Arranged(15)

It was such a simple plan, so why did it become so much harder to execute cleanly as soon as my husband came anywhere near me?

My mother used to say that it was good to have conflict inside you. I’d never fully understood what she meant, but apparently I’d taken those words deep into my heart. Even when I got exactly what I’d wished for, I still wasn’t content.

“Will you be in New York for long?” I asked him.

“I’m not sure. It depends on work. How’s the modeling going?”

“It’s going well. The work is steady. It keeps me busy. It’s fun. I’m getting so many offers that I’m turning down jobs. That’s a refreshing change.”

Was I rambling? I didn’t know what to say to him. Nothing seemed right. I didn’t want to offend him, and I certainly didn’t want to bore him, but he was set so firmly against me that I felt like I was destined to do one or the other.

“Well, that’s good,” he said, sounding disinterested enough to fall asleep. He knocked back the rest of his bourbon, and the waiter reappeared, taking his old glass and setting down a fresh one.

He downed that one in under thirty seconds. Our waiter had another one ready before Calder could set his glass down.

“I don’t have a two drink rule,” he remarked sardonically when he was brought a fourth drink some short time later.

I’d gathered as much. I sent him a sideways smile, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at his glass as though contemplating whether he should finish off another round.

It couldn’t have been clearer that he’d rather be anywhere else. Unsurprisingly, our first ‘date’ was not going well.

I hoped that it was too late for him to send me back with a full refund.





CHAPTER





SEVEN





“Have you received an invitation from Millie Bancroft?” he asked.

Our first course had arrived, and I was stirring my roasted carrot salad around, pretending to eat it. He’d already cleared his plate.

I wasn’t expecting the question, so I had to think about it for a moment before I could answer. “Um, yes. She invited me to a girls’ night a few weeks from now. She and some friends are going out dancing at a club.” I looked at him as I spoke, assuming he’d tell me not to go. The nightclub scene was hardly a good look for his wife.

He shrugged, still staring at his drink. “You should accept. She’s the wife of one of my closest friends. She was your maid-of-honor. It would be nice if you two could at least pretend to play nice with each other.”

I hadn’t expected that. The more time I spent with his circle of friends, the more apparent it would become to them that our marriage was a sham. I’d assumed he’d want to avoid that.

“How would I even get into the club?” I asked him. “I did look it up when I received the invitation. It’s twenty-one and over.”

“God, I keep forgetting about that.” He said it like he found it somewhat horrifying. “How old are you, anyway?”

“You don’t know how old I am?” I wasn’t offended. I was surprised. Eighteen on the dot cost extra in the Bride Catalogue.

“I know that of course you’re legal, but I don’t remember the details. To be frank, I don’t know anything about you and I don’t want to.”

I stared. “You don’t know anything about me?” I repeated back, trying to unwrap his words.

“That’s what I said,” he enunciated slowly. “I picked you out of that catalogue because your face made my dick hard. Aside from that, I didn’t really care enough to learn more.”

I hadn’t known that he’d been the one to pick me out. I’d more than half suspected that his father had done it.

Why, out of all of the awful things he’d just spouted at me, did my mind only focus on that little detail?

And moreover, why did I feel a keen little unwanted thrill at the knowledge?

I realized after a time that he wasn’t going to speak again.

“So all of the rest . . .” I began haltingly. Genuine confusion warred inside me. “The IQ tests. The psych evals. The background checks. The compatibility tests. The medical exams. Your people researched me down to who I sat next to in third grade.”

He shrugged, his eyes raking over me in a cursory manner then darting away. “I didn’t care about any of that. That was my father. The whole thing was my father’s doing. I didn’t want to be married. I still don’t. I was lucky I even had a say in what you looked like. It was nearly a deal breaker.”

That added up, I supposed. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a little jarring to hear it come directly out of his mouth. And with such contempt.

“Back to your question,” I said slowly after it was clear he was done speaking. “I’m eighteen.”

He flinched, looked away, then back. His eyes caught on my drink. He picked it up and set it decisively away from me. “You’re too young for that,” he muttered.

“So about Millie and the over twenty-one club,” I said. “I’ll tell her no.”

He didn’t roll his eyes at me, but I could tell it was close. “If you think you’re going to get carded, you haven’t been paying attention,” he bit out, obviously annoyed. “Let your security handle those kinds of details, and tell Millie yes.”