Page 21 of Marrying the Gardener (The Bachelor Brothers #3)

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Seventy percent effort.

Crimson

“Monopoly is ninety percent luck and ten percent skill, according to some experts,” I say, glaring across the board at Kaleb, who came with me to a thrift store this lovely Tuesday morning, picked up this wretched board game, and said—so simply— quality time?

It’s time all right. I’m not sure about the quality part.

And, also, the game had all the pieces, cards, and parts—except the dog . I’m the stupid hat while Kaleb is, naturally, the wheelbarrow.

Counting his stacks of brightly-colored paper money, he smiles at me. “Are you sad because you’re staying the night in a lavish hotel on my Boardwalk, baby?”

“Don’t you baby me outside of designated baby zones, darling .”

We have been sitting here.

On the floor.

In my bedroom.

For six hours.

It’s past midnight, and the moon is large and full beyond my balcony windows. It’s a great thing that the pool party I have to go to tomorrow starts late and ends later. Shifting my sleep schedule several hours forward for this isn’t a detriment to anything but my mental health.

Plucking a five hundred, Kaleb slides it graciously to me. “Here. A loan.”

“I’m not taking that. That’s not how you play the game.”

“If you don’t take it, I win.”

“Blessedly, I think that means I get to go to bed.”

“I’m not ready for this night to end.”

I’m not ready to play another seventeen thousand rounds of Monopoly.

I hate being a sore loser. It’s a children’s game of chance.

There are even chance cards , for crying out loud.

And, yet, my entire self worth rests so fragilely upon my shoulders that even this luck-based loss of a game that centers on some cheap idea of “business” stings.

Maturely, I swat Kaleb’s orange money away. “I’m not interested in handouts. Take everything I own. I’ll live in a cardboard box on Mediterranean Avenue until I die.”

“We both know you’ll plot the overthrow of the entire board from that box.”

“I shall not.”

“Go on. Do it.”

“I am not a toddler.”

Kaleb’s eyes sparkle. “You’ll feel better. Quit being such a lady. Get stab happy with me, Crimson.”

Screwing my lips together, I glance at the board, at all his little hotels and houses scattered about the properties. I glance at the neat rows of his cash and assets. He let me be the bank. That was very nice of him.

I hook a finger beneath my side of the board.

His smile widens.

I bite my lip. Then I overthrow game.

Money flutters, cards scatter, the hat goes rolling toward my dresser in a manner that suggests my lost puppy piece is under someone else’s furniture.

Kaleb’s laughter surrounds me, warm, and as the game pieces settle, he’s shifted his seated position into a knightly kneel. Head bowed, he says, “Democracy is dead. Long live the queen.”

“You are such a…” Sweetheart. Filling my lungs, I remove that thought from my brain and groan. “Now we have to clean this mess up.”

“As my liege orders.” Dutifully, Kaleb gathers up the board and folds it into the box. “You’re right,” he says after a moment of sorting the money scattered all over the floor. “It really is a luck game.”

“Don’t appease me.”

“I wonder if we could change the rules and make it more strategy, more RPG. Add life elements, new chance cards that are fixed as events you can come out of either better off or worse off depending on other moves you make.”

“For the depth required in a game like that, I think you’d have to move from board to computer. Business life sim.”

“Probably. I think Kyran knows a coder. Some guy from a Minecraft server? I don’t know.”

I laugh. “We are not exploring an investment in the creation of a game just because I’m pissy that I lost at Monopoly.”

“But we could .” He eyes me, the hazel in his irises enigmatic.

I send myself to look for the top hat under my dresser. “But we won’t .”

“What if we went behind your family’s back and pitched a business plan to the Bachelors?”

“What?” I see the silver piece, lean down, and stretch my arm for it.

“It’s not a handout if they make an educated investment in your business.”

“The kind of money I’d need to be on equal footing with my family isn’t the sort of investment that anyone smart would make without an emotional motivation, and I’m not going to abuse my friendship with Viktor like that.”

“With or without the initial emotional influence, you’d make great returns. You’re brilliant.”

I finally clasp the piece and sit up. “If I’m so brilliant, why’d I lose at Monopoly?”

“That is, obviously, because I’m luckier than you.”

“Uh-huh. And doesn’t luck have a place in actual business, too?”

