by Ana Adams
Adrien snagged her hand as she turned away. “I’m sorry to hear that. So that’s why you snuck into the party last night?”
“Yes. I organized the catering gig so that I could run into the headmaster of Manchester Private School. I’m desperate for work. If I don’t find something soon, I’ll…” She bit her tongue. This was the least sexy confession of all time; she’d do well to shut up.
Adrien was quiet for a long time as he poured the batter into a waiting waffle iron. She stared at the far wall of windows, wondering if she’d botched this thing, whatever it was, between them. Just as the silence was too great to bear, she turned to face him. He was plating a waffle, sliding it her way on the kitchen counter.
“It’s time for breakfast,” he said, his smile not betraying any awkwardness. “And this is a big deal. A lot is riding on your reaction.”
She cracked a grin. “Oh yeah? What happens if I don’t like it?”
“I don’t want to say. You should just eat it.”
Clara picked up the fork waiting for her, cutting off a small piece. Locking eyes with him, she ate it. Flavors burst in her mouth, the pleasant golden crunch immediately giving way to the most delightful waffle she’d ever had.
“Holy fuck.” She covered her mouth with her hands, swallowing, unable to break his gaze.
“I take it this is another win for my legendary waffles?”
She nodded, eagerly eating the rest. “Number one, hands down. Holy shit.”
He picked at a second waffle as she ate, a pleasant silence settling between them. After a bit, he asked, “Do you need money?”
His question sliced through the air. She winced. “Always. I’ve needed money my whole life. And I’ve never had it.”
“What if I said I could help you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. This was embarrassing, and probably the final nail in the coffin for whatever sort of love affair they might have. Worse yet, if he started giving her money, it walked the fine line of prostitution. And that would never be cool. “I don’t want your money. Seriously.”
“Hang on.” He pushed his plate away from him. “I have an idea. There’s something that I need out of this, too.”
Her stomach knotted. This was already such a bad idea. “If this is going where I think it is…”
“Hear me out.” He lifted a hand. “I’m in a little predicament myself. My family is…pressuring me. Quite intensely. They want an heir from me.”
“An heir?” She scoffed. “What are you…a king?”
A strange look crossed his face. “The thing is, they want me to marry inside the community, to protect assets and secure a greater fortune for themselves. But I want out. I can’t keep going on with their life, their rules, and their requirements.”
She knitted her brow. “What are you talking about?”
He sighed. “It’s hard to explain. I’m sorry if this is confusing. If I have an heir outside of our lineage, they can no longer claim my money. I’ve made a great deal of money outside of their inheritance, and they want it for themselves. But I can’t support them. I refuse to.”
She studied the chest hair peeking outside of his apron, struggling to make sense of what he was offering. “Your lineage? So, what? You want to marry someone and have a baby with them?”
“Yes.” Relief flooded his face. “With you.”
Her eyes widened. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ll pay you, of course. This is where the deal comes in. If you marry me and have my child, I’ll take care of you financially—forever. You won’t have to worry about money. This is the greatest service you could ever do for me. I have nowhere to turn—nobody I can trust.”
Her belly turned. This was somehow worse than what she’d expected. “This sounds crazy, Adrien. I can’t even begin to process what you’re asking me. I’m trying to start a career—not get knocked up!”
He looked distraught. “It’s a lot, I know. Just think about it. Don’t give me an answer yet.”
“What about your family? Won’t they know you’re just…subverting their fortune, or whatever?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been distancing myself from them for years. I’ve had enough.”
“Well it certainly doesn’t look like it. You have your grandfather’s bust upstairs!”
“You don’t understand my family.” His voice sounded strained. “I come from a very…particular history. I’m practically a slave to them. But I’ve had enough. I want out. I need a wife, and I need an heir. Immediately.”
His words settled into her heavily. This sounded highly suspect…not to mention totally insane. “I can’t do that for you. Marriage is supposed to be special.”
“I said don’t answer me now.”
“Well the answer won’t change!” She searched his face for some clue, some confirmation that this was a sick joke.
“Just think about it.”
She swallowed a knot in her throat. “How does knocking some stranger up save your money? I don’t get it.”
He studied the distance, a strange expression clouding his features. “It’s hard to explain. Just know that I can’t marry who they want me to. I need someone else, someone totally outside the system.”
“This sounds like an arranged marriage.”
He laughed softly. “A very bizarre, modern arranged marriage.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Have I scared you off entirely?”
“Just about.” She turned toward the windows, curiosity and discontent swirling inside her gut. “How much money are we talking, anyway?”
“How much I’m protecting, or what I’m prepared to pay you?”
“Both.”
“Billions. In both cases.”
His words echoed between her ears. She couldn’t even fathom that amount. Hell, five hundred dollars seemed like an incomprehensible amount in her life right now. “Jesus.”
Adrien stroked her arm. “I’m sorry, Clara. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just…I thought…”
Tears choked her, but she didn’t know where they’d come from. His proposal felt cheap somehow, despite the amount of money backing it. She’d wanted their connection to be authentic, to be special. Maybe it had been motivated by his need for a baby mama the whole time.
