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“Does that automatically mean he’s going to have a mistress?”

“Can you stop focusing on the cheating? You’d still get your money, right? So why does it matter what he does?” She sighed again, dramatically pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “This could be the end of an era.”

“What era?”

“Our poor-girl era.”

I laughed. “We’re still poor.”

“No, I’m still poor. You don’t have to be anymore. Where your phone?”

On instinct, I glanced at my nightstand, but it wasn’t there. “I don’t know. It’s probably in the kitchen. Why?”

“Because you need to call Mr. Billionaire Man and tell him you’re taking his offer,” she said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

I chuckled, but something deep inside me pulsed with disappointment at the prospect. It was odd, really. I should’ve been thrilled, but I’d always imagined this particular part of my life to be different.

Whenever I’d thought about getting married, I’d imagined love. My parents had had that. In spades. At least, as far as I remembered, they’d had love. They’d always been together, as much as they possibly could, and in the end, they’d even left this life that way.

Together.

Neither one of them going anywhere without the other.

I’d always thought that maybe one day I’d find someone who would love me that way, but in the end, I supposed I would be getting one thing out of this deal. I’d get to stay here. My new husband could go on his yacht with his mistress. He could have whatever ridiculous life he wanted, but me?

I would be getting to sit by the fire this fall. I would hand out Halloween candy on the porch, and after that, I’d break out my parents’ old Christmas decorations. I would put up our tree and sip hot cocoa after wrapping tinsel around the banister.

Ultimately, I would get to be home this Christmas and for every one that would come after that. How on earth could I possibly say no?

CHAPTER 9

HOLDEN

Ryan and Maggie were, without a doubt, the strangest couple I’d ever met. If anyone was to see them side by side without context, they’d assume Ryan had kidnapped her—or maybe that she’d kidnapped him.

The fact they were a happily married couple was baffling, clear proof that sometimes opposites really did attract. Maggie was a whirlwind of energy and laughter, hell-bent on living life to the fullest now that she’d escaped the overbearing clutches of her parents, who’d tried to marry her off to this dude I’d never seen smile until after he hadn’t ended up marrying her.

My brother, on the other hand, used to be bossy and bullheaded, focused entirely on rebuilding himself into a businessman who could never be mistaken for being his father’s son. In other words, he’d taken himself very seriously, to the point of being a giant bore until the suit would come off and he’d walk into a bar. Then he’d turn into the life of the party.

I still didn’t really get how he and his wife worked, but I had to admit, I vastly preferred Maggie’s version of Ryan. Boardroom Ryan absolutely sucked. He wore Tom Ford suits like battle armor, a corporate predator who’d made grown men cry with a glare so intense it could probably freeze boiling water.

Maggie’s Ryan was different. He lived in slightly faded hoodies, argued about the correct way to make boxed mac and cheese, and was so laid back, I’d even heard him crack a few jokes.

Watching them together in their kitchen earlier, trading dry banter before Ryan had laughed and kissed the top of her head, had made me wonder if maybe marriage wasn’t only a miserable, soul-crushing trap after all. The weird and unsettling thought had crossed my mind without warning, but then I’d remembered that Ryan had actually gotten to choose Maggie.

He’d found her in the wild. Well, sort of.

We’d known the Pembrokes—Maggie’s family—as kids, but they’d quickly pretended that wasn’t true when the first news article had dropped about my father’s arrest. Either way, after she and Ryan had been thrown into the same orbit again, they’d been like moths to a flame, unable to stay away from each other despite Maggie’s father arranging her marriage to another man.

According to the depressing amount of legal documents sitting in my email inbox, I wasn’t getting a choice. If I wanted to bury the agonizing piece of Thayer family drama that had been losing my trust fund, I had to marry whoever Alex was trying to help.

Hiding out in the backyard of Ryan and Maggie’s new house in Todt Hill, up on Staten Island, I tossed a ball for Mickey, their gigantic Mastiff, the peace of their backyard rendered absolutely nonexistent by his deep, enthusiastic bark before he took off after the ball. I watched him go, chuckling as he loped after it with all the grace of a baby horse.

“Drop it, Mickey,” I muttered when he finally brought the ball back to me.

He let out a low, rumbling whine, but his tail was wagging with a force I imagined was similar to that of a ceiling fan when he dropped the tennis ball at my feet. It landed on the grass with a wet, heavy thud, encased in a frothy layer of canine drool. I grimaced, kicking it across the lawn with only the very tip of my sneaker this time.

Mickey didn’t care that he’d turned the damn thing into a biohazard, taking off after it again with so much enthusiasm that he kicked up patches of turf in his wake. I let out another chuckle, still wondering what the hell my brother had been thinking when he’d brought this beast home for Maggie.