Page 23 of The Wrong Billionaire
Now we’re getting somewhere.
She swallows hard. “I can’t believe I’m really considering this.”
“Tell me.”
“If you just want to get in my knickers, then fine, but don’t expect me to fall at your feet.”
“I don’t just want sex with you,” I remind her. “I want a wife.”
She chews her bottom lip. “You’d want me to live with you?”
“That’s generally what marriage entails.”
“In your house?”
“I have an apartment in the city. We’d get our own place, maybe overlooking the ocean. Staff on hand to fulfil your every whim. You won’t need to cook anymore—unless you want to. Or clean. Or do the gardening, again, unless you wanted to. You’d be able to spend your time doing whatever brings you joy. Reading, painting, writing.”
She doesn’t answer. I think she likes that idea.
We sit quietly for a while. She looks out at the street, but I don’t think she’s seeing the sparkling fairy lights or the shop assistants in their Santa hats. I let her think, while I admire her profile and imagine kissing her.
Eventually, her gaze comes back to me. “If I did this…” She turns her glass in her fingers. “It would need to be a marriage of convenience for me. I need to protect myself. I understand that you need a wife and an heir. And I would try to provide that. But out of the public eye, I’d want to live a separate life. I’d need my personal freedom to do my job and see my friends. Alone.”
It’s not what I want, but I know she’s not going to agree any other way, so I nod.
“I’d want my own bedroom,” she adds. “If we have sex, I’d want to know I can go back to my own room afterward.”
I frown.
“And I’d want a contract,” she says. “That states if, after the baby is born, I ask you for a divorce, you won’t stand in my way. And a clause stating I wouldn’t get any of your money. I’d happily sign that.”
“On the condition that, while we were married, I can spend my money on you how I choose.”
She glowers.
“God, you’re hard work,” I say. “‘No, Mr. Billionaire, please don’t spend your fortune on me and my baby.’” I say it in an exasperated voice, not a mocking one, and her lips curve up.
“Are you really a billionaire?” she asks curiously.
“Personally? Not quite, but close. The offer we’ve just had for the company was for 3.2 billion dollars.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
With some surprise, I realize I’m telling her details I wouldn’t normally share outside the boardroom. I already trust her.
“Caesar said it’s difficult to weed out the fortune hunters,” she says. “So it’s important that you know I don’t want your money.”
“That’s why you want the clause in the contract?”
“Partly, yes.”
“You were thinking of me.” I smirk. “I’m touched.”
“Oh stop it. It was mainly a self-protection thing.”
“No, I think you were putting me first, and that’s just adorable.”
