The Pact

by Max Monroe

  Pretty sure he’s going to believe you soon enough when Daisy is living in your apartment…

  The silence is marred only by our chewing as my phone buzzes frantically from its spot on the table, and Remy’s eyes narrow slightly as he watches it. When it nearly falls to the floor from shaking itself so much, I pick it back up and scroll through what she’s sent me.

  Daisy: Okay, so I’m guessing by your lack of enthusiastic agreement, that’s a no to cutlery.

  Daisy: How about bath towels? I have these really great towels I got from Pottery Barn, and I swear they’re the softest towels you’ll ever feel against your skin. I know guys act like they don’t care about shit like that, but let’s be real, no one wants to dry off with sandpaper.

  Daisy: Fine. No bath towels. And I guess if you have really crappy ones, I’ll buy new and leave them at your place after I leave. Your skin will thank me.

  Daisy: Should I bring my own pillows? Comforter? Sheets?

  Daisy: Gah. I’m an idiot, and we need to delete all these messages because they are insanely suspect and do the opposite of saying we’re in love. They scream “This chick is frauding the system and needs to be deported ASAP.”

  Daisy: Oh my God. Delete that one too.

  Daisy: P.S. Has anyone ever told you that texting with you is impossible? I never know what you’ve read and haven’t read because you’re not answering me.

  Daisy: Delete that one too.

  I’m smiling when I finish reading, and without thinking, I type out the first message that comes to mind.

  Me: Love you, Daisy.

  The words come so naturally that I don’t even catch myself until I put the phone down on the table again and look back up and into the weight of my brother’s stare.

  I think we’re both wondering the same thing. What, exactly, is really going on here?

  Monday, April 22nd, New York

  Daisy

  If you’re looking for peace and relaxation, do not go to JFK Airport. Do not marry a man to save your residency in the United States, do not move across the country, and do not do it within a week’s time.

  I juggle my carry-on and big backpack through the narrow hallway that leads to baggage claim, hoping to find some peace away from the bustle of passengers running for their flights and lining up way too early, but it’s nothing like I hoped.

  It is a madhouse. Every baggage claim is surrounded by impatient passengers who have just arrived, and the people who have managed to get their bags are careening through the crowd with their luggage like it’s the Indy 500.

  Honestly, I’m surprised to see that it’s this busy on a Monday evening, but I’m a naïve Canadian who’s been living her life at an energy-depleting level for the last week, and New York eats its young for breakfast. I really hope I survive.

  Swallowing thickly, I set my backpack down on the floor and take a minute to blow some of the wild curls of my hair out of my face. There’s a river of sweat running down my back from anxiety, and I need to calm the eff down if I have any hope of getting all my shit off the baggage belt and out to a cab.

  Okay, Daisy. You can do this. You’re an independent woman, for Pete’s sake. You’ve been on your own most of your life, and this isn’t any different now.

  Gathering myself, I check the board for my carousel number, and with my bags slung over my shoulders again, I head for the crowd standing around it. I have to dodge a group of rowdy twentysomething men with golf bags and nearly get run over by a woman with a screaming toddler sitting on her carry-on suitcase, but I make it to the shiny silver oval just as the red-siren-light thingie on the top starts to buzz.

  Preparing, I drop my bags to the tile at my feet, tie my curls back in a loose ponytail, and adjust my favorite cutoff jean shorts. A couple of jigs and hops on my toes, and I’d be a boxer in the corner of the ring readying for her fight.

  I take my position to the side of the conveyor belt bringing the luggage to the carousel and wait. In a shocking twist, I’m startled when the white of my bags is the first thing I see cresting the top of the hill and dumping onto the shiny silver metal.

  Woo-hoo! This almost never happens!

  I jockey through the crowd, using gentle elbows to make my body seem bigger than it is, and lean over the edge as I wait for my luggage to get to me. Having them right in a row is a challenge, but thanks to all my hyping, I’m gamed up and ready.

