Page 37 of Earned Husband

“Should I have lied?”

“No. It’s just not often that people tell the truth about that kind of thing so easily.”

I wandered over to look at the family pictures on the walls and the spines of the many books on his shelves. When I spotted the golf magazines on his coffee table, I smiled and looked back up at him.

“Has your father spoken to you?” he asked.

I frowned. “Spoken to me about what?”

Colin sighed, gripping the top of an armchair he was standing behind. “The merger between GlobalStar and Thayer Steelworks is actively in the works. Thayer will be acting as a parent-partner for White Water Lily’s labs in the States, but it’ll take about a year to get it all off the ground. The fine-tuning will begin this fall.”

He started to step toward me but then stopped. “Thayer will be expanding our operations into Africa.”

My heart skipped about a million beats. It was great news, but Colin still seemed unsure, gripping the chair like he was going to fall over without it. Despite being over the moon about this news, I ignored the urge to ask him to tell me everything.

“Are you okay?” I asked instead, sweeping my gaze across his chiseled features and realizing he was pale again.

To his credit, he looked me right in the eyes when he answered my question. “Your father would like for us to get married to seal the deal. As far as he’s concerned, it’s already set in stone.”

I chuckled but only until I realized how serious he was. My eyelids slammed shut and my heart started pounding as I tried to absorb that my suspicions had just turned into fact.

“I wasn’t sure Basel was going to tell you right away, but I wanted to talk to you about it in person before I agree to his terms.”

His terms? I could only assume it had to do with my dowry and the weighty expectations an Egyptian engagement brought. Either that, or it was related to business.

As things were, however, Colin didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask. Right now, my father’s terms were the least of my worries.

“At the moment, the plan is that I’ll be coming to Egypt in a month,” he said. “After that, I’ll stay for a few more months, but only if you actually want to marry me.”

I blinked hard.

Arranged marriages weren’t unheard of where I was from. We’d even had several in my own family, but to my knowledge, it wasn’t the kind of thing that was usually left up to choice.

Yet, Colin wasn’t pushy about it. It didn’t even sound like he was expecting me to say yes. What he was really saying was that for the next month, while we were across an ocean from each other, I had time to decide. To really think it through.

“What about you?” I asked. “Have you decided yet?”

“I have.” He gave me a faint smile, but it seemed heavy too. His knuckles were white on the chair and his pallor was off. “Just because I’ve made my decision doesn’t mean you have to rush yours.”

“Will we talk?” I asked. “Over the next month, I mean?”

Colin held my gaze. “We could. If you want to, we could set up a schedule to?—”

“No,” I said quickly, making a decision right there on the spot. “Can I write you letters instead of communicating through calls or texts?”

He cocked his head, a much brighter smile appearing on his lips as he nodded. “Sure, but why?”

I shrugged. “It’s what my dad did when he was courting my mom. Besides, there’s just something different about the written word, isn’t there? And I don’t mean a text. A letter is in a league all of its own.”

For a moment, as I looked back at him, it felt like we were right back in that single day we’d spent together, or back in our own little bubble at brunch when it’d just been us. Despite thebarrage of noise and conversation, Colin had managed to make me feel seen and safe, and he was doing the same thing right now.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’d like that, actually. You know my address now. You’ll just have to give me yours.”

CHAPTER 17

COLIN

Afew days after Deja had left, I was at the conference table in my office, directing some key members of our upper management team on the next steps for the GlobalStar deal. When it came to fitting their operations into one of the dozens of manufacturing facilities we owned, there was a lot of financial information we would have to hand over, but it needed to be fleshed out first.