Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Elliot was not stupid, and I knew he’d read enough to know what the papers were. “This is my offer.” I motioned to the paper. “To become a silent investor in Shaw Shack and the fishing business.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Although my equity would be miniscule, and I’d like to put the rest in Clara’s name, which might require a change in signage to add ‘daughter’ to the back of the boat.”
Shaw, Sons and Daughter was kind of wordy, but who gave a fuck. Girls needed to be on signage too.
Elliot was silent, staring at the papers with an expression I couldn’t decipher. It was terrifying to not see his feelings plain on his face.
I’d known Elliot was different, but there was only so far even a modern man could stretch when it came to their nature. He wanted to protect, provide, rescue … all that shit. And this contract was me essentially taking his balls from him. Since I was doing the rescuing, in the fiscal sense, at least. It would make him feel small, like a failure.
He huffed out a breath, put the papers on the coffee table, and laid his readers on top of them before turning to face me with that terrible blank expression.
“I have plenty of money,” I blurted even though I’d promised myself I’d stay silent, vowing to let him have whatever reaction instead of explaining myself, trying to stroke his ego.
“Ridiculous amounts of it,” I continued. “It’s uncouth to talk about, but people would use a lot of words to describe me, and couth would not be one of them. More than likely, they’d use a four-letter word beginning with the same letter.”
Elliot did not crack a smile at my poor joke. I could barely hold it together. Elliot, my expressive Elliot, didn’t even give me a hint as to what he was feeling. It had me in freefall.
“The money I have, I earned it by not so honest means.” Ashamed, I lowered my voice. I hadn’t admitted the breadth of my sins to Elliot, not yet. And he hadn’t pressed, but I was going to give him the truth so he could refuse it if he wanted. “Legally, technically. But it would make me feel better, good even, to put it toward something wholly good. It’s selfish, really.”
Shut up, I told myself.
My lips glued shut, and I tried to remember how I’d kept my composure in front of rooms full of men without so much as breaking a sweat.
“There’s something wrong with that,” Elliot finally spoke, tapping his long fingers on the paper.
His voice was deep, without lightness or teasing.
I braced myself. For the explosion of anger that was surely coming from a wounded male pride.
I braced myself for Elliot to show me he was just like other men, validating what I’d been bracing for all this time, unable to accept that he was as good as he seemed.
“Your percentage,” he cleared his throat. “It’s too low.” He grasped my hips and pulled me to sit on his lap.
I was so surprised, I moved on autopilot, relief flooding through me at the contact, at the pressure on my hips from his hands. I was supposed to be preparing myself to push him away and I’d been a wreck for the minute he didn’t touch me. I was screwed.
“My percentage is not too low,” I scoffed. “I’m not taking an ounce of ownership away from your family. I didn’t build it. It’s not mine.”
That was important to me. For legal reasons, and in the act of protecting all egos involved in the transaction, I’d given myself a percentage so on paper, it would be an investment instead of charity.
But there was no way I’d keep even a decimal point of something that had been in their family, a legacy I hoped would last long after I was gone.
Elliot’s eyes turned stormy. He reached out to grasp my neck, clutching it tightly.
“Your family,” he corrected in a stern voice. “It’s yours now too. If it’s time for proposals, I’d like to make one too, though I doubt I could afford the type of diamond that you’d be worthy of.”
I wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t be.
“And there’s the matter that I doubt you’d be amenable to engaging in any kind of mainstream ceremony rooted in women being used as pawns to solidify business deals and property arrangements.” He stroked my jaw, the steeliness in his voice gone.
I knew I was breathing because I didn’t pass out, but my lungs still burned from lack of oxygen.
I didn’t speak because if I did, I was terrified that I’d do something like say yes to his almost, kind of proposal.
“But…” he added after an indeterminate amount of time. “I’m not going to try to scare you away by pushing the issue.” He tenderly smoothed a knuckle down my neck, not knowing that the thought of a proposal wasn’t scaring me away. It was doing something worse, pulling me closer.