Page 23 of Inconvenient Marriage
It still amazes me that she’s willing to offer herself up to the highest bidder for hersister.
Adrian’s intel told me as much, and Annaliese herself confirmed it. After I invited her into the house, leading her to the living room where I spend most of my time when I’m home, she quieted any attempts at small talk on my part by handing me the binder—the ‘contract’, she called it—and explained that she was doing all of this to keep her family’s standing in the Order exactly where it is.
I don’t know why she is convinced that the Order will turn on Miranda Crawford just because Annaliese believes she won’t be Claimed herself. These days, there are more Owed than Offerings, and though Dallas is gunning to shut all that shit down, even he can’t stop the next Claiming ceremony from coming without a total revolt. If Miranda wants to be Claimed, she’ll be Claimed; I have no doubt about that. But if Annaliese is willing to hook up with me to make it so that her sister does what she’s going to do anyway, that works, too.
I’m not above using her fears against her. Does that make me an asshole? A prick? A piece of shit? Probably, but it also makes me her husband.
One year. Oh, love. If she really thinks I’m going through all of this for only one year, she’s adorably naive. I’m a Reynolds. If there’s one family trait that I’ve inherited, it’s a sense of entitlement.
I want Annaliese. Not for a night. Not for a year.
I want her for as long as I can have her, and that begins with today.
I’m sold. Nothing she has typed on any of these pages… andfuck… there’s gotta be like twenty thick ones making this sheaf up… none of these sections and clauses and lines will do a fucking thing to change my mind.
Oh, no. That’s just Annaliese who, despite this being her idea, is doing her best to talk me out of it without realizing it.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to. Be the perfect wife. Like I told you, if you prefer to sign this and forget about me once the marriage license is filed, that’s fine. I just need the Order to consider me your wife.”
I couldn’t fucking care less what the Order thinks. “You think I’d marry you, then pretend we didn’t already consummate this union before we ever knew each other’s names?”
Her cheeks turn pink, though there’s steel in her pretty brown eyes as she meets mine purposely. “I assumed your memory of that night is the reason you agreed so easily to this. If that’s what you want from me, you can have it.”
How nice. My wife is doing everything she can to avoid dropping from an Offering to a Used, and that includes her whoring herself out tome. Not because there was a spark, aconnectionbetween two people who happened to meet one night, but because she thinks promising to fuck me is the only way to get me to sign this contract.
Look. There. She even has a whole section devoted to it in her contract.
No sexual intimacy is required as a condition of marriage… should either party request intimacy, the other may decline freely without penalty… if intimacyismutually desired, it must remain consensual, private, and free of obligation… no expectation of monogamy is required, though discretion is preferred.
If I had any doubt that Annaliese is what she appears to be—a fallen Offering—then that would’ve smashed it. All the Offerings are raising with the idea that their husband will have a woman who sleeps at his side, and at least one who sleeps with him whenever he wants. It’s rarely the same woman, but while I won’t deny that my sexual history is… extensive, the one thing I’ve never done is fuck around when I’m in a committed relationship.
And what’s a bigger commitment than holy matrimony?
I underline the section with my fingertip. “I see. You got a whole section about fucking in here.”
Her flush deepens. I wonder if, like me, she’s remembering the way she threw back her head and moaned as she rode me. “I like to be very clear.”
“Very organized, too.”
A single crisp nod and a slight pursing of those lips.
Fuck. Who knew I had a hard-on for the prissy, prim act she’s got going on?
Especially when she says, “If there’s any addendum you’d like to, well,add, please do. This contract is to protect us. So we know what we can both expect. It is, after all, a marriage of convenience. Nothing more. If you keep flipping through the pages, I even outlined an initial prenup that makes it clear that, what we enter this marriage with, we leave it with.”
I swallow my scoff. Does she think that I’d sign this thing if I was worried she was only marrying me for money? I have too much of it. She can fucking take it. I just want her, and it’s getting a little tiring how much she is really pushing this fake marriage thing.
“If that’s what you want.”
Something in my flippant tone has Annaliese frowning. “If you’ve changed your mind?—”
Why do I get the feeling that she’d like that if I did? As if she’s having second thoughts?
It’s possible. Shit, it’s more than likely. But if she learned anything about Bas Reynolds, it’s that I never do what’s expected of someone with my fucking pedigree.
Then again, my old man is Guy Reynolds. He gave up being King because he was so obsessed with Maman that he trapped her in Harmony Heights, then baby-trapped her by getting herknocked-up with Alexandre first, and me immediately after. To him, his wife was worth more than the promise of power.
My left sock is worth more to me than what being a Reynolds in Harmony Heights means. But the promise of keeping this woman as mine… it’s worth the fucking Order thinking that I’m finally falling in line at last.
