Page 15 of The Marriage Deal
Was that a question or a statement? Should I apologize or make it off as a joke? Either way, I was fired, so I might as well be sincere."I'm so sorry about the email. I don't know what I was thinking. I drank a lot, and I know I shouldn't have sent it. And if you want to fire me, you're well within your rights."
"You're not getting fired."
"No?"
"No."
"I'm much more interested in your proposal." His gaze went to his laptop. "You want eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars, a precise amount, I must say, for marrying me?"
I shifted in my seat. He was reading my silly little email as if it were a serious proposition. If only I had a neuralyzer like inMen In Blackthat I could use to wipe his memory and fling his laptop out of the window. "Uh… Like I said, it was a joke."
"Why that amount?"
Each time I recalled a line from that email, I cringed. "It's nothing." A nervous chuckle bubbled out of me.
"Not when a figure is that precise, it's not."
I shrugged. "Why not. I was drunk. I just thought of an amount and typed it. It's nothing serious. The entire email is a joke."
"Really?" He clasped his hands and leaned back in his chair. "So you don't think I am handsome and have a juicy piece of ass?"
Fuck. Why did he have to look so good this morning? His hair was perfectly coiffed, except for a lock that fell to his forehead. My hand itched to brush it away. "Please don't make it any worse than it already is. This is embarrassing for me."
"What if I want it to be real?"
"What?"
"Your email. What if we make it real?"
"As in?"
"I marry you and you get," he read the email again, "eight hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. We can round it up and make it a cool million."
"A mill—a million dollars?" That would be enough to get the partners off Effie's back and for me to pay my student debts. It would solve all my problems. "Are you serious?"
"Unlike you, I am not joking, Miss Edwards. You must know I am in desperate need of a wife, and you seem to be in desperate need of money." He flashed a tight smile. "Kinda like me, actually. We can marry in secret, of course, and according to the terms of the trust, the marriage must last for at least a year. What do you say? I will adhere to the stipulations in your email, of course."
Marry Levi Hawthorne. The idea was starting to sound less crazy the more he spoke. “Is it possible?”
“Anything is possible,” he said.
“I mean…” I straightened my back. “You’re my boss. Isn’t it improper?”
“Not according to the rule book. There’s nothing against two colleagues marrying each other, but it would be a different matter if I were your supervising professor, which I am not.”
"Can I take a minute? I need to think this over. It's a lot."
"Sure. You have until end of day to give me an answer."
I left his office on spaghetti legs. My legs shook as I got out of his office. I don't know how I made it to my own. I sank into my chair and stared at a blank space for what must have been a quarter of an hour. A million dollars was there for me for the taking. After which, I called Jess and told her everything. She didn't speak for several seconds.
"Jess? Are you there?"
She coughed. Her voice was strained when she spoke. "One million dollars?"
"Yes. It's insane, isn't it? I should probably say no."
"What the fuck! You say yes. In situations like this, you always say yes!"