Kaleb sets the organized money tray in the box. “I’m going to suggest that your accessibility to pitch an idea that Viktor Bachelor will accept counts as a sufficient amount of luck. Are you worried you won’t be able to stay afloat on borrowed money?”

I stare dully at the man who is legally my husband. “Am I worried that I, with zero real-life business experience, won’t be able to make good on my friend’s faith in me? Hm. I wonder.”

“You won’t have to approach it alone. Viktor knows how to run a small kingdom. He’d be happy to guide you.”

“I know. I never planned to forge blindly into a business, thinking that all my research would cover actual experience. All I want is to make sure I’m bartering with my own money, which was always meant to be mine anyway.

Ethically, that makes me feel better, because then Viktor won’t be obligated to train me in order to protect his own assets.

I’ll be able to stand on my own and rely on him as a friend, not an investor with skin in the game. ”

“You’ve really thought all of this through, haven’t you?” Kaleb gathers the Chance and Community Chest cards. “You’re sure your motivation isn’t to spite your family and look at them and say how you did things on your own?”

“Kaleb,” I state. “My family consists of a bunch of moronic chauvinists. Do I come off so stupid to you that you think any of this is a matter of pride ? I’m fully aware that I could take over the entire world, and my father would somehow make it because he raised me right.

This isn’t about spite or getting anyone back.

This isn’t about proving anything to myself.

It’s just about using money that doesn’t make me sick to think about.

I can count on one hand the people in this world I consider friends.

I am not going to take advantage of them, even for a moment.

They are much too precious for me to consider anything that might lead to my losing them.

And I’m sure you know what they say about going into business with your friends. ”

Kaleb lowers his gaze. “Not to.”

“Exactly. Money causes problems, yet it’s also so often the solution to them. Family businesses get big and torn apart because of differing opinions on large-scale decisions. Heck, regular families can’t manage to keep themselves together when money issues arise. It’s the leading cause of divorce.”

“Aren’t the Bachelors different?” Kaleb asks, turning the little silver wheelbarrow over between his fingers.

“What do you mean?”

“The Bachelor brothers leave all business and money in Viktor’s hands.

They let him take care of everything. Lukas has been bringing in millions while he’s been on tour, yet every cent of profit funnels directly to Viktor, who handles it.

Money to them isn’t as important as each other, and I know it wouldn’t be as important to them as you. ”

Returning to the box, I put the top hat with the other playing pieces and lift Kaleb’s chin as I settle myself beside him on the carpet.

“You’re a little idealistic, Kaleb. However they handle their own finances is a completely different situation; I’m not a part of their family.

I’m not going to use them, so don’t bring it up again, okay? ”

“What if you were a part of their family?” he asks.

My nose scrunches. “That would leave me to choose between Kyran or Lukas…and respectfully…no to both those options.” Kyran makes emo teenagers look happy half the time, and Lukas?

Lukas is six foot seven inches of raw, rippling muscles.

You can’t keep a shirt on him, and I’m half convinced he’s absolutely insane.

Skating my thumb over Kaleb’s lips, I murmur, “Besides…I thought you wanted to marry me.”

Kaleb lifts a knuckle to my cheek. “I want you to be free. And I can’t bear the path you’ve found to that freedom. I dread the next time we have to go in front of your family. I hate seeing the person they turn you into. I hate being the person you need me to be.”

“It won’t be forever. It won’t even be long.

When we were told a month ago, my grandfather’s cancer was rampant already, and since there’s only a low chance he’d survive at his age regardless, he’s denied all efforts of treatment beyond what will make him comfortable as his body gives out.

His lifestyle has always been abysmal. I’m hardly giving it another month before we see a rapid decline, and…

” Closing my eyes, I lower my head against Kaleb’s shoulder, oddly comfortable when he wraps his arms around me.

“This is horrible, isn’t it? I’m hoping for someone to die so badly I’m counting down the days. ”

“I don’t think it’s horrible to hope that the last thing standing in the way of your emancipation disappears. If I were still in your shoes, I’ve already confessed the lengths I would have gone to.”

Right. He’d have taken care of his parents himself.

That makes me shudder, which makes Kaleb reel me in closer, until I’m seated on his thighs.

His lips tickle my neck with soft kisses.

I burrow, drawing from his strength, wondering why it doesn’t seem so exhausting right now. “It’s different, isn’t it?” I ask.

“What is?” He nips at my jawline.

“Your parents beat you.”

“Your father hits you, too.”