And that stung. His weird family had motivated their night of passion, not sexual chemistry or anything like that. Just a need for an heir and protecting assets.
“It’s wise,” he said, pressing his lips against her shoulder blade. “It’s the perfect solution for both of us.”
She glared at the far wall, struggling to get a grip on her careening mind. It would be the perfect solution financially, but it was like selling her soul to the devil somehow. What would happen with their child? What about his family? What about her own family? How could she possibly move forward with this ridiculous proposal? Especially when what she might want from Adrien, or from any husband, was more than a simple financial arrangement. If he paid her to be his wife, how could he ever love her?
He was nuts—it was that simple. And she’d never agree to something so outrageous and demeaning.
***
Clara’s silence was like a vice around his head. He scrambled to think of a solution to the horrible gaffe, but he didn’t know where to go from here.
In the moment, the proposal had seemed like such a natural course of action. She needed money, and he had it along with a specific need—the two could find a natural intersection, right? Wrong.
Her money woes had exploded like a firework, signaling to him that this was the way. The wife-and-heir conundrum had been weighing on him for months. The more time wore on, the stronger the pressure grew. His father was eager to secure the new fortune, especially since Adrien’s start-up was making money hand over fist, and their kingdom was nearly bankrupt after poor investments and legal fees from past scandals.
A well-arranged marriage would secure the money, secure the family, and help things continue as normal. B
ut continuing as normal wasn’t the way for him. He wanted out of the drama, out of the spotlight, and out of the pressures of being part of the royal family. His move to San Francisco to forge his own path in start-ups had been the first step in the right direction—and with each passing year, his ties to Luxembourg grew looser. But his family hadn’t forgotten him, or his wallet. And they were actively arranging his marriage to Archduchess Francesca. A forgotten law from the early 1800s would allow them to marry him off despite his wishes.
Time was ticking. He had to find someone to marry, or he’d be married to Francesca.
He hadn’t even considered Clara as an option on that front until that morning. But the worst part of it all, she was hurt. Her silence spoke to him in a way that her words couldn’t.
“I can help take care of you.” He brushed his lips against her shoulder.
“And that means I should take your money and have your baby?”
He sighed into the crook of her neck. “Well…”
“This is like prostitution, you know?” She turned to face him, eyes ablaze. “I can’t be bought. And it’s sad you even tried to do that. Money can’t buy everything. And I’ll do just fine without yours.”
She stormed away, heading for the couches. He hurried after her, grabbing her wrist.
“That’s ridiculous and you know it.” He spun her to face him. “This is not prostitution—nowhere near it. It’s an agreement, at best. A natural intersection between two people who need two different things. Have you ever been to a restaurant?”
“Of course.”
“Well that’s the same sort of thing. Hungry people finding someone willing to sell them food. You don’t accuse the restaurant owners of prostitution, do you?”
She faltered. “Well, no…”
“So you see? And sometimes, the restaurant owner can make love to the patron without it being weird. They’re two different things.”
She scoffed. “Great metaphor. But I’m not buying it. I’m leaving.” She spun on her heels and hurried toward her clothes, still draped across the couch from the evening before. As she hooked on her bra and stepped into her panties, Adrien placed himself in front of her.
“I fucked up.” He held his hands out to his sides. “I’m sorry. But just think about it.”
Her mouth thinned to a frightening line. “It won’t matter. You won’t be seeing me again after today. Believe me. I’m gone.”
She slipped her pants on and tugged her shirt over her head. Grabbing her purse, she stormed over to the elevator door, pressing the down button. He rushed over to her, desperate to change her mind. “Please, Clara, just stay a bit longer. We can work this out. I really think you’ve misunderstood—”
“I haven’t misunderstood anything. I understand perfectly well. And that’s the problem. This is a sick suggestion from a sick man. Good-bye.”
The doors slid open and Clara entered the elevator, leveling him with her gaze. He couldn’t ride down the elevator in the “Trophy Husband” apron. Panic swirled with fear inside him; this was somehow worse than just flubbing a business proposal.
The doors slid shut and she disappeared from his life.
Chapter Six
Back at her studio apartment on the south side, Clara’s mind made cartwheels around Adrien’s disgusting proposal. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, which made her even angrier. On top of last night’s failure with Ging, she felt like drowning, like there really was no buoy to lift her anywhere. Even gorgeous lovers were disguised as traps.
But what a gorgeous lover. Despite all the anger and stewing, flickers of disbelief darted through her. Had she really spent the night in his arms? She’d give almost anything to spend another night with him—except her hand in marriage, that is. His unappealing proposal had eradicated almost all of his attractive qualities…but not all of them.
She tapped out a quick message to Katy, who had sent a friendly text sometime that morning during the waffle test.
My night was fine. But my morning was insane. I have a story for you, lady!
Tossing her phone aside, she shed her work clothes and grabbed her laptop. It was time for half-naked lounging and job hunting. Anything to unwind after the confusing events of the morning.
