Page 65 of Morally Black Betrothal

I shrugged, like he didn’t affect me at all. “I know. But I don’t know you. What if you change your mind, and I’m left looking like a heartbroken idiot?”

“I don’t know you either. What if you take the money and run and leavemelooking like an idiot?”

He didn’t, I noticed, say “heartbroken.” I had a feeling Brendan Black wasn’t even capable of a broken heart.

“But you need me. I don’t need you.” It was a lie. But a necessary one. “The stakes aren’t exactly equal. If I’m humiliated, I won’t be able to go anywhere. I’ll lose my job?—”

“You won’t have your job. Per the contract, you’ll have to quit the bar and take leave from the hospital to do this. And considering how much I’m paying you, you won’t have to go back.”

“Um, that’s not going to work. Even if I were your real fiancée, I wouldn’t just abandon my entire life to follow you around like a puppy.”

The sharpness of my tone clearly surprised him. It certainly surprised me. Where was this courage coming from?

“And yet, that’s exactly what I’m paying you to do.” Brendan’s teeth suddenly seemed very canine.

Even so, I held my ground. “The hospital isn’t work. And you know why I do it.”

This time, he was the one to break our stare-off to look out the window himself. Internally, I punched the air.

“Women who date men like me take on a certain amount of…risk. My family—my money—it makes me a target. And so, becoming my fiancée will make you a target as well.”

“Target for what?”

“Threats. Kidnapping. As the ‘love of my life,’ you’d be worth millions in ransom. Billions.”

There was a twinge in my chest—not at the idea of being kidnapped, but at Brendan calling me the love of his life. Even if it was just pretend.

I sighed. “So, I won’t be allowed out of your apartment for four months?”

“No, but you won’t be serving drunks at two a.m. anymore. I’ll think about the hospital.Ifyou do it, you’ll have to schedule your hours around my schedule and bring security with you.” Another shrug as he seemed to consider it. “The good PR would be worth the extra hassle.”

He didn’t have to say the obvious: that his family and their company had been making headlines as his father’s illness put them all under the microscope. My preemptive Google search had revealed at least that much.

Brendan’s life in particular was being examined. People all over the world were debating his suitability to lead the world’s largest holding company (according to Wikipedia).

Hence this entire charade.

“Half up front, then,” I pressed.

His head cocked, and a smile played across that broad mouth. “A counteroffer.”

I nodded. “You said ten percent. I want half. I have people counting on me.”

“Call me crazy, but I think ten percent of ten million is still more than you’d make in a lifetime of baking bread.”

I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong, obviously. But this conversation had become about much more than the matter of payment. It was about respect. Another gleam in Brendan’s eye told me there was a right move and a wrong move. I just had to know which one.

I dug my heels in. “Half. Or I walk.”

The gleam turned into something almost like approval as he sat forward to write something else onto the contract. “Done. I’ll need your bank information for the wire transfer, but it will be in your account by the end of the day.”

My hands were shaking. Five million dollars would be mine by the end of the day. It wasn’t quite enough to save everything—Selena would be fine, but it didn’t even come close to covering the debts against the dairy. Still, it would make a dent and hopefully stave off the worst of Dad’s creditors.

I could hardly believe my luck.

“One more thing,” I forced myself to say as Brendan turned the contract back to me to sign.

He paused, that frown returning. “Yes?”