  I step forward and latch on to the first handle and then the second, and I grit my teeth against the weight of them as I pull two of my suitcases with both of my arms and lift.

  Unfortunately, between the weight and the instability of the soles of my poorly planned sandals, the bags and the carousel lift me, instead of the other way around.

  Shit, oh shit! I scream internally as the panic of being dragged along in front of the people waiting for their luggage overwhelms me. Do something, Daisy!

  Within a second, I’m fully aboard the carousel, the handles of my bags still in my hands as I ride around the oval like an airport cowboy. People start to shout for security—and I’m so tangled in myself and my hysteria that I can’t figure out how to get free.

  Before I know it, the conveyor looms ahead, the bulky weight of the bags it’s spitting out dangerously apparent by the sound they make when they slide to the bottom.

  Oh God. Oh God! I’m going to be crushed!

  I’m a little ashamed to say that the first and only line of defense I can come up with is to close my eyes, but that’s probably why it’s so shocking when large hands scoop under my knees and around my back and lift me free of the chaos.

  A yell of panic swells in my throat, but when I open my eyes to the tall handsomeness of my contractual husband, all my terror recedes like a wave.

  Holy shit, Flynn?!

  He sets me down on my feet, and I pull my white T-shirt down until only the small sliver of my stomach that’s supposed to be exposed is left in the breeze.

  My eyes feel so wide they might take over my face, and my chest heaves with the exertion of my debacle.

  “That was a bit of a close call, huh?” he asks as if I haven’t just single-handedly brought shame to the city of New York.

  “W-what are you doing here?”

  “I came to pick you up from the airport,” he answers simply, only then releasing his hold on my hips he’d been using to steady me.

  “You came to pick me up?” I question, dumbfounded. I… Well, I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t think this. “We didn’t make any arrangements, and I figured I was going to meet you at your apartment.”

  He frowns. “Daisy, there was no way in hell I was going to make you navigate the New York craziness by yourself after a long flight. That’d be cruel.”

  I search his vivid blue eyes for a long moment, for something, anything, to calm the racing beat of my heart and the twisted, almost painful warmth in my chest. I don’t think I’ve ever known what it’s like to have someone other than myself this invested in my well-being.

  “So…uh…since you’re here, mind helping me get my bags off the carousel? I’m still fresh off adrenaline from that near-death experience a few minutes ago, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to give it a second go just yet.”

  He grins. Nods. And steps forward to snag the large white suitcase that started the clusterfuck in the first place. As he pulls it off the carousel, I point to the one next to it. And then another one.

  And another one.

  “That’s it,” I finally declare once four large—and heavy—suitcases are off the track and sitting beside me. “I took your advice and packed light,” I say through the embarrassment.

  The sarcasm makes Flynn laugh, and my chest inflates dramatically. Gah, that might be the best sound ever.

  I have the immediate and almost overpowering desire to make it happen again.

  Flynn handles my shitshow of bags with ease, leaving me with only my backpack and carry-on to manage.

  He looks strong, confident, calm, a
nd—dare I say it—content.

  As we make our way out of the airport and head in the direction of Flynn’s car, I can’t stop myself from thinking that if I were an innocent bystander watching our interaction, I might actually believe that we are husband and wife. In a serious relationship, at the very least.

  Which, I guess, is a good thing, right?

  For getting a green card? Yes. For your future sanity? Probably not.

  Flynn

  The elevator dings our arrival on my floor, and I jerk my chin for Daisy to go ahead of me and her four suitcases. She’s been relatively silent since we left the airport, choosing instead to spend her time surveying the city around her as we drove, saying only a singular “wow” when I drove my Range Rover into the underground garage beneath my apartment building.

  I know it’s a lot—moving here, across the country, to the apartment of a man she barely knows—so I don’t push her. She’ll have plenty to say in her own time; I’m pretty much sure of that.

