Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

ANTHONY

“She licked your hand?” asks Jake, leaning back in his side of the booth. It’s Wednesday evening, and we’re at The Peanut Bar—a dive bar just outside of Asheville with piles of unshelled peanuts in bowls on each of the tables and the bar, and hundreds upon hundreds of shells strewn across the floor. Ever since its inception ten years ago, this bar has fascinated me, mostly because I grew up in a house with a drawing room, several sitting rooms, and a rotating staff. It breaks my brain to think about eating a peanut and throwing the shell on the floor, but there’s also something freeing about the notion.

I still haven’t done it. Can’t bring myself to.

As if Jake can read my mind, he plucks a peanut from the bowl, shells it, and tosses the shell on the floor while he chews on the nut. He looks relaxed while doing it, and I feel a familiar stab of envy. He’s someone who’s comfortable with himself—a man who fits in his own skin.

My skin has always felt like someone else’s, but maybe that’s what happens when your fate is written out for you before you take your first step.

I sigh and rub my temples. Right now, there’s nothing I’d like better than to go home, pour myself some scotch, and relax in front of the fireplace in my living room. Maybe read a book. Probably disassociate. And if that makes me sound like I’m eighty-four instead of nearly thirty-four, then so be it.

But I agreed to accept Jake’s help in finding a woman who’s willing to marry me for my money, and these post-interview rehashes are part of our deal.

Jake and his girlfriend, Lainey, run a business called The Love Fixers—services for people who’ve been burned or broken by relationships. I qualify because Nina, the woman who was originally going to marry me for money, decided she’d prefer to marry my friend for money. If I don’t find someone to take her place by New Year’s, I’m going to lose my trust fund, which was contingent on me marrying by thirty-four—the year my father “built his empire,” in his words. It’s an ironic twist that brings me no joy that his real estate investment company might fold if I don’t get the money, because the Hail Mary deal I’ve been working on for months will fall through. True, I could sell some of my personal investments, but I’m guessing it would amount to nowhere near enough to make a difference.

To put it bluntly: I’ll be fucked.

So even though I’d like nothing better than to slide right past middle age into retirement, here I am. Trying to choose a fake wife, since the past decade of looking for a real relationship hasn’t worked out. The idea is to find someone who’ll agree to a fake marriage in exchange for a set payout.

Jake thought this would be easy to accomplish, but it’s complicated by the fact that he can’t publicize who I am. If the board of directors of my company finds out, they’ll want to get rid of me, Smith or not. If the people I know find out, I’ll be a laughingstock.

Which leads us to another problem: only an insane person would agree to marry a stranger, even if it’s for a million dollars.

Jake’s still staring at me, silently asking for details about the licking, so I sigh and add, “Like it was a lollipop. Then she sucked on my ring finger for a solid ten seconds.”

“Did it feel good?” he asks, his eyes twinkling. He always has this careless expression of mischief, as if he’s on the verge of doing something that could get him into trouble and is looking for an excuse to tip over the edge.

Nothing, it felt like nothing.

I smile despite myself. “Not really. It felt like a complete stranger was sucking on my finger. Usually, I prefer to get through the appetizer course before that happens.”

“None of the food had come out yet?” he asks, sounding more amused by this than a friend probably should.

“No, I didn’t even have a drink to drown my sorrows in. I introduced myself, and when I held my hand out for a shake, she said, ‘I hear you’re looking for a wife.’ Then she lifted my hand to her mouth, ran her tongue down—”

His shoulders are shaking.

“You’re such a dick,” I say, laughing. “You know, she ordered an appetizer and dessert. I was forced to sit there for an hour and a half with a wet finger.”

“Surely it dried.”

“And yet the memory persisted. Maybe because she kept trying to feed me from her plate. I had to make an excuse so her dessert would be boxed up to go, and she still told me I should come over after dealing with my pretend work crisis so she could lick her chocolate mousse off my body. Didn’t you interview her before setting this up?”

He lifts his palm, silently requesting a second, and since it seems like he’ll spend the next five minutes laughing, I take a sip of my beer. It’s exactly the sort of beer you’d expect from a place like this—unpretentious and basic, and strangely reassuring because of it.

Finally, Jake says, “I did. She seemed to understand it wasn’t supposed to be a romantic relationship. Maybe the beard did it for her.”

“Very funny.” I run my hand along my jaw.

After Nina left, I spent several days in a fog. I didn’t shave, didn’t go to work, didn’t eat. By then, I didn’t love her anymore, if I ever had, but there’s something inherently depressing about being left by a woman who was only marrying you for your money. One day, I looked in the mirror and realized I had a beard, and I decided to keep it.

It was different, and different felt…

Well, it felt like something, which was better than the nothing I’ve been running on empty with for years.

“Or maybe there’s something irresistible about your fingers,” Jake continues, wiggling his brows. “Remember that last woman? She kept saying you had the hands of a pianist.”

“I do,” I say wryly. “Seven years of lessons.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Did you ride your pony while playing the piano?”

I roll my eyes right back at him. Jake grew up in foster care, something I didn’t know until recently, and he’s admitted that he has a chip on his shoulder about the rich. So do I. Which means I have a chip on my shoulder about myself. Someone who’s been as fortunate as me, with a springboard pushed beneath me to catch all of my falls, shouldn’t have anything to complain about. Yet I’ve never found very much joy in my opulent life.

“The true elite know that pocket keyboards don’t count,” I say, “and it was a horse. My father didn’t believe in half measures.”

“Neither does your mother,” Jake points out with a half-smile.

“Don’t get me started on her.”

He laughs again. “I don’t want to. I’ve got places to be, and once you get started, you have a hell of a time stopping.” His expression sobers. “Don’t give up hope, man. I think this next one really might be it. She didn’t give off a weird vibe at all.”

“You just said that about finger lady.”

He shrugs it off. “But finger lady is a masseuse. I should have been more suspicious, because I don’t think I’ve ever met a normal masseuse. This woman, though. She’s an accountant. Have you ever met an interesting accountant?” He slaps the table for emphasis, and the peanuts jump in their bowl. “She wants the money so she can open a private accounting firm. Make some ‘smart’ investments. Nothing off-the-wall or interesting about that.”

A laugh gusts out of me, but something inside of me feels like it’s sinking.

Boring is better than unhinged, I tell myself. Hell, if she’s a good accountant, maybe she can help you bring the business back to black.

All of that is true, and logically I know I’m not looking for a real relationship. That’s the last thing I want or need right now. But I will have to spend a time with whomever I marry. We’ll have to make a few public appearances together before the scheduled breakup. Is it so much to ask that she be neither boring nor unhinged?

I shake off the thought, which belongs to a version of me who still hoped my eventual marriage would be more than a farce. “Maybe I should just let this go,” I say. “My sister Emma thinks I should walk away from the money.”

He snorts. “Easy for her to say. Didn’t you tell me she got her own trust fund, free and clear?”

I nod, my jaw tight at the reminder that my father didn’t trust me to amount to anything without external help from someone “stronger,” but he thought my sister would be perfectly fine on her own. Emma would remind me that he’d also paved the way for me to take over his company and hadn’t once considered the possibility that his daughter might be better-suited for the role. She’d be right. Then again, one of the only things Emma and I seem to agree on lately is that our father was an asshole.

“You don’t walk away from that kind of money,” Jake says firmly. “You just don’t.”

He’s not wrong.

Eleven-point-five million is a lot of money. My father might have talked big about creating an empire, but he also inherited one. Both of his parents came from wealthy British bloodlines, imported from Massachusetts. My great-great-grandparents dined with the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore, a fact my father liked to remind us of when we didn’t want to eat our broccoli.

I steel my spine and nod. “Okay. I’ll meet with the accountant.” I lift my tainted ring finger and point it at him. “But if she sucks my finger, you’re fired.”

“What if she sucks—”

I cut him off with a glare.

He grins and nods. “I told you. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. She’s discreet. How about Saturday night? We’ve only got two weeks left, so I say we keep rolling.”

“How many more people have you talked to?” I ask, turning my pint glass in circles.

“We’re talking to two others,” Jake says, “but if you want my honest opinion, the accountant might be our best option. Lainey and I are going to keep looking for people, though. We’re trying a new ad.”

“Okay,” I say with a nod. “Saturday’s fine, but let’s make it lunch. Text me the details.”

Truthfully, I want a break from all of this, an escape, but he’s right. Time is running out, and I’d be a fool to walk away from the money and the deal.

Jake slaps the table again, smiling, then downs the rest of his beer. “I’ve gotta go, man.”

I motion to his empty glass. “Shouldn’t you wait a minute?”

“Lainey’s picking me up. She’s already outside, actually, but then you started talking about the finger sucking, and obviously I couldn’t leave until I heard all of it.”

“And I assume you’re about to tell her everything?”

His mouth hitches up. “Sorry, I’m a man in love. I can’t hold out on my lady.”

He probably doesn’t intend for it to hit like a jab, but it does nonetheless. My father’s will has ensured that I’ll never feel that way about anyone, certainly not my wife. I wonder if he knew that’s what would happen.

I’m guessing he did, and he reveled in the thought of keeping that last bit of power for himself. If he couldn’t be there, he could still control all of us and create a rift.

Jake slaps down some money before I can tell him no, giving me a look that dares me to complain. Yes, he knows I can afford it, even without full access to my trust fund. No, he won’t let me pay for everything.

It’s his way of showing me that he’s a real friend—someone I can rely on—and I’m grateful for it.

There’s a knot in my throat as he walks out, cold gusting in before the door closes behind him.

I should leave too. My house is a hell of a lot more comfortable than this bar, with one hundred percent fewer peanut shells on the floor. I could have that scotch I was thinking about…

But my house is also so empty it feels hollow, and there’s a melancholy that’s settled inside of me, so deep it might as well gild my soul.

A smile sneaks out of me, because I’ll bet Jake would have something to say about me brooding about the melancholy gilding my soul. He’d definitely drop the words “aristocratic” and “self-important.” But I still don’t leave. It’s almost like I’m rooted to the spot. Maybe because I still haven’t been able to bring myself to crack open a peanut and let the shell fall where it may.

Screw it , I decide. I’m going to do it.

I pick one of the peanuts up from the bowl, rolling it around in my fingers, feeling the rough husk against my irresistible fingers.

There’s a voice in my head that tells me I’m being ridiculous, but I do it anyway. I crack the nut and let the shell tumble over the side of the table, coming to rest on the floor by my shoes.

And I feel…

I still feel nothing, and the disappointment is ridiculous and real, until a woman’s voice reaches my ears.

“Anthony?”

I look up and see the face of an angel—soft blue eyes fringed by long lashes, a generous mouth, and round, soft cheeks that make a man want to touch, surrounded by soft waves of golden hair. Except for a streak that’s dyed bright purple.

It’s Rosie James, the woman who witnessed my life falling apart a month and a half ago.