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“I don’t careabout my family’s business,” Aaron replied in a candid manner. “I’m fifth in line to receive anything from it. No,” he went on with a shake of his head. “I don’t care about Astro Agencies. What I care about, Margot, is Massey Suites.”
Despite the sheer audacity of it all, a slow, understanding smile spread across my lips. “You want to marry me to inherit my parents’ company.”
Aaron Astor looked like a child given the number one present from their wish list. “You understand me.”
The gall this man could muster, and to wield it so boldly, was almost impressive.
My mother must’ve warned the waitstaff to give us their prime service, because they served our plates in record time. The smile remained on my face as I watched them set everything out, and if the tension hadn’t completely dissolved before, it did now. The importance of this meeting, the importance of impressing the infamous Aaron Astor, was pretty much void now. I could’ve let out a sigh of relief as I reached for my silverware, picking up my fork and knife and beginning to transfer them to the other sides of the plate.
Aaron’s hand shot out and covered my right hand. “That’s correct,” he said, gently, as if he was afraid of embarrassing me. “The way they have it placed. It’s correct.”
“I know,” I returned in a soft voice that mimicked his, holding my fork in my right hand.
“You learned how to hold silverware incorrectly?”
“No.”
We stared at each other for a moment. Aaron seemed perplexed, but instead of pushing the issue, he seemed toforce himself to segue back into the conversation. “It is scary, I suppose,” he continued. “Tying our lives together when we barely know each other. I can see why you might be hesitant about it. That’s why I came out a week before the wedding—so we could spend more time together. I also had some documents drafted up.”
Oh, my mother definitely had been in contact with the staff, or at least Aaron had, because when he turned around, a man—whom I hadn’t noticed until that moment—stepped out from where he’d been at the bar. The man handed Aaron a leatherbound file holder. It was all very pretentious.
Aaron laid it down on the side of the table where our plates didn’t touch. Not a PowerPoint, but close.
I stared at it, and though my curiosity overwhelmed me, I didn’t reach for it. Toward him, I only arched a brow.
“An unofficial prenup. Not of business holdings, of course, as that will go through our parents’ lawyers, but one in the more personal sense. What we can expect from each other as we move forward in this venture.”
No wonder he had trouble finding a partner, if he talked to women like this. It was a good thing he wasn’t attempting to woo me; this would’ve been a poor start.
Upon opening the file, it was immediately obvious he’d made this with his business account, since the company’s logo was at the top and their watermark embedded into the paper at the bottom. The paragraphs were blocky, written in the way a legal text would, and I scanned it slowly. “And you want me to sign to this?”
“Not now, of course,” he said, picking back up hiswater glass. “I want you to marinate on it, of course. Mull it all over. See if there are any points you’d like added or tweaked.”
I closed the folder and fixed him with my most serious stare, the poker face of all poker faces. “What if I were to tell you I wanted to go to fashion school?” I asked him. “That I wanted to live separate from you?”
“If pursuing fashion is a dream of yours, I’d support it. And if you’d prefer separate houses, we can look into that. Or we could style our own wings in a home—I’d get the east, you’d get the west. I’m willing to make compromises, darling.” He leaned forward across the table, his boyish grin resurfacing. “From what I know about you, Margot, I like you. I like how our worlds are aligning. We’re cut from the same cloth after all, you and I.”
My mind was still stuck on his offer of a compromise, surprised by it. “Are we now?”
“Raised in the same atmosphere, heading in the same direction in life. We would make quite a good fit. Hold each other up, keep each other on task. And isn’t that a quality of a suitable partner? You can have love, but a partner who can’t match your pace will not be able to keep up with you in the long run. And I think we’d keep up well with each other.”
The words did, in fact, belong on a PowerPoint slide. They seemed meaningful, beautiful, and if he’d spoken them under the pretense of romance, they might’ve someone else swoon. No, theywould’ve. The words were perfectly designed for it. Sitting there, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d rehearsed them, had themwritten on the inside of his wrist and reread them before we sat down.
I felt for him, in a way—his desperation to make this work was clear. Less intense than my parents, but more prominent than I expected. My parents made it sound like impressing Aaron Astor would be the make it or break it moment, but I had a feeling I could’ve insulted the man to his face and he still would’ve been on his knees asking for my hand in marriage.
It was a strange thing to know I held all the power.
Aaron was waiting for my answer, blinking his dark eyes at me expectantly. “You’re not what I expected,” I told him, turning to my plate. “Not in the slightest.”
“And just how did you expect me?” he asked with a boyish smile.
I stared at him and the glint in his eye, thinking about just how well he’d fit in with the Alderton-Du Ponte society. He was charming, straightforward, and seemed to have everything planned out. He was not some man infatuated with me, nor a man uninterested in me. No, he was calculated—just as I was. He knew what he wanted, and he went for it, but unlike my parents, he wanted this to be a partnership rather than a dictatorship. It was interesting.
“I thought you’d be suffocating,” I said, and began eating my meal.
Aaron spent the rest of the dinner talking about himself, which I appreciated in a way, since I had been the one to go into this blind. He’d gone to an all-boy’s high school, studied abroad in London with a group of friends for his senior year, volunteered in Spain during a few ofhis summers. Whatever article Sumner had found on Aaron had been accurate.
As he spoke, I waited for the red flags to appear, but they didn’t pop up. Sure, it wasn’t normal to want to marry someone you didn’t love, but for Aaron, he was quite content with the idea. He told me how he’d never been interested in love in the first place, wasn’t sure he believed in it, and would much rather settle down without such a complicated emotion getting in the way.