  I hand her the keys to open the lock, and after pushing the door open, she heads to the kitchen first, located right off the entryway hallway, to divest herself of her backpack and carry-on—and then performs a slow spin into the living room. The floor-to-ceiling windows at the side make the light so bright that a gentle dust floats in the air, and the leather of my cognac-colored couch almost shimmers.

  Her yellow pillows sit in each corner of the couch, and she smiles when she sees them. She circles around to the back of the couch to look out the windows again and perhaps take in the whole room at once, and the motion light in the back hallway clicks on.

  “Mm,” she hums. “I see this place is just as teched-out as the one in Vegas.”

  I shrug. It’s practical to be able to see where you’re going with minimal effort.

  “The pillows look great,” she continues then. “Really liven up the place.”

  My shoulders rise and fall again. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She giggles at that, turning to look again at the room and any of the details she may have missed, when her gaze snags on the fireplace—or more specifically, the painting above it.

  It features a laughing woman with curly hair and vibrant eyes, the strokes of the paintbrush soft and wispy in a way that completely belies the masculine overtones found throughout the rest of my place.

  Now that I look at it closely, it’s remarkably similar in its resemblance to her in both physicality and personality.

  “That painting…it…it seems out of character for you.”

  I nod. “It is. But my great-great-aunt painted it many years ago and promised it to me when she passed. It’s been hanging there ever since. I’m pretty fond of it, honestly.”

  Perhaps that’s why I became so enamored of Daisy so quickly. Normally, I don’t take a weighted interest in anyone’s life but my own.

  Daisy nods, her eyes watching me closely for a long moment before moving on almost suddenly.

  “What’s down this way?” she asks with a small jerk of her head toward the hallway.

  I raise my eyebrows, and she laughs, adding, “Right. Only one way to find out with Mr. Mysterious.”

  She walks to the end of the hallway, peeking in briefly to a linen closet and a half bathroom on the way, and then opens the door—after a nod of permission from me—to my bedroom.

  The gray brick on the opposite wall stands out in the light from the windows, and the industrial shelving on one side of it boasts its emptiness.

  “There’s nothing on those shelves,” Daisy points out immediately, making me laugh.

  “I know.”

  She shakes her head and then startles, her head jerking toward me. “Is that it?”

  “What do you mean? To the apartment?”

  “Yes. To the apartment. That’s it?”

  I shrug. “Yeah.”

  “There’s…there’s only one bedroom in this apartment?”

  I raise my eyebrows, and she immediately shakes her head. A long-winded babble is coming, I can feel it.

  “How is that possible? H-how? I googled your building, and this building doesn’t look like the kind of building that has apartments with only one bedroom in it.”

  “I didn’t know that was discernible from the outside.”

  “Well, it’s not! Obviously! Because here I am in a building that shouldn’t have any one-bedroom apartments, in a one-bedroom apartment. Your house in Vegas has multiple bedrooms, Flynn. Why doesn’t this have multiple bedrooms?”

  “Because this isn’t Vegas. This is New York. And I’ve only ever been able to sleep in one bed at a time.”

  “You’re not funny right now. This isn’t funny. Where am I supposed to sleep?”

  I glance to the bed and back at her, and her eyes spin like flying UFOs. “In the bed with you? Every night?”

  “Only the nights you want to be in a bed.”

  “This isn’t funny, Flynn!”

  “Listen, Dais, it is what it is. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we haven’t slept in a bed together before.”

  “We didn’t sleep in that bed at all, Flynn.”

  No, we definitely didn’t sleep, and it was fucking glorious.

  I grin, and she practically chokes on her own saliva.

  “Come on,” I tell her, leaving the room. “Let’s go. You can worry about the bed later.”

  “What? Go? Where are we going?”

  I don’t answer. No. I don’t dare answer.

  Daisy

  Flynn pulls to a stop in front of a gorgeous Uptown brownstone that makes me believe in the movie version of New York. The trees are large and mature, and the street is calm. I can practically picture Tom Hanks asking Meg Ryan what would have happened with them if they hadn’t been enemies from the start.

