she can cash out?
“But,” Sterling continues, tapping the paper, “if you marry and stay married for one year, you receive fifty million a year for every year you remain betrothed. The moment you divorce, the trust reverts to the prior stipulations.”
Sweat drips down the back of my shirt. Suddenly my mouth is parched. I think all of my saliva has leaked out of my skin.
It isn’t a rumor.
“Furthermore, the vineyard must be profitable before you receive a single cent of each year’s distribution. Even if it’s only in the black by one dollar.”
I stare at the ink, stunned. This could be the life support Sutter Creek needs. And Pop was trying everything in his power to keep the place solvent. It only needs to remain profitable by one measly dollar to receive a new injection of fifty million each year I remain married.
Each year?
Hell, even trying to remain committed to someone for one year seemed unrealistic. There’s no point considering additional years. And even if I can find someone who’s willing to consider such a farce, how would I manage to prove it was real?
“Can I be blunt, Mr. Sterling?”
“Depends. Am I to assume you are retaining me as your new counsel?” The corner of his mouth quirks, giving me a twinge of hope I hadn’t dared to entertain previously.
I sit taller. “Without question.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“If I were to propose to my girlfriend, my mother would never believe the marriage is real,” I confess, my voice a low rasp. I leave out the fact my girlfriend is a figment of my imagination. “She knows I don’t do commitment.”
“Then you had better find someone who can convince her otherwise,” he says, closing the folder with a definitive thud. “Because if she proves the marriage is a sham, you lose everything. Not just the trust, but Sutter Creek as well.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat and bolt to standing, the floor beneath my feet now feeling off-kilter. In a moment, the vineyard flashes in my mind’s eye. The only thing I’ve ever truly loved. Okay, maybe not the only thing. Still, I think about the dirt under my grandfather’s fingernails. The summers of laughter and dreams. The trust he had in me.
And then, I picture the one girl who could make it happen.
Hell, no. She won’t even speak to me after the stunt I pulled the other night. The stunts I’ve continued to pull. The Pop Rocks in her ears when she wasn’t expecting it, the hair ties I’d steal from her meticulously styled hair, and the verbal taunts to drive the point home. We’d never be together. Ever.
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch very soon,” I say, heading for the door.
“Sam?”
I stop, my hand trembling as it lands on the brass handle.
“Your grandfather knew you weren’t responsible enough to handle this on your own back then,” he adds softly. There’s no condemnation in his voice. “But he knew your heart. Peter believed in the man you’d become. He hoped having these stipulations in place would protect both you and the land. Don’t prove him wrong, son.”
I walk out into the bright New York sun, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. I’ve spent my life being the playboy, the screw-up. But for fifty million dollars and a chance to save my grandfather’s legacy, I’m about to play the most dangerous role of my life.
Because apparently, I need a wife.
And I need her yesterday.
Chapter Nine
Sam
I sit at my grandfather’s oak desk, staring blankly at the certified copy of Pop’s last will and testament until the words blur together into a meaningless tapestry of ink. A marriage clause. An actual, ironclad requirement for a legal marriage certificate before a single cent of the emergency reserve fund can be released. My mind races, desperately searching for loopholes, shortcuts, or any insane scheme that could fix this without blowing up my life.
At first, I’d actually considered laying it on thick with some random woman at the airport bar. Take her on a few dates, charm her off her feet, make her fall fast and hard. Maybe whisk her away to Vegas, get her drunk on cheap champagne, and convince her to sign a marriage certificate on a whim.
Right. And then what?
Keep her pleasantly intoxicated for a full year until the trust matures? Besides, how the hell would I manage that while getting her to sign a comprehensive prenup without raising red flags?
