“Thanks.” She ran her finger around the rim of the glass, slowly, methodically, her nails painted a rich, ruby red that surprised him.
He would have expected something more natural, clear polish or a pale pink. The image of those red nails on her pale flesh popped into his head. He wanted to see them splayed over her br**sts, trailing down her belly to bury inside her hot, moist inner thighs. Rhett cleared his throat and shifted on his stool. He needed another drink. Preferably with ice he could pour down his jeans to cool him down.
“Pops owned the track and ran it for forty years. I’ve been working there since my midtwenties. It’s my . . . life.” She looked pleadingly at him, as if she were begging him to understand.
He did understand the love of racing, but he still didn’t understand what she was getting at. “You love racing. I get that, Shawn. It’s my life, too.”
She nodded. “I assumed the track was left to me. Or at least a portion of it, so that I would continue to run it as operating manager. My father hasn’t been around since I was a kid, and my mother hates everything about racing. My brother is an optometrist, go figure, and he was never big on being a Hamby anyway. So it was always me and my grandfather, playing in the dirt, as he called it. But it turns out he didn’t leave me the track free and clear. His lawyer read his will to me today, and it seems the only way I can inherit is if I’m married.” The grimace on her face showed him exactly what she thought of that.
“Are you serious?” Rhett could see why she was having a bad day. “Why would he do that?”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I guess he thought I was devoting too much time to the track and racing. He wanted me to settle down and breed, like a good girl.”
Oh, yeah. That was bitterness. He couldn’t exactly blame her. “Jesus. And I thought my mother was bad, always dropping hints about how I should get married sooner than later.”
“She does? But you’re only twenty-five.”
“I know. But she thinks that I should be married and have a baby by now, like she did. You have to start early to rack up nine kids, you know. She’s always on my case about it, giving me advice in front of my whole family.”
“What kind of advice?”
“She thinks I should smile more,” Rhett told Shawn. “She says I scare women.” It was true and he knew it. But somehow he didn’t think he scared Shawn much.
In fact, Shawn laughed. “Now that’s funny.”
“Clearly, I don’t scare you.”
“Only a little,” she admitted. “But that’s more because I can’t figure out why I’m attracted to you.”
“I mean, who would be?” he asked ruefully.
Shawn smacked his arm. “That’s not what I mean! It’s just bad timing, you know? But then I thought, well, maybe it’s not bad timing. If I have to be married to save the track, maybe you’d be a good candidate. But now it just sounds crazy and rude and creepy. I don’t know what I was thinking. If anyone should be frightened here, it should be you.” She fussed with her bun, which was sliding south. “You must think I’m a total freak, popping the question to a guy I just met.”
“I’m flattered.” He actually was. Yes, it was crazy. It was crazy that her grandfather would expect her to jump into a marriage. It was a plan bound to fail. But he respected that Shawn was willing to do whatever it took to save her property, to save what was meaningful to her. He would probably consider doing the same thing, though he wasn’t exactly one to like being told what to do. But he admired her guts and her businesslike approach to the problem. Instead of crying, she’d sought a solution. “And I’m not saying no straight out. I just need to hear what would be expected of me.”
“You’re not saying no?” she asked, eyebrows shooting up as she froze with her arms above her head, tightening her hair thing.
“No, I’m not saying no.” He wasn’t. Insane or not, she had just dangled a hundred grand in front of him. Not to mention, he’d been looking for a good excuse to get to know her better, both with clothes on and off, and what could be a better excuse for that than marriage?
Was marriage a huge commitment that he shouldn’t take lightly? Yes. But this wasn’t a real marriage. He didn’t think. “What does this marriage mean exactly? Is it paper only? We would never see each other?” He wasn’t down with that. He couldn’t walk around and be secretly married, shagging other women and taking money for something he hadn’t really done. It all just seemed too dishonest to him. He liked his cards out on the table. If he was going to be f**king anyone, it was going to be Shawn.
His wife.
Oh, damn. He should walk away. This was dicey.
Yet, he wasn’t. He flagged down the bartender and said, “Can we get two more shots of Jameson? Skip the Guinness this time.” This was a straight-up liquor conversation.
Shawn took a huge breath. “The deal is this. We have to be married for a year, but we have to live together at least for the first six months. So you would have to move in with me. I have a guest room that you can use, and I suppose the positive is, you’ll be saving on rent for six months.”
That was an attractive thought, he had to admit. He’d only been in Nolan’s old apartment for five months, and while he loved the freedom, the rent was kicking his ass. “Guest room, huh?” So he wouldn’t lose his own space, exactly. But he wouldn’t get the ultimate benefit of marriage—having a warm woman in his bed every night.
“Yes. If we get married before February fifteenth, the will states I get the funds to hire a full-time marketing director for the upcoming season, which would really be helpful, so that would be my preference. To get married before then, I mean.”
Rhett watched her face carefully. She seemed to have shifted into efficiency mode.
“I can have my lawyer draw up a contract outlining what I just described and that you’ll receive payment upon completion of the year. I will pay for the divorce. I will pay for the initial marriage license fees and all of that. So there is no risk, no hidden cost to you. We both enter and leave the marriage with what we came with, save the hundred grand fee.”
No hidden cost?
Just a year of his life.
Could he commit a whole year to a woman who didn’t really want to be involved with him, even for money? Or did she?
Those were the real questions on his mind.