He grimaced and set his drink down. “I should clarify. It’ll be a real marriage with marriage benefits and such . . . it just won’t be a lasting one.”
“And she’s fine with this?” Maylee prompted again.
Loch shrugged. “I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. A lot of marriages don’t last for very long.”
The couple exchanged worried looks.
“So . . . you’re marrying someone who doesn’t know that you’re just marrying her to disqualify yourself?” Griffin asked.
They made it sound so very mercenary. “I happen to like her quite a bit, too,” he said defensively. “She’s a great girl and fun to be around.”
“This sounds risky,” Griffin told him, frowning.
“I’ll have my lawyers draw up a very firm prenuptial agreement. It’ll be fair, but protect my assets. Will that make you happy, cousin?”
Griffin snorted. “I would be if you even knew what assets you were protecting.”
Loch grinned. “At any rate, I haven’t even proposed yet. Haven’t found the right time and place to escalate the relationship from its current level.”
“Ask her to move in,” Maylee prompted. “And then tell her you want to make an honest woman out of her.”
“She’s actually been staying in my hotel room with me for the last week or so, so that wouldn’t work.” He didn’t mention the part where he’d thrown out the marriage thing and Taylor had completely ignored his flippant suggestion.
“Buy her something expensive,” Maylee began.
“Darling,” Griffin said. “Let’s not encourage him into more bad ideas? I still think the entire thing is a ticking time bomb of poor choices.”
Maylee raised a blonde brow at her fiancé, then looked over at Loch. “Take her on a vacation. Change up the scenery.”
Now that idea had merit. Get Taylor away from her laptop and her endless barrage of text messages and emails that she had to answer at all hours from both guild-mates and work? Get her some time to unwind and relax, seduce her—that was his favorite part of the idea—and then mention making things permanent. Somewhere tropical would be nice. He raised his glass to Maylee. “I can see why my cousin’s marrying you.”
“Back off, Casanova,” Griffin said. “She’s mine. Find yourself another American girl to woo.”
Maylee just grinned and linked her fingers in Griffin’s.
***
After the dinner with his cousin and Maylee, Loch headed down to a bakery a few blocks away from the hotel and got a few sweets for Taylor. She’d eaten all the marshmallows out of the cereal he’d gotten her and all of the candy out of the minibar. His American had a bit of a sweet tooth, so he picked up several different confections that were lavished in frosting and coated with candy bits, sure they would please her.
When he got back to his hotel room, though, Taylor was curled up on the couch in a ball, tears streaking down her face. He set down the baked goods and dashed across the room to her side. “What’s wrong? Are you all right? Is it your ankle? Your head?” He touched a hand to her brow, where the stitches still peeked out from her hairline.
She sat up slowly, miserable tears streaking down her face. “I got fired.”
“You what?” Loch sat down on the couch next to her and pulled her into his arms. She went, burying her face against his chest and starting to cry anew. He felt . . . fuck, he felt helpless in the face of her unhappiness. He was a good-time guy, and his friends were easygoing wealthy types. He didn’t know how to comfort someone who’d just lost a job. He stroked her hair, letting her cry for a minute. “What happened?”
Taylor sniffed, her fingers twisting in his shirt. “My boss said they wanted to have a call to discuss some departmental changes with me. So I logged on to the conference call and it was him . . . and someone from Human Resources. He said my performance had been slipping and that I was late all the time, and I called in a lot. So they decided to let me go.” Her voice broke.
“Those bastards.” His grip tightened around her. “They’re just being pricks.”
“The worst part about it is that they’re not.” She sat up and swiped at her face with the back of a hand. “Everything they said? They’re right. I have called in a lot. I am late all the time.”
“Recently it’s been because of your head—”
“But that wasn’t the only instance, and I’ve been late several times this week with no excuse.” She gave him a sad look. “Other than spending time with you. And I’ve missed lots of days from needing to be online for stupid guild stuff.” She looked miserable at the thought.
“So don’t play that silly game so much,” he said gently. “You don’t enjoy it anyhow.”
To his chagrin, her face crumpled and she started to cry even harder. “You don’t understand. It’s not that I want to, I just . . . It’s complicated.”
Because of this Sigmund guy that harasses you? he wanted to ask, but if she wasn’t comfortable sharing, he wouldn’t pry. He stroked her shoulder. “What can I do to help?”
“There’s nothing you can do,” she wept. “I just have to try and find another job somehow. I should go back to my apartment and dig out my old résumé and—”
“Stay here,” he said swiftly. The thought of her going home and his hotel room returning to its empty loneliness bothered him. Even when she was working, it was nice to have her presence here. They chatted even as she typed, and he was probably part of the reason she’d been fired, because he liked to distract her. “I’ll miss you if you leave.”