My Billionaire Husband Signed Away My Street novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nine A.M.

Pen sets her own terms and marries the surveyor at the clerk's office with a brass washer for a ring, then kisses him in front of her stepfamily when they come to stop it.

He was waiting on the courthouse steps at ten to nine, holding two coffees and a paper bag.

He had traded the hi-vis vest for a gray jacket that fit him.

"I didn't know how you take it," Amory said.

"Black, and I'll take the bag."

The bag held two plain bagels and, at the bottom, a brass washer from a hardware store.

"For the ring," he said.

"It was this or a pull tab."

"The washer is better," I said, and meant it.

I had not slept.

I had spent the night at Gran's kitchen table with the listing agreement and the will.

I read them until the words stopped being words.

The amendment was real, and so was the sixty days.

The listing agreement was real too, and it was dated the day before Gran died.

That meant Maribeth had decided to sell my grandmother's house before my grandmother was gone.

Inside the clerk's office a woman in a cardigan took our licenses and our forms.

A judge in a hallway signed the waiver without looking up.

"Names?" the clerk said.

"Pen Haskell," I said.

"Amory Bexley."

She typed it without a flicker.

We stood in front of a flag and a bowl of mints.

The clerk read the words in a bored sing-song, and I answered when I was supposed to.

When she said "husband" and "wife," Amory's hand tightened on mine for half a second.

His palm was dry, and his thumb stayed where it had landed.

I slid the brass washer onto his finger.

It stuck at the knuckle, so he pushed it the rest of the way himself, quietly.

"You may now sign," the clerk said.

"No kiss?" Amory said.

"Not on my shift."

I laughed, a real one, and it surprised both of us.

We were reaching for the pen when the doors banged open.

"Stop this!" Maribeth shouted.

She came down the corridor in a lilac suit with Chelsea behind her, Dwight behind Chelsea, and a man in a tie carrying a briefcase.

"This is a fraud on the estate," Maribeth announced to the whole office.

"She's marrying a stranger off a street corner to steal her grandmother's house!"

The clerk looked up, mildly interested.

"Ma'am, this is a municipal office."

"I'm the executor!"

"Then you can wait your turn," the clerk said, and went back to her form.

Dwight stepped close to Amory and looked him up and down.

He took in the borrowed jacket, the brass ring, the paper coffee cup.

"Is this the guy with the tape measure?" he said, delighted.

"Pen, honey, you married the help."

Chelsea tittered into her hand.

"He's got a pencil behind his ear," she whispered, loudly.

Amory didn't say a word.

He only looked at Dwight with such mild interest that Dwight, I swear, took a step back.

Maribeth's lawyer cleared his throat and held out a stapled packet.

"Ms. Haskell, my client is prepared to contest the validity of this marriage as a sham entered into to satisfy a testamentary condition."

"Is that all one sentence?" I said.

"We will require proof of a genuine household," he went on.

"Cohabitation, shared expenses, the full year."

"Of course you will," I said.

"The clause says lawfully married and living in the house, and I plan to live in it."

I turned to Maribeth, and the corridor went quiet.

"I read the listing agreement," I said.

"You signed it the day before she died."

I had never seen her face go slack.

The color slid out of it from the forehead down, and for one second she looked her real age.

"That's a standard form," she said.

"Gran was alive, and in her own bed, and you were already pricing her house."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I read everything, Maribeth."

"Gran taught me."

Chelsea tugged her mother's sleeve and whispered something.

Dwight's eyes slid to the floor.

I turned back to my husband, which was a strange word to think.

If I was going to do this, I was going to do it in front of them.

I took the front of his borrowed jacket in both hands.

"Kiss me," I said.

"Is that a legal term?"

"It's an instruction, counselor."

Amory put one hand at the back of my neck, very lightly.

