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Being worried he knows I’m in the mess of applications shouldn’t cloud my logic. I have to be overreacting.
I mean.
Okay.
Sure, he called me by my full name a few moments ago, but it has been two weeks since I filled out his form. Two weeks of applications is too many for a busy billionaire to handle. Not only that, the application ended on a question that said his assistant would be in touch.
I felt bad for that assistant.
Oh, the irony.
The full name thing was a coincidence. He just wants me to compile the shortlist.
Yup.
We will be adamantly ignoring the fact he opened this conversation with a compliment about my appearance.
Denial, another fond pastime. Snuggles right up next to delusion. I am a fan of the alliteration.
“So,” I begin, the pinnacle of calm, “you’d like me to review applications? Is there any deeper purpose to this endeavor? Any deadline I should take into consideration? Will you lose a trust fund if you aren’t married by a certain date?”
He stops messing with his pen and chuckles. “This isn’t a romcom, Marcella.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I’m just lonely.”
Yet again, my poor brain skids to a halt and takes a moment to reboot. He’s…lonely?
Him.
Seriously?
Him?
He’s surrounded by people constantly, dragging me halfway across the world for dinners and overnight events and parties. He knows people. Point blank. He knows people from here, there, and everywhere. Worse, people know him. He’s old money. Sole heir to a rich family heritage. He can’t go anywhere without a couple bodyguards tailing him.
If he wants a wife because he’s lonely, he has so many options it is laughable.
Why make a rush-deal form and advertise it at all?
“You seem shocked,” he murmurs. “I’m not allowed to be lonely?”
Looking like a statue of Apollo? Um. No, I don’t think so.
He’s the complete package. For most people.
I prefer far more stability from the personalities I allow around me.
Nevertheless, I say, “Of course you’re allowed to be lonely, Mr. Marsh. Do you have any criteria for me to cross-reference as I go through applications?”
“No.” Pushing back in his chair, he opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a stack of papers regardless. “I suppose I haven’t been perfectly clear. I’ve already gone through the applications.”
My entire life flashes before my eyes. My heart jumps up my esophagus to lodge in my throat. Oh well. A living wage was nice, while it lasted. Seeing the end of my crippling debt on the horizon…give or take twenty years with a working AC unit, or nineteen without one…
What grand dreams.
“Marcella?”
