“I know it’s not something we like to think about, but what if I’d died on the field that day? Holden would have gotten my share of the inheritance, not you. That scares me. Hell, it makes me angry all over again at the will.” I pause. “Mom would approve of this. She’d want me to help you.”
He sputters: “Come on. She’d hate it! She’d want you to marry someone you cared about, not get involved in some arrangement.”
“Listen to me—ten million dollars. All. Yours. Think of what you can do with that kind of money. You could add saunas and hot tubs. You could hire a nurse for your staff. You could do the nature elements you and Cas wanted, like water features or even a damn tree in the middle of the place.”
He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel him thinking.
“If you don’t take this chance, then Holden will get part of it when you turn forty. Do you want him laughing his ass off as he gets your inheritance?” The mere idea of our half brother getting any part of what should be ours makes my hands clench.
“No.” His breath hitches. “G? Maybe . . .”
I rap my knuckles on the table. “I’m doing this. You deserve your share.”
“Oh my God? Oh my God!” He lets out a shaky breath.
“Wait, are you crying?”
He sniffs, blubbering. “No. You are. Okay, okay, let me think. If you do this, who will you ask?”
My brows lower. This needs to be a nonromantic arrangement. Strict rules. My former girlfriends won’t work. I’ve parted amicably with them, but it’s been months since I dated anyone. I don’t have female friends.
“Just as I suspected—you’re running headfirst into something without considering the consequences,” he murmurs. “It’s like that time when we were kids and you convinced me to go camping in Central Park. Just us and a box of Nilla Wafers. No plan on where to sleep or go to the bathroom.”
I scoff. “Can’t you let it go?”
“I had to shit in the woods, G, and a dog chased me and bit my ass, so no, I won’t forget it. I’m traumatized every time I see anything brown and furry. You forgot my sleeping bag. You forgot water. I hate Central Park, and it’s your fault.”
“It was a chipmunk! No teeth. It might have gummed you.”
“Don’t care. I’m a delicate creature who needs two-ply toilet paper and a pillow for my pretty head. Without vermin.”
“You came with me. I didn’t make you.”
“You said it was an adventure! You knew I’d follow my big brother into the woods!” He chuckles, then sighs. “For real, if you do this marriage thing, I insist on helping you pick the girl.”
“Why?”
“You have terrible taste in women. Divina. Hello, cheating bitch.”
My heart jerks at her name, my hands clenching around the phone at the rush of anger inside me.
“You need someone sweet,” he continues.
“We need someone discreet. Someone who can pretend to be in love with me. We’ll need to convince the family.”
“I’ve got it!” he calls out. “Our drama teacher, Wynona, is a knockout and isn’t dating anyone.”
Witchy Wynona? “Isn’t she the one with the cats and that mole on her chin?” I ask.
“Only three.”
“Moles?”
“Graham!”
I grin. I love getting him riled up.
“She only has three cats, and they’re trained to poop in the toilet. I have videos. I’ll send them to you,” he says.
“Don’t. She’s got facial hair that shouldn’t be there, like in her mole. And she’s got a crush on me. At our Christmas party last year, I walked into my bedroom, and she was touching my bed.”
“She was tipsy!” he huffs.
“Let me be clearer—she was stroking my duvet. Pretty sure she was moaning my name. A minute later, I might have caught her masturbating.”
“She’s a drama teacher. She gets a pass.”
“Yeah. Pass on Wynona.”
“Okay. There’s a trainer at our gym,” he says. “Her name is Cinder. Very pretty.”
“Met her and no.”
“You’re being picky about a fake wife.”
I lean in and eat some of the chicken. “It needs to be someone I can at least get along with if we’re living in the same apartment.” For some reason, I have a vague image of a woman in my kitchen. She hums as she cooks, her hips swaying to the music in her head as I watch from the stool at the island. A waterfall of blonde hair spills down her back, teasing the bare skin between her cropped shirt and cutoff shorts. She tosses a look at me from over her shoulders, and her eyes are—