Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Bryan gives his sister a wounded look. Yeah, it would suck to find out that you’re kind of the reason your sister messed up her whole life. Not that it was on purpose, but the kid has to be feeling guilty. And I say kid, but I think he’s probably twenty-one or twenty-two since I already know he’s a lot younger than Weland. I should know this. All the details. Smitty would know it. He’d tell me if I asked him, but I don’t want to ask him.
Beans shifts under the table, curling up into a ball. He huffs, closes his one eye, and immediately starts snoring. As soon as we got to Weland’s parents, she let them feed Beans a packet of the probiotics we found, along with a bit of plain yogurt. Then, we all sat down at the kitchen table and she explained why she called an emergency family meeting and brought some rando with her.
Rando. Christ. I hate that word, term, implication. All of the above.
“He still made you lie to us,” Bryan insists. “And that’s just wrong. Who makes someone fake marry them anyway? That’s seriously desperate, dude.”
I glance away since I don’t want to look an angry wolf in the eyes. I glance toward Fred instead, but looking at Weland’s dad isn’t really any better. I see where both kids got their bright blue eyes from though. He subtly scowls at me like he’d enjoy nothing more than shoving a boot straight up the parts of me where the sun doesn’t shine.
He’s pushing hard to get the dirt despite what his sister just said. “I can’t explain the whole situation, but it was dire. Sometimes it happens. It wasn’t his fault.” Weland is defending me again, though she can’t explain the whole thing because I haven’t even explained it to her. It’s not fair of me, and I know it. I need to man up here.
Clearly, this whole family thinks I’m a piece of work.
I think I’m a piece of work.
There’s no way they’re going to give their blessing.
It was a crazy idea anyway, thinking we could make it work. Wanting to make it work out of the blue wasn’t something I saw myself needing to check off a life list when I was on my way here. And then I saw Weland at that club in person, and it was…it was…I don’t know. It feels a lot like game fucking over. RIP to my single life.
And you know what? It might be crazy, but I’m not sorry. Everyone called me crazy back in the day. They said starting a record label would never work. That I’d never sign anyone and that tiny little indie studios never went anywhere. Well, spoiler alert, they were wrong. Whatever this idea of mine is now might be crazy and terrible. It might even end up being torture, but call me a masochist, I guess, because I’m signing up for it.
I’m suddenly jumping off the cold and unfeeling bastard businessman married to the life of work, work, work boat, and leaping into waters that involve tricky things like emotions, hormones, and other unknown elements that terrify me.
“I did.” This is me manning up. “I did, and I’m sorry. I went about all of this the wrong way. I did pay your sister a huge sum of money in exchange for a fake marriage because I needed it to save my company. I’m not sorry about that. If you met my cousins, you’d understand. It’s not an excuse, and I’m not saying it was right. Just necessary, but necessary isn’t always moral, and it’s very seldom the high road. Yes, there was a gag clause because the marriage needed to appear legit, and I couldn’t risk it getting out that it wasn’t. No, there was nothing saying we needed to be in the same room or that the public needed to know my wife. And my cousins not being able to get their hands on her or even their opinions anywhere near her was important to me. I was trying to protect her as much as I was trying to protect myself. That sounds like a cop-out, but I mean it. The rest, you can blame me. I took advantage. I needed someone who was desperate because I was desperate myself. I went about it all wrong. I freely admit that.”
“So why now?” Weland’s dad interrupts. “And is it genuine?”
“You just seem like a creep who wants to get in my sister’s pants,” Bryan growls.
“Bryan!” Monique yelps. “We don’t say things like that.”
“But we do make life hell for assholes and creepy dudes who want to mess with Weland. At least, I do. She’s my sister and she clearly needs protecting, maybe even saving from her own self. I messed all this up for her. It was my surgery she had to pay for. It was me she sacrificed herself for, and I’m not going to let her do it again. I’m not entirely sure why you’re even here, Sterling, but you don’t get my stamp of approval on anything but us putting you on a plane to whatever hole you came out of and making sure you stay there for the next year until my sister is free of you, and then it’s good riddance time.”