He made a face like he’d bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. “Brooke, I—”
“You don’t have to promise to marry her. Just give her a chance.”
“I would, but I’m not going to be on the show.”
“You’re not? But I saw you on the preview at the end of the last season.”
“You heard my story.” His eyes became narrow slits. “You understand why I can never get married. No offense, but I don’t trust women. I’ll never be able to, unless I get some answers from my birth mother.”
Only her training kept her from blurting out, “That’s dumb to judge all women by the actions of one.” She knew that every person’s perspectives were colored by their own experiences. And the more traumatic the experience, the more likely it would affect everything else a person perceived. Hadn’t she already decided she would never trust another man?
“If that’s how you feel, why let people believe you’re going to be on the show?” she asked before shoving another handful of cereal into her mouth.
“It’s a long story.” His gaze went to the ceiling. “Basically, someone goaded me into it, and I was rash enough to sign a contract without reading it. I’m serious about avoiding marriage, so I have a one-date-per-woman policy. I thought I would be the show’s lone rebel bachelor, who rejected every prospect. Didn’t know the contract specified a huge financial penalty if I don’t marry one of them.”
“I have an idea.” Brooke sat up straight, excited by her plan. “Hear me out. You could get my sister on the show and choose her at the end. Except the two of you could have a private contract that says the marriage isn’t real and is going to end on such-and-such date.”
“To fulfill the contract, we’d have to live together and that’s not happening.”
“Cole…” She made her voice gentle. “I honestly think you might have a chance to heal with my sister. Harper is the kindest soul you’ll ever meet. She’s probably taken in a dozen stray pets. Who knows? If you live with her for a couple of months, you might decide you trust her enough for a real marriage.”
She took a sip of water, watching his reactions. His fingers stroked his broad jaw, shadowed with the day’s growth of beard, and her hopes sprang to the surface. He was actually considering the idea. All her sister would have to do was postpone her senior year of vet school. Surely that was a possibility.
Cole’s contemplative expression morphed into a smug grin.
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“You do?” Brooke was already anticipating giving Harper the news. She would have to record the phone call, somehow. This was going to be epic! She took another sip of water.
“Except, instead of your sister, it should be you.”
She sucked in a stunned breath, and the water in her mouth went with it. A choke turned into a gag. Seconds later, she was racing for the bathroom, her stomach heaving.
CHAPTER 5
“Let me get this straight.” Garner took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose, his elbows resting on the gleaming mahogany desktop. “You asked a woman to marry you, hoping to get her on the show as one of the contestants, and now you want me to draw up a prenuptial agreement?”
“I just want to know if it violates the contract. I still have to talk her into it,” Cole said as he paced in front of the desk, irritated at the previous evening’s end.
“You mean she turned you down?”
“She did, but I’m sure she didn’t mean it. Puking up Cheerios put her in a bad mood.”
Garner’s forehead wrinkled in question, but he muttered, “I’m not even going to ask.”
“I’m positive I can persuade the producer to include Brooke in the show. Alice owes me that much, after she tricked me into signing on the dotted line.”
“From what I remember, it might break the contract to enter into a separate legal arrangement with one of the female contestants.” Garner retrieved his glasses and thumbed through the twenty-something-page document on his desk, yellow highlights and red-inked notes littering every page. His finger landed on one particularly colorful spot. “Yes, I was right. And the contract definitely states you can’t specify an end to the marriage in your official prenup. The courts would frown on that, anyway.”
Cole leaned over the desk and glared at the upside-down document, tempted to light a match to it. He was running out of time and options. He had to make this plan work. Otherwise, he had no choice but to pay the million-dollar penalty to back out of the show. There was no one to blame but himself. He’d made an expensive mistake, disregarding the lesson he’d learned long ago, never to trust anyone who hadn’t proven himself.
“But what if we had a secret prenuptial agreement?”
“Too risky. One slip of the tongue, and you’d be in breach of contract.” Glasses off again, Garner pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, I didn’t have a single gray hair until I started working for you.”
Cole chuckled as he sank into one of two chairs facing the desk. His attorney sported the same premature white hair he’d had six years ago when Cole had hired him.
“I don’t think you can blame that hair on me.”
“You’re right. My father gets credit for it.” Garner leaned back in his chair, an enigmatic smile on his face. “But I want to be frank, Cole. I’m worried about you.”
“There’s no need to worry. This mistake isn’t going to break me. I’d just prefer not to lose a million dollars.”
“It’s not the money. You’ve always been the type who examined every possible outcome before choosing a course of action. You were meticulous to a fault. What happened to make you so careless?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, myself.” Cole gripped the arms of the chair. “Trying to track down my birth mother has thrown me off my game. The closer we got, the more distracted I was. The day I signed that contract with Millionaire Matchup was the day you gave me the news about Hayward Home.”
Garner’s dark eyebrows arched high on his forehead, contrasting against his white hair. “I shouldn’t have told you until I knew we could access the information we needed. They still claim the existing records were lost between the time the old agency shut down and when it reopened with a new name.”
“I don’t believe that,” Cole said, his throat strained.
“Neither do I. But the claim makes it virtually impossible to force their hand. We’re beating a dead horse.” Garner’s expression softened. “I think we have to let it go, for now, and hope you get a lead from one of the DNA sites.”
Cole still didn’t mention Brooke’s connection to Hayward Home. After spending time with her, he felt guilty that he’d initially pursued her simply to gain information. Last night, she’d included that as one of several reasons she refused to marry him. He wanted to believe his motives were more altruistic now. But were they? Not that it mattered, since Garner had shot down his idea.
“There’s really no way out of this idiotic TV show without paying them off?”