After checking e-mails, curiosity brewed. Was Adrien on social media? She hadn’t gotten his last name—but if he was worth so much money, it stood to reason that he’d be online somewhere. Maybe on Forbes 100 Richest or something. Hell, he might be number one if he had billions to play with.
What billionaire can’t find a throwaway wife and child-bearer? She scoffed as she typed in her Google search. Must be a pretty crappy billionaire if there isn’t a line of ladies waiting for him at this point.
Results flooded the screen. Simply typing “Adrien, Luxembourg, Billionaire” yielded thousands upon thousands of results. And there, at the top of the page, was Adrien’s smoldering face, eyes dark and commanding even on the laptop screen.
He was number three on Forbes’s Richest list.
She clicked through results, jaw dropping lower the more she read. The top results showcased an impressive track record with venture capitalism, and plenty of investments that hit it big in the tech world.
But the guy wasn’t just rich, he was royalty. And not pretend royalty, the kind in celeb mags or on television. The man was the honest-to-god sole heir of the crown of Luxembourg and had bucked the royal hierarchy from a young age by forging his own path and disavowing himself from the royal lineage.
Clara read through as much as she could find. The rabbit hole went deep. This was as good a crash course in Luxembourg economics as she could have found at a university. Apparently Luxembourg’s fragile economy leaned heavily on the belief that the monarchy could, and would, sustain any financial crisis with their monetary reserves, buried deep in some rolling hill in the south. The exact location of this reserve was unknown, which caused frequent robberies and covert attempts to uncover the treasure, which sounded more like 17th-century Europe than modern day.
Was this why Adrien needed to marry her—because of the treasure? She laughed. This was too ridiculous to be true…yet here it was, before her eyes. Adrien’s family portrait from 2001 stared back at her, the grandfather in the bust standing behind Adrien with his hands on his shoulders, unsmiling.
What kind of childhood did that guy have? She snapped her laptop shut, unable to turn her focus to the job hunt. Must have been pretty bad if Adrien was willing to jump ship and run away from the royal family. People didn’t just do that. Shit had to be bad in Luxembourg for him to come to San Francisco, of all places.
Whatever the truth was, she’d have to be content simply wondering. No matter how exotic, foreign, gorgeous, or funny the man was—and he was certainly all of those things, in a way she could barely articulate—he was officially out of her life. Forever.
Clara went to the kitchen to heat up a bowl of veggie soup she’d left in the fridge yesterday. As she waited for it to heat up in the microwave, her mind slid back to Adrien. The mischievous glint in his eyes as they’d fooled around for hours the night before. The sacred moment when he’d first pushed into her. The catch of his breath right before he came. She shook her head. Those memories might never leave her. And what would she do then?
The microwave dinged. Time to reintegrate to your regular life. No sexy billionaires here. Just vegetable soup and the job hunt.
As she settled on the couch to eat her soup, the doorbell downstairs rang. Expecting it to be a surprise “tell me everything that happened last night” visit from Katy, she moved toward the street-facing window of her apartment. Pushing it open with her free hand, she leaned outside, veggie soup in hand, and looked down at the front door.
Dark eyes gazed up at her. Adrien stood on the sidewalk, his face hopeful.
Her mouth fell open. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“How did you find out where I live?”
He shrugged, looking around. He waited until a pedestrian rounded the corner. “It wasn’t that hard. Can I come up?”
She furrowed her brow, a million different thoughts clanking together. If she were smart, she’d say no and shut the window and ignore anything else that came out of his mouth. But he looked so fucking tasty down there—his well-manicured veneer softer around the edges, something boyishly tempting in his simple jeans and button-up.
And then here she was—without pants and scarfing leftover vegetable soup. She gulped. No, he couldn’t come up here.
“You’re worth, like, a trillion dollars. You cannot come inside my apartment, okay?”
He looked troubled. “I’m not worth trillions. I already told you the amount.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, excuse my exaggeration. The point is, I’m busy and you can’t stop by to visit right now.”
“Well, when would be a better time?” Sunlight broke through passing clouds, illuminating him in an ethereal glow. She gulped. Luxembourg royalty, front and center.
“Never. I’m very busy all of the time.”
He cracked a grin, rubbing his neck. People stalled on the sidewalk, eyes darting between Adrien and her window. “I’d like to apologize to you. Properly. Please let me up.”
She met his gaze and then looked away. Those eyes of his could melt her resolve faster than anything else. But what was so wrong with an apology? Maybe she’d get another scorching kiss or two out of it…
“Just an apology?”
“I swear. None of that other stuff.” He peered up at her, squinting one eye against the sunlight.
Someone nearby yelled, “Just let him in already!” Among the hustle and bustle of the street, she couldn’t figure out who said it. In this neighborhood, it could have been anybody.
“Fine. I’ll buzz you in.”
She set her bowl of soup on the coffee table, nerves jittery as she headed for the buzzer. She wrung her hands, noticing all the parts of her apartment that would probably make him cringe: the disorganized desk area in the far corner, the mismatching wall hangings from her college days, the floor lamp with snaking, multicolored cones that looked like it came out of a kid’s bedroom.