Chapter 6: Rule Three

“Married,” Zola said, with a spoonful of ice cream stopped halfway to her mouth. “To the earring man.”

“It would be a contract, one year, no feelings,” I said, curling up on the other end of the couch.

“Mina, I love you, but that is the plot of every book I have ever pretended to hate,” Zola said.

“He wants to protect the baby, and he wants to shut Dean up, and I think he is scared,” I said.

“Billionaires are not scared, they have people for that,” Zola said.

“He told me himself, he said he is very good at looking bored,” I said.

“That is the most attractive thing a man has ever said and I hate that I just said that, ignore me,” Zola said.

“He told me not to tell anyone, but you already know everything, so I am telling you,” I said.

“Good, because I am the best secret keeper you have ever met, and I have already planned the baby shower in my head,” Zola said.

“Zola, I am serious, I have never lived with anyone who was not pretending,” I said.

“Then you will find out, and if he is awful you come to my apartment, I have a couch and a very loud personality,” Zola said.

My phone buzzed on the cushion between us, and the message was from Dean. Tomorrow is Friday, tick tock, babe.

“Go,” Zola said, reading it over my shoulder. “Go tomorrow, sign whatever the man wants, and wear something that is not gray.”

“I do not own anything that is not gray,” I said.

“I will fix that,” Zola said.

~~~

“I read it twice, I have notes,” I said the next morning, dropping into the chair across from Kade’s desk with the contract in my hand and my sweater pulled down over my wrists.

“I expected nothing less,” Kade said, not looking up from his screen, though the corner of his mouth moved.

The door opened, and Tamsin walked in on her high heels with a leather folder against her chest.

“Your contract, as you instructed, though I never imagined you would choose someone so,” she paused, and her eyes went over my sweater, “practical.”

“That will be all, Tamsin,” Kade said.

“Of course, Kade,” she said, and she let her eyes rest on me a second too long before she left.

“Does she not like me?” I asked.

“She does not like anyone who sits in that chair, ignore her,” Kade said, and he flipped open the first page. “Rule one, separate bedrooms, you take the east wing, it has a balcony and a view.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Rule two, public affection only, hand holding at dinners, a kiss on the cheek at weddings, nothing behind closed doors,” Kade said. “Rule three, no feelings.”

“Why did you add rule three?” I asked.

“Because you are the one with a history of giving too much,” Kade said, and my throat tightened. “I read your file, Hale, I did not mean it as an insult.”

“Then how did you mean it?” I asked.

“As a warning, to both of us,” he said quietly.

For a second neither of us spoke, and I looked down at the page so he would not see my face.

“I have rules of my own,” I said.

“I figured, go ahead,” Kade said, leaning back.

“I keep Hale Living and I run it, you do not touch it unless I ask, nobody tells me what to wear, and my friend Zola can visit whenever she wants,” I said.

“Zola, the one who gave you two thumbs up across the club?” Kade asked. “I thought she was a bodyguard.”

“She is better than a bodyguard, she is a best friend, and she screams more,” I said.

“Fine, I accept your rules, and I have one more,” Kade said. “On Sunday you meet my mother, she will be charming and then she will try to destroy you, and after that you have dinner with my grandmother, who frightens me more than my mother does.”

“I have faced a bank, a board, and my father, I can handle a grandmother,” I said.

“Nana Rose once made a senator cry at a funeral,” Kade said.

“Then I will bring tissues,” I said, and he laughed, a short, real laugh, and I felt it all the way down to my shoes.

“Sign here, here, and initial the last page,” Kade said, sliding a pen across the desk.

My hand shook so badly that the pen hit the paper twice before it made a mark, and Kade reached across and covered my fingers with his own, warm and steady.

“Breathe, Red,” he said.

“Do not call me that in daylight, it makes me forget the rules,” I said.

“Then I will say it only when we are alone,” Kade said, and he did not let go of my hand, and I did not pull it away, and he was close enough that I could see the little scar in his eyebrow and the dark ring around his eyes.

“Rule three,” I whispered.

“I know, I wrote it,” he said, but his eyes dropped to my mouth anyway, and for three long seconds neither of us moved.

Then he cleared his throat and sat back, and I signed my name, Mina Hale, in handwriting that looked like someone else’s.

“Collateral, returned as promised,” Kade said, and he took the silver earring from his jacket pocket and put it in my palm.

“Thank you,” I said, closing my fingers around it.

“Welcome to the family, Mrs. Voss, or you will be, in a week,” Kade said.

My phone buzzed in my bag, and I took it out with a laugh still on my lips, and the laugh died.

An unknown number had sent a photo, and the photo showed me outside the pharmacy three days ago, with my hood up, while Zola held a plastic bag with five pregnancy test boxes sticking out of the top.

Underneath it was a single line. Five tests, Mina? Whose is it, mine or his?

“What is it?” Kade asked.

I held up the screen with a hand that would not stay still, and his face went cold, and he looked at the photo, then at the date, then at me.

“Who knew you went to that pharmacy?” Kade asked.

“Nobody, only Zola, and me,” I whispered.

“Then someone has been following you,” Kade said.