The Billionaire Bargain #2
Lila Monroe
ONE
Okay, I admit it: when I was in seventh grade, I made a wedding scrapbook.
It was pink. It was lacy. It featured carefully cut out and pasted wedding dresses, shoes, and bouquets from the wedding magazines of every grocery store, hairdresser, library, and newsstand within a twenty-block radius of my house. Next to those pictures were the kind of lovingly detailed and copious notes of a complexity usually only seen in medieval Biblical commentaries, though with significantly more use of hearts for periods, the bottom half of exclamation points, and the dots of the I’s.
I had worked out the wedding location: Paris, London, or worst case scenario, that really nice church with the phoenix stained glass window on Main Street. I had worked out the identities of the maid of honor (there was never any real choice besides Kate, whose bubbly lettering occasionally appeared beside mine in this notebook to add choice commentary such as “sexy beast!” or “super hott!” to select dresses), and the groom, or should I say the grooms? Because, you see, there were so many options. Justin Timberlake might spy me at a concert and know instantly that I was the one. Leonardo DeCaprio might be swinging through town on the way from a movie premiere and stop at the same fro-yo place as me and know that we shared a deep connection. Tommy from fifth period might finally notice me and dump his bitchy girlfriend for someone who understood the importance of classic British spy-fi television shows.
Justin, or Leo, or Tommy, would of course propose to me in the most romantic fashion possible. Maybe under a beautiful full moon glowing with the promise of our future lives together, a band softly playing sweet Caribbean melodies in the distance, lilac scenting the air as he—whichever one he ended up being—whirled me gracefully in a waltz across the green and flowered expanse of the park where we had had our first date. He would stroke my hair with infinite tenderness, gaze deeply into my eyes, and whisper in my ear, so softly that at first I would think I had imagined it: My love, will you marry me?
For better or worse, though, my current love life was not being scripted by my seventh-grade self.
And somehow, my thirteen-year-old self had never quite imagined a scenario with a marriage proposal coming from the full pouty lips of a man I couldn't even stand—and that I’d say yes to those lips. I mean, that man. Who I can’t stand. And whose lips are irrelevant to the current conversation, no matter how good they are at kissing my lips. Or at kissing their way up my thigh to my—yes, completely irrelevant. I’ll just stop talking about them right now. Yep.
Oh, if I knew then what I knew now But I didn’t, and so here I was, older but not feeling much wiser, applause and congratulations breaking over me like a tidal wave as what felt like the entire population of planet Earth—with possibly a few extra visitors from outer space—surrounded me to let me know how pleased they were with my impending marriage to Grant Devlin.
…impending marriage to Grant Devlin. Holy shit.
Keeping up with all the well-wishes was the only thing that kept my brain from breaking under the strain of that impossible fact—I’m getting married to Grant Devlin—like a twig under an elephant’s foot. I lost track of the smiles and happy tears—at least I assume they were happy tears; possibly everyone was just heartbroken that Grant had been taken off the market. Everyone seemed to be testing how many different ways the English language could be rearranged to say “I’m so happy for you!” while actually meaning “But what did you do to get him to even look at you in the first place?!”
“Congratulations.” The voice of Grant’s godmother Portia cut through the crowd. “How marvelous for you, Lacey. What a…coup. And for you, Grant, what a…words fail me.”
“Thank you,” I said through a clenched smile. I willed my tear ducts to not activate immediately at her presence. So what if she embodied all the imperious disapproval of the entire upper class that had been actively shitting on me my entire professional life? There were scarier people in the world. There had to be.
“I’m so delighted you’re one of the first to know,” Grant said to Portia.“You know how I rely on you.”
“Indeed I do,” Portia said so coldly I was amazed the people next to her didn’t all develop cases of severe frostbite and hypothermia. “We’ll have lunch tomorrow, Lacey dear. Noon.” She managed to make ‘Lacey dear’ sound like ‘scum of the earth,’ and ‘noon’ sound like the time of my planned public execution. “We’ll get to know each other better then, I’m sure. I can’t wait to learn all about you and your many…attractions.”
Before I could reply, a reporter shoved a microphone into my face and said, “Lacey, tell our viewers: how did the two of you meet?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could blink, two more reporters popped up like sharks scenting blood in the water, microphones and notepads at the ready in place of teeth:“When’s the wedding? What’s he like as a person? How do you feel about marrying into San Francisco’s premier business dynasty? What’s your favorite—”
There was a glass of champagne in my hand and I drained it.
“How many children do you want?”
“Have you encountered any ethical issues inherent in dating your boss?”
“What would you say to anyone who might wonder if you’re just in it for the money?”