  I don’t know why we’re here, though, and the anticipation has me on edge. Does Flynn have another house here? Perhaps with more than one bedroom?

  I nearly laugh aloud at myself, but Flynn opening my door and holding out a hand to help me climb out of his Range Rover seems to startle it right out of me.

  “Where are we?”

  He doesn’t answer, instead guiding me across the sidewalk and up the steps to ring the doorbell. You don’t ring the doorbell at your own house. “Uh…” I look around in confusion. “Are we at someone’s house?”

  “Yeah,” he answers matter-of-factly. “My sister Winnie’s.”

  “What?!” I question, but he’s already added knocking to his arrival alert system, apparently unsatisfied with the speed of response from the bell. “Flynn. This is your family’s house?”

  He nods, completely at ease with the insane situation. “It’s family dinner night.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I retort as quietly as I can, but it’s hard to have volume control when your heart is pounding in your damn ears. “You didn’t think I needed time to prepare? I barely know you. You barely know me! I mean, what are we even going to tell them? What if they ask—”

  “Shoot!” Flynn says suddenly, tapping me on the back and turning around. “I forgot the cookies in the car. Be right back.”

  I swing my hips hard and lunge for his wrist as he retreats, but it’s too late. He’s down the steps and passing the couple of spots to the car and walking around to the trunk in no time.

  The front door swings open, and my nervous jaw clamps closed like a Venus flytrap.

  “Uh, hey,” an attractive, dark-haired man I’ve never seen before says, looking around me curiously. “Can I help you?”

  Everything inside me tries to speak, but I’m, for all intents and purposes, mute for the foreseeable future. My throat feels thick and my vocal cords paralyzed. I don’t know what to say, so I hope Flynn hurries the fuck up or something.

  The door swings open behind the now narrow-eyed man with a little puff of spring wind, revealing another man I actually know, walking down the hallway toward us.

  The five-hundred-dollar casino chip gifter. Flynn’s brother Ty.r />
  When my eyes lock on him with what must be recognition, the man at the door turns toward him and groans loudly. “Oh. She’s with you. I should have fucking known.”

  Without another word or even a hello, the man retreats back down the hallway, smacking Ty on the shoulder as he goes. Ty approaches the door and me, his eyebrows drawn together curiously.

  With a long look up and down my body and face, he finally shrugs. “Well, you certainly are my type. Did I ask you to come here tonight?”

  “No,” I manage to murmur with a shake of my head. God, apparently, he was so drunk that day, he doesn’t even remember me. “I’m—”

  But he already has me by the elbow and pulls me inside. “Come on. Let’s head to the kitchen and get a drink. We’re about to start dinner soon.”

  I twist frantically to look over my shoulder, searching for Flynn with wild eyes as the door closes behind me.

  Oh my God. How did you manage this one, Daisy? Not only have you entrapped one Winslow into marrying you for a green card, now you’ve got another brother thinking he’s dating you?!

  Before I know it, we’re standing in the center of a bustling kitchen, and there are people pretty much everywhere. Loud chatter, laughter, and the sounds and smells of dinner being made overwhelm my senses.

  “Well, dang!” Another attractive guy with light-brown hair and blazing blue eyes I recognize as another one of Flynn’s brothers shouts at the top of his lungs. “I thought that was gonna be Flynn at the door. For once, I can actually attend family dinner because we’re not working around Winnie’s schedule and doing it on nights I’m at work. I’m ready to enjoy this feast!”

  “Stop whining, Jude,” a beautiful—almost ethereally, really—trim brunette with smoldering green eyes tells him. “You know Flynn will be here any minute. He’s reliable.”

  Ty laughs beside me, and a whole new wave of panic renews as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Unlike the rest of us, right, Sophie?”

  She shrugs. “You said it. Not me.”

  Instantly, it feels as if everyone’s head turns in our direction, and I almost choke on the saliva in my throat from the pressure of it all.