Page 19 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

RHYS

“ I ’m fine.” I hoped the words didn’t sound as hollow to Vanny as they felt in my throat. “I’m used to this. My family might have a lot of money but nobody actually has their shit together.”

She cocked her head to the side. She didn’t believe me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just have a talent for detecting bullshit. And you, sir, are full of it.”

“I am, am I?”

“Yes.” Vanny gave me a very matter of fact nod before reaching for a baby pickle.

It crunched between her teeth and she followed it up with a piece of smoked gouda.

She let out a soft sound of appreciation that continued to play over and over again in my head as she spoke.

“I’ve always been very intuitive. And even if I wasn’t, you’d have a hard time convincing me you were okay after the night you had.

Even if you’ve seen this several times over, that doesn’t make it any less serious. Or emotional. Or disappointing.”

She was hitting the nail on the head with every word. I wished she wasn’t as I cleared my throat. “Yes. Well. Perhaps it’s easier to pretend to be fine instead of focusing on something that is out of my control.”

“Perhaps.”

“You disagree.”

Vanny shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Of course it does.” I waggled my eyebrows. “You’re my betrothed.”

Vanny snorted into her wine glass. Bubbles popped and stained her nose red, and when she came up for air, she was blushing as deep a red as the wine in her glass.

I tried not to laugh as she used a napkin to clean herself up.

“Who says betrothed these days?” she asked.

“Apparently, I do. Sorry. I didn’t expect you to drown in your wine glass.”

“I can think of worse ways to go.”

Intrigued, I draped myself over the back of the sofa, my whiskey glass in one hand. Then I crossed one leg over the other. “Name three.”

“Asphyxiation.”

“Could be kind of kinky.”

“Gross.” Vanny scrunched up her nose.

I laughed. “Keep going.”

“Fire. Being eaten alive. Being drawn and quartered.”

“Good thing it’s the twenty-first century.”

Vanny laughed softly. “Yeah. Good thing. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have let someone lesser than you—a woman in my case—have a glass of your expensive wine. You would’ve poured me the cheap stuff.”

I scoffed. “Please. Don’t insult me. I’m Rhys Daniels. I don’t own the cheap stuff .”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet you’re here drinking my wine.”

The corner of her mouth twitched in a smile she fought valiantly to conceal by dropping her head and letting her hair fall over her shoulder. “It is good wine.”

This girl was a vault of secrets. I could see it in the way she carried herself.

She wasn’t confident. She hadn’t been since I first met her.

It confounded me. She was beautiful and clever and sly.

I could see traces of her own internal monologue in the depths of her eyes and she was always thinking about something, dissecting something someone said, considering what it meant, listening patiently for more information she could use to build a better understanding of who they were.

She was careful and considerate. She didn’t have a rash or impulsive bone in her body, where I was the definition of often unwise compulsive behavior.

Would her senior class believe our fake engagement? What could a girl like her ever see in a trust-fund baby like me?

“Where do you see yourself in five years, Vanny?” I watched her closely after I asked the question.

Vanny licked her lips and pondered for a while, her gaze fixed on her nearly empty wine glass. “I like to think I’ll be out of the dress shop and moving into a field I’m actually passionate about.”

“You’re not passionate about working at the shop?”

She lifted her gaze and narrowed her eyes in an almost condescending way.

“Am I happy selling dresses to skinny women that I could never dream of fitting into? Am I happy about being constantly reminded I am not one of them? No. Not really.” She finished the last three mouthfuls of her wine and set it down on the coffee table.

I pushed up out of the sofa and picked up her glass.

I refilled it from the open bottle on the kitchen island and brought it back to her.

She accepted it silently as I claimed my seat again.

She hadn’t liked my last question very much but I appreciated her vulnerability.

“So what are you passionate about then?”

“Helping people.”

“In what way?”

She sighed. “I’ve always known my calling was to help people with their relationships.

I want to be a marriage counselor. When I was young, I used to corner my parents in the kitchen when they were having a disagreement.

It was always surface-level stuff. Like my dad had forgotten to unload the dishwasher or my mom had undermined his parenting at the dinner table.

They didn’t fight often. Hardly at all. But I saw those little squabbles as opportunities to exercise my exceptional advice-giving skills.

” She smiled fondly as she recalled some of those memories with her parents.

“They indulged me wholeheartedly. Sometimes, I’d arrive with a notebook and pen and ask them how the offense from the other person made them feel.

God, I must have been such an annoying child to have in the house. ”

I couldn’t help but grin. “I think that sounds pretty damn cute. And I bet you were good at it even as a kid.”

“I guess I was. I used to help my brother with his girlfriends, too. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time I was helping him get in their pants, but that’s the thing about being twelve years old with a horndog for an older brother. I was clueless.”

“Now I see why Chris was such a hit with the ladies. He had your wisdom in his back pocket.”

“And his reputation. That plays a bigger part.”

“Not for everyone.”

She gazed evenly at me. “Don’t try to tell me your reputation hasn’t done you any favors.”

“It’s done me many. But it’s also sabotaged me.”

“Fair.”

I set my drink down and rested a hand on my knee. Vanny had yet to take a sip of her fresh glass of wine and I watched her set it down. She didn’t take any more food but leaned back into the sofa, getting comfortable between the two throw pillows on either side of her.

“So why are you still at the dress shop then?” I asked. “If you know what you want to do, what’s stopping you?”

“Just because I know what I want to do doesn’t mean I can just go off and do it. That’s not how the real world works.”

Had she just taken another jab at my bank account?

If so, ouch. If not, I wondered dimly if there was a way she’d let me pay to put her through school.

If finances were the obstacle, of course.

But I had a feeling a girl like Vanny would write me off for good if I ever offered to pay for something like that, so I kept my mouth shut and pushed her a little more.

“What’s stopping you then?”

Vanny lifted her gaze to the ceiling. She wasn’t rolling her eyes at me but rather looking up as if there was something on the ceiling that could help her. I realized she was considering whether or not she should tell me the truth or feed me a line.

Finally, she said, “I’m not ready yet.”

“When will you be ready?”

“I’m not the woman I need to be to take that step. Not yet.”

“Who do you need to be?”

She licked her lips, picked up her wine, and drank greedily. When she set the glass down, a quarter of it was gone. “I need to be stronger. Healthier. Thinner.”

“Fuck off.”

Vanny blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Fuck off.” I braced my elbows on my knees and stared hard at the girl on my sofa. She had no idea how stunning she was inside and out.

“I’ve struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember, and I don’t want to start my next journey in the same spot as I am now. It’s not—”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Says the guy with a killer body and a perfect wardrobe and a face made for sitting on!”

The room went still with silence. Vanny’s eyes widened with horror as she realized the words she’d just spat at me, and then she turned bright pink when I started to grin like an idiot.

“Say that again,” I said.

“Oh God.” She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “Oh God.”

Laughing, I rocked back into the sofa. “A face made for sitting on, hmm? You must write that into our vows.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t. It’s too good. And you think I have a killer body? I’m flattered.”

“This is so humiliating.”

“For the record, I think you also have a killer body.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she said.

“Vanny, I swear to God. I’m not lying to you. You’re perfect the way you are. And if I’m being perfectly candid, I have to say you’re a fool if you don’t pursue your dream job because you think you’re so overweight. Bodies are just bodies.”

Vanny sighed heavily. She sipped at her wine and didn’t say anything for a while.

I could feel the sadness radiating off of her in waves.

Sadness and something else, something heavier.

Was it embarrassment? Shame? Did she really feel such loathing for her own skin?

I hated that she felt that way. I wanted to gather her up in my arms and kiss her deeply and show her with my lips and my body how worthy she was of anything and everything she wanted.

I wondered if she would believe me then that she was beautiful.

The words of my only confidante, Nessa Night, rang in my ears from our last phone call together.

She’d told me that when it came to love, it was worth all the trials and the efforts, and I believed the same thing about pursuing your dreams. They brought you fulfillment just like love did, and chasing your dreams was the ultimate form of self-love.

As someone who’d gone for it and made my name separate from my father’s, I believed this to my core.

So I tried a bit of Nessa Night’s wisdom on the sad girl on my sofa.

“Vanny, listen. I know you think I’m not the right person to give advice because of the privilege I come from, and you’re probably right.

But a wise person once told me to never stop trying.

Your dream of becoming a marriage counselor is worth the effort, the disappointments, the denials, the trials it will put you through.

Fighting for what you want is the best part about being alive.

You have to stick to your guns and you can’t let anything stand in your way. Including yourself.”

To my surprise, Vanny was smiling at me.

“What did I say?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t embarrassed myself for the last time in front of her.

She giggled softly. “Where did you get this wise advice from?”

“You’ll laugh if I tell you.”

“I could use a laugh.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “You ever heard of the radio show Nessa Night?”

She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “The love guru?”

“Yeah.”

“You just gave me career advice coined from a radio-show love guru?”

I shrugged. “I guess I did.”

Her laughter bubbled out of her. It filled up the whole room and I started laughing along with her, wondering what it was I’d said that was so funny but feeling grateful I’d said it.

Because now that I’d heard her laugh this hard, I was determined to earn this sound a hundred times over as I got to know her in the days leading up to the reunion.