Page 5 of Playboy Husband

CALLUM

This is her? This was the woman who answered my ad? No way. No fucking way.

A few minutes ago, I hadn’t been expecting anyone at all. In fact, I’d positioned myself facing a TV so I could at least catch the game while I waited to realize I’d been played again, but even if I had been expecting someone to show up, I wouldn’t have expected them to look like this.

Every neuron in my brain misfired at the sight of her, dressed like she was trying to stop hearts instead of sign some paperwork. Her blood red dress clung to curves that made my pulse kick so hard that I felt it in my throat. Loose, dark hair hung in gentle waves over her shoulders.

For a beat, all I could do was stare like an idiot. I’d brought her here, to a dive bar with sticky floors, dirty-ish tables, and the scent of burnt oil drifting faintly through the air. It was too late to back out and take her somewhere nicer, but shit.

I’d seriously miscalculated when I’d chosen this place, yet she hadn’t cut and run just yet. She was making her way toward me with a measured, almost reluctant stride, but the expression on her face, though perfectly controlled, told me she was halfway to deciding this had been a mistake.

Shit, why didn’t I just book a damn table again?

It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it, but on the other hand, maybe this was a good thing. At least there was no way she would’ve walked in here if money was the only thing she was after.

When I finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, she was almost to me and I cursed under my breath before I stood, still not really believing that this bombshell had come here to talk about an arranged marriage.

“Did you answer the ad?”

Her gaze swept over me, quick and assessing, but it didn’t quite meet mine. “That depends.”

I tucked my hands into my pocket, desperate to look more casual than I felt. “Depends on what?”

Finally lifting her eyes directly to mine, she nearly knocked me over with the intensity in them. “On whether you regularly make your potential wives risk life and limb just to meet you.”

A slow, perhaps even a little sheepish, smirk ghosted across my lips. “Yeah, about that. Thanks for meeting me here. I know it’s not fancy.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” she said, her voice crisp and brisk, but not rude or overtly polished. She glanced around at the peeling posters on the walls and the lightbulbs flickering in places. “So, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you regularly expect your potential future wives to risk life and limb just to meet you?” she repeated. Her eyes were a striking green, an exceptional shade that couldn’t have been common, yet it felt like I’d seen them before.

“To be honest, you’re the first potential future wife I’ve met, so no. It’s not a regular thing.” I extended a hand toward her. “Callum.”

“Maisie.” She didn’t smile or even relax, seeming almost as tightly wound as Garvey. Her palm barely grazed mine before she was withdrawing from our not-quite-a-handshake. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

“Sure.” I waved toward the high-top. “Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

“Gin and tonic, please.” She averted her gaze and slid onto the stool like it was a homicidal dentist’s chair.

I left her to settle in, hoping she would be a little less uncomfortable by the time I got back. Ordering another drink for myself as well, I willed my pounding heart to calm and rested an elbow on the bar, half turning so I could watch her from the corner of my eye while I waited for our drinks.

She sat with her spine as straight as an arrow, checking her phone with a weirdly anxious expression on her beautiful face. Holy crap, does this place really make her that nervous? Is it a good sign or a bad one?

The last thing I wanted was to marry some snob who thought she was too good for dive bars and burger joints, but that hadn’t been the vibe I’d gotten from her. So what’s on that phone that she’s so anxious about?

The bartender handed over our drinks and I made my way back to the table, sitting down across from her. As she slowly lifted her gaze back to mine, narrow shoulders stiff as a board, I realized that maybe all of this was because she was worried I was some kind of creep.

I didn’t blame her. Not only had I put an ad in an obscure paper searching for a wife, but then I’d dragged her to the shadiest place I’d been able to think of in the moment. Obviously, she’d thought we were going somewhere at least a little bit nicer.

That was a va-va-voom dress. One she’d probably worn to impress, not to risk getting mugged on the way back to her car.

“I’m sorry about my choice of venue.” I looked right into those electric green eyes as I said it. “The truth is that I wasn’t sure you were real when I made the suggestion.”

“You weren’t sure I was real?” Her head cocked. “Why not? Emails don’t send themselves. There had to have been a person on the other side of that message.”

“Sure, but, uh, yours was one of only two responses I got to that ad. The first one turned out to be some kind of joke, so there I was, drinking overpriced wine all by my lonesome and wondering if maybe putting an ad in the paper was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done.”

Her dark eyebrows twitched, almost like they’d been about to shoot up before she’d caught herself. “It was unconventional. To say the least.”

“Yeah.” I gave her a half-smile. “I know. You want to know why I did it, don’t you?”

“That’s probably a good place to start.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as her gaze swept across my face. “Putting out an ad for something like this isn’t exactly normal.”

“No, it’s not,” I admitted without hesitating. I’d said in the ad that I wanted to cut to the chase and that was exactly what I intended on doing. “The thing is, I don’t care about normal. I need a wife. That’s it.”

One of her eyebrows finally lifted. Not a lot. It wasn’t a full arch, rather just enough for me to notice. “That’s it, huh? Tell me, Callum, why do you need a wife so desperately that you’d go looking for one in the classifieds section instead of a dating app or a bar?”

I shrugged but gave it to her straight. “My family is old school. Marriages are essentially business mergers to them. They don’t care about love as much as they do optics.

I’m not saying that it’s right, but it is my reality.

It’s literally my turn to get married and I want someone who gets that.

Someone who wants it rather than a wife who’s only in it for the money. ”

“The money,” she repeated slowly. “Right. You’re rich.”

Again, I shrugged. “We’d have a prenup, obviously. It’ll be generous and entirely in your favor even if our marriage doesn’t work out. I’m not stingy. I’m just not interested in someone who only wants my name and bank account.”

Maisie didn’t flinch. She didn’t fidget. She didn’t even glance around the bar like she was looking for an escape. She just sat there, cool and composed, as if I’d handed her my family’s insane marital business plan and she’d already filed it away as irrelevant.

The strangest part? She didn’t seem impressed. Not by the money, not by me. She wasn’t chasing anything. I could feel it all the way to my bones—and that made her more interesting than anyone I’d met in years.

Hell, maybe ever.

“What do you think?” I asked, wondering what it would take to rattle her if she was this unshakable, even now.

She took one more tiny sip of her drink, held my gaze for another beat, then reached for her clutch. “I think I’ve made a mistake. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you, but I’m not sure what I was thinking when I sent that email. I shouldn’t have come.”

Before I could say another word, she slid gracefully off her stool, turned, and walked away. Once again, I was staring at an empty chair, but for some reason, I had the sudden urge not to let this happen.

One second, I was watching her disappear across the dimly lit room, and the next, I was pushing away from the table and chasing after her. I didn’t even know why, but something inside was screaming at me, like my instincts were refusing to let her go.

“Maisie!” I called as I caught up to her on the sidewalk. She didn’t stop until I stepped in front of her. “Why would you answer an ad like this? You don’t even know me. I could’ve been a psychopath for all you know.”

She looked up at me, not even the warmth of the old, orange streetlight nearby shielding me from the ice suddenly in her eyes. She planted one hand on her hip as she scoffed. “I actually do know you, Callum Westwood. We went to college together.”

I blinked hard, knowing I’d deliberately neglected to give her my last name in there, which meant she wasn’t bluffing. “We did?”

Her mouth twitched like she was deciding whether to be offended. “Cal Poly. Some of us didn’t spend literally all the time we were there partying. We have actual memories of that place and the people who went there with us.”

“Were you in a sorority?” I tried.

That ice in her eyes hardened. “No.”

“Business major?”

That earned me a cool, cutting look, the kind that slid under my skin and made my blood simmer for reasons I couldn’t explain. I was used to women fawning all over me, laughing at my jokes, and doing whatever it took to try and impress me.

This? This was a challenge and I liked it. Maybe a little too much.

“I don’t remember you,” I finally admitted. “I’m sorry, but I can’t place you at all.”

Maisie just shook her head, her chin held high. “That’s fine. Thanks for the two sips of gin. I won’t be seeing you around, Callum.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I’d very much like to see her around, but she was already sliding into a sleek SUV, the engine humming to life. A moment later, she was gone, her taillights disappearing into the dark.

She’d left me standing there on the sidewalk, with my hands shoved into my pockets, feeling like there was so much more to say. It was weird, but I wanted to know why she’d come tonight and why she’d looked at me like she had an opinion she wasn’t willing to share.

She’d said we’d gone to college together.

She’d known my last name and the school I’d gone to, so it had to be true, but I wracked my brain and I still couldn’t place her.

Not in a lecture hall, not at a party, and not even in the background of one of those blurry memories from nights I’d half forgotten, and that bugged me.

Maisie didn’t seem like the type of woman I would have just overlooked. It was then that a thought crept in I didn’t like at all.

Did I hurt her back then? Did I say something, do something? I couldn’t imagine I would have, but then again, I’d been a different kind of idiot in those days.

It wasn’t my style to feel bad, but watching her drive away, all I could think was that I must’ve done something that had left a mark—and not the kind I would have wanted to leave.

So what the hell did I do that was so bad, and how could I have done it if I don’t remember her at all?