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She looks baffled.
“Let’s forget about all that for now. I’ve been anxious to take you where we’re going for your surprise, so we’ll deal with all that later.”
“What did they say to you?” she asks. “Just now?”
“Jonah told me you seem very upset. As if I’m unable to read that myself. Asked me what I intend to do about it. I told him I’m working on fixing that. Told him why I want you and how I intend to make you fall in love with me.”
She scoffs. “And that satisfied him?”
“Yup. The rest came over to take my pulse on this. I advised that I’m well aware of what I’m doing and that I have the situation in hand. Asher wanted me to know he was just razzing me, that he wasn’t being serious by flirting with you.”
“You have the situation in hand? Meaning?”
“Meaning you’re not about to run to the press or the authorities about me. That you’re about to become my wife and that I know you’ll come around.”
“And they’re… they’re okay with that ridiculous idea? All they care about is that I don’t go to the press?”
“It’s not ridiculous. Is it ridiculous to want to spend my life with you? Making you happy?”
She stares at me instead of answering.
“My father doesn’t want bad press, Chloe. He also doesn’t want anything to upset my mother. Those are his priorities. He’s still steamed that people are talking about Thad. He wants Steele family business kept within the family and Thad is the primary reason anyone has anything to say about us. He also wanted to remind me that Steeles don’t divorce. As if I could forget.”
“What happens if they do?” I ask.
“They just don’t.”
“Yet he felt the need to remind you of this fact?”
“He has that conversation with anyone starting to look like they’re getting serious about somebody. My father drilled into us from a young age that if we wanted to let someone into the family circle, give them the Steele name and access to the family behind closed doors, we had to be sure they’d never want out. Too much happening to have a pile of exes out there, outside the damage control perimeter that’s carefully managed by his team. He wanted to make sure I know that if I do this with you, it’s a lifetime commitment, so I advised I’m fully prepared for that.”
“Wow,” she whispers incredulously.
“He drilled it into us to only bring in people we trust enough to become permanent family fixtures. Someone willing to make lifelong commitment. You’re not the only person planning to tie the knot just once. We were all raised to take marriage as seriously as a blood oath.”
“Not for true love and for better or for worse, to avoid bad press and pissing off your father?”
I shake my head. “You’re not a whim to me. I’m 100% serious. I’ve been telling you that. My father is putting pressure on Eli to fix the problems in his marriage, too.”
“But left your other brother to his own devices so each of his wives were found dead? Because he wasn’t allowed to get a divorce? Because he was worried about getting written out of your father’s will?”
“Possibly. Most don’t think he killed both of them. Just the second one. First one died in an accident and Thad was devastated. Anyway… I’m not my brother.”
“Who killed your brother? Was it someone in your family?”
I shake my head. “Some of us might not have shed any tears over the loss of Thaddeus, but we wouldn’t gun down a Steele family member. It was a guy who was obsessed with a girl who had him in the friend zone. Jonah’s ex-girlfriend, long story, but the shooter shot Thad and Jonah. Jonah survived.”
“I couldn’t find much about it in the papers,” she says.
“Because my father doesn’t like getting press he can’t control or edit before it goes to print. Shit got out before he could control it or none of it would’ve been publicized.”
She’s silent for a few minutes, then she says, “What would happen to me if I did go to the press?”
“You won’t go to the press, Chloe. You know better.”
“Derek, I wanna be real with you.”
“Haven’t you been real all along?” I ask.
