As the lady drove away, Sarah gazed across the street at me. When our eyes met, I felt a thrill like I hadn't felt since my very first crush in the sixth grade.
Thank God she'd be my fake wife and not some psycho like Rosa.
“Asher, damn it!”
“What?” I shook my head and tried to ignore the erection tenting my pants. “Hurry up. It's freezing out here.”
“You only just now noticed? Such a dunce.” She stuck out her tongue. “If you're really going to go forward with this sham of a marriage, you'd better move fast. Mom will go bonkers if you don't give her enough time to plan the wedding.”
“It's not going to be some big ordeal. I know she loves her parties, but no need for an elaborate ceremony.”
Macy shook her head. She was scatterbrained much of the time, but she'd really thought this one through.
“If you tell her that, the whole family will be suspicious. After all, if you love this woman so much you'd marry her, why not have a wedding with all the bells and whistles?”
I frankly didn't care what the marriage looked like to outsiders. Only thing that mattered was keeping dad's hands off my property.
Then again, did I really want to give the old man any reason to ruin things for me?
“Play this one carefully,” Macy warned as she slid into her car and jacked up the heat. “Dad has his eye on you.”
Nothing better to do than stick his nose in my business, I guess.
Macy drove away, and I turned my attention back to Hazel's Curiosities. Sarah had gone back inside and seemed to be having a serious discussion with Lana.
“And we'll build the food court right over there.”
“Oh, yes. Excellent decision, Mr. Carrington.”
Around the corner came dad himself, along with some guy who feverishly wrote down everything he said.
What was the asshole doing here? Already making plans to tear up Slicker Image, apparently. Well, I had bad news for him.
“Hello, dad,” I growled. “Funny seeing you here. I do believe there's three weeks left until Christmas.”
He clapped his companion on the back and strode over to me, looking cocky as ever.
“Seeing as you're still a bachelor – and single, from the look of things – I figured it's best to start making arrangements for my Galleria now.”
“I won't be single for much longer.”
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy wiping the smug look right off his face.
“Oh, is that so? Hiring someone to pose as your girlfriend, are you?” He chuckled. “That will only go so far. I imagine it will be quite tricky convincing them to marry you.”
Macy told me to play this cool, but how could I when he stood here in the parking lot of my own business, making a mockery of me?
“I'm not hiring anybody. Sarah Masters is going to be my bride.”
For a moment, he was shell-shocked. Then he laughed.
“Ah. Now I get it. You think you'll marry her to fulfill the contract.” He clucked his tongue. “You certainly are as shrewd as your father, I'll give you that.”
“Strange. I thought you'd be a lot more bothered by this. I'm squashing your mall-building plans, am I not?”
He ignored me, as was typical, and began looking at something on his phone. Then he pushed the glowing screen in my face, showing me a copy of the contract I had become all too familiar with these days.
“There's one key word you seem to have glossed over,” he said, licking his lips like a vulture about to swoop upon its prey. “Have a gander at that third sentence, would you?”
I was sure he had some trickery up his dirty sleeve, but I was too tired of arguing with him to fight about it.
“The marriage must be a legitimate one, to be accepted or denied as by Heath Carrington the Third.” I rolled the words around in my head a couple of times, then it struck me.
That bastard had worked an escape clause into the contract! Yeah, I had read it over and over again, but somehow, all the legalese flew over my head.
“This isn't fair,” I blurted. “It wouldn't matter who the hell I married if you didn't approve of them, whatever that's supposed to mean. You could deny the greatest woman in the world because you didn't like the color of her hair or some nonsense.”
He pretended that I had offended him. “Don't be preposterous, son. I may be a cutthroat businessman, but I would never do something so unfair to my own child. You see, I want you to succeed.”
“All you want is to find a way to legally kick me out, just so you can flood the town with another soulless shopping mall.”
He put his arm around me as he strode back to his car. “I won't say that I'm not eager to move in here – but if you were to fulfill the contract, I would gladly concede to you.”
“Bullshit.”
“The purpose of this contract was so you'd take life seriously for once.” His expression became grim. “I knew you'd attempt to take the easy way out. Try to scam me by whipping up some fake shotgun wedding. But your mother and I wish for you to find a real wife, not just some poor girl you paid to help you out.”
How did he know what I'd been planning? It was like the sneaky bastard had been reading my mind. Should have figured pulling this over on him wouldn't be that easy.
“As I said, that won't be a problem.” I gestured to Sarah across the way. “I will have a real wife – in time for your contract to become null and
