in her mind. He’s offering you this. A way to escape. A way out.
And a way to prove to your mother that she didn’t win.
“So this would be a marriage as far as legalities go, but not … not permanent and not physical,” she repeated.
“Exactly. No one, including my father, needs to know the personal aspects of the relationship. But it is imperative we make it down the aisle. I came close once, and it’s going to take more than close to get what I want.”
She nodded. Tried to picture it. Tried to picture getting married. Funny how she’d never really thought about it before. She’d played at weddings, celebrity weddings, weddings for royalty, but she’d never once thought of her own.
Her scope had always been so narrow. She’d lived and breathed piano. Performance, composition, practice, drills … she had dreamed music. It had been her all-consuming passion and drive. And when it had faltered, her mother had always been there to push her past it. To make sure that she didn’t lose focus for even a moment.
It was good in a way. She didn’t have a romantic fantasy tied to the thought of wedding. A wedding was … well, it was paper. Paper with performance added into the mix. And she did performance. At least she had done it. She’d done it well, too.
A kind of restless energy overtook her, starting in her fingertips, tingling up her arms and to her stomach. Why not do it? How was it really different than any other performance she’d given? She’d always projected a character on stage. Serene and sweet no matter what was going on inside of her. No matter if she’d been fighting with her mother or if she’d suffered a slap across the face at the other woman’s hands ten minutes before show time. She just added another layer of powder and went out on stage, smile pasted on.
“It’s a temporary arrangement. A business proposition. And I would pay you well.”
“And we would be expected to … go out. Go to parties, that sort of thing.” It shamed her that it mattered, almost more than the money. To be bathed in the glow of admiration again. Nothing felt like that. Nothing. It made her feel that she was a part of something, that she was important. That she was loved.
And she’d been so alone for so long. Hiding, hoping no one would find out what had happened.
“Yes. We would have to at least give the appearance of a courtship, even if it is a whirlwind one.”
“Stranger things have happened, I suppose.”
“Much stranger.”
“Like a mother making off with her daughter’s earnings?”
He nodded. “Or a father betraying his family to spend time with his mistress.”
And this was a chance, for both of them, to make some of it right. And maybe she was making it more than it was because right now the latte was so warm and so comforting, and the caffeine was making her feel more awake and alive than she had in weeks but it seemed slightly poetic in nature.
They had both been manipulated. Betrayed in a way. They had both lost things they had earned, things that were theirs by right, at the hands of those who were supposed to love them.
They deserved to take those things back. They both deserved to win.
“You’ll put this all in a … a contract, right?” She had learned the hard way that even her own mother couldn’t be trusted, she wasn’t about to put her trust in a man she’d only just met.
“We’ll have a prenup. Of course it won’t outline the specifics of the arrangement, as we don’t want that made public. The house will be yours upon the signing of our marriage license, money after the divorce.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
A wicked grin curved his lips. “I’m making it up as I go along, but I’ve been told I’m pretty good at improvising.”
“I would say so.”
She wasn’t. She was pretty crap at improvising, as it happened. The whole last year was proof of that.
“I’ve begun the paperwork with the bank to purchase the manor. I’ll sign it over to you once we speak the vows.”
“And the prenup?”
“My lawyer can have it ready by tomorrow.”
She felt dizzy. Her life had been stagnant for so long, nothing to mark the passing of months but a new mortgage bill in the mail. Now suddenly things were changing. She felt like she might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And there had been nothing but damp, dank cold for so long.
“Good,” she heard herself say. She felt as if she were hovering above the scene now, watching it all with a surreal kind of detachment.
It didn’t seem real, that was for sure. But it felt hopeful in a really strange way.
That marriage to a man she didn’t know or love seemed hopeful said a lot about the sad state of her affairs, that was for certain.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said.
“Your place or mine?” she asked, trying to force a laugh.
A dark light shone in his eyes. “I’d say yours, since it is the thing that brought us together.”
ETHAN could hear the music as soon as he walked up to the door of the manor. It wasn’t a classical piece. It wasn’t a song at all. Repetition and scales, the same few notes over and over again with regimented perfection. A straight, staccato rhythm more like a military maneuver than anything related to music.
Strange. He hadn’t associated that kind of discipline with her. But then, she looked so much like her mother it was hard for him not to think of their personalities being as identical as their features. Celine Birch was a cloud of perfume and gauzy clothing in his memory. Frothy and elegant, nice even. It had taken some time to realize what she was.
His father’s mistress. No, more than that. The woman Damien Grey had loved above his family. The woman he hadn’t even bothered to hide from his wife.
Ethan gritted his teeth and raised his hand, pounding on the door hard and fast. The strains of the piano continued, unbroken, unyielding. He turned the knob and the door opened. He followed the sounds of the piano, his footsteps echoing as he crossed the marble tiled entryway and walked into the formal sitting room.
There were no interior lights on, the opulent crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling was dark. The only illumination came from the sun shining through two large windows.
And then there was Noelle, sitting at the piano, her eyes fixed on a point in front of her rather than down at her fingers, playing the notes over and over again. The sun was like golden fire in her hair, illuminating it, giving the impression of a halo. He wondered how it was possible for someone who looked so angelic to set fire to a man’s blood without
