The Contract by Sandy Holden Page B

“The key to your heart, right?” I opened the box expecting to see some ice—a necklace or whatever the stylish mistress is wearing this year—but it was most definitely a wedding set.  “What the fuck?”
    Cray said calmly, “And you wonder why I adore you.”
    “What the holy pig-flipping hell am I supposed to do with this?”
    “Put on the engagement ring.  You can throw the party you want-big, small, I don’t care.”
    Just to see how it looked I slipped on the ring.  “Three carats?”
    “Yes, I remember you being quoted in some magazine that anything over three is just ostentatious.”
    “Mmm.  I like it.”
    “Then why do you look like the cat who swallowed the canary?”  He sounded suspicious. I pulled the ring off and looked at it.  Debts? Gone.  The shunning by the girls? Way gone.  I could live my life like I always had.  Slowly I put the rings back and shut the case.
    “You told me once I never think more than two steps from where I was going. Maybe this is a good time to start.  Give me three months to regain my place in society…and you can uh…” I dropped my voice, afraid of what he would say.
    “Well?” he said slowly.
    “You can woo me.”
    He raised his brows. “I already have you. And frankly, no matter what kind of deal we hammer out, I will not let you go.  I made myself the only choice once and I can do it again.  I know I said I’d let you go, but I lied.”
    I threw back my head and laughed.  That sort of honesty was rare.  A little scary, but rare. “You have me all right.”  Wife?  Me?  This was going to be interesting.  I began to plan.
    Cray still held the box.  He opened it and took out the engagement ring that had cost a small fortune. “Do you want this?”
    I glanced back, “Oh yeah.”  She put out her arm out and Cray put the ring on.  “So Cray.  What do you know about weddings?
    “Almost nothing.  I’ll let you deal with it.”  Cray said with an expectant look on his face, “I considered getting nipple rings instead of rings for your finger but those are hard to show off.”
    That snapped my head up.  “You mean like pierced?  Ouch!”
    “Don’t be such a baby,” he said as I crawled into his lap.
    “You know, men can get pierced too.”  He stopped the rest of my statement with a long, achingly sweet kiss.  I smoothed back his hair. “You know, no one has ever cared about me like you do.  I love you, you know.  I think I fell in love with you when you said you’d give me that pill again but you didn’t like watching me struggle so much.  That’s when I knew you’d never really hurt me—not really.
    “Of course I wouldn’t.
    “I bet my parents hate your bossy ass.”
    Cray grinned.  “I’m pretty sure they are too afraid of me to actually hate me.  Want to call them and let them know I’m making an honest woman out of you?”
    I thought about that.  Even though Cray had threatened them, they should have at least told me what was happening.  I don’t know if I would have gone to Cray as a sacrifice, but I might have if I’d known it was only a matter of months.
    Cray must have noticed my silence.  “What are you thinking?”
    I looked over at him.  This was such a change I wasn’t sure how to act.  “My parents—was it difficult to convince them to cut me off?”
    Cray shook his head.
    “And that means what?  That you don’t like the question?  Or is it that I shouldn’t question you at all?  Lord knows I’ve been told that before.”
    Cray gave me a thoughtful look.  “You’re angry at them.”
    “Yeah, Einstein, I am.”
    A slight frown crossed his face due, I think, to my bitchy tone.  “Yet you aren’t mad at me?”
    I looked down at my hand with the ring on it.  “No, oddly enough, I’m not.  Can you answer my question?  About my parents?”
    He said slowly, “They accepted my orders quite easily.  More easily than I thought they should have.”
    I sighed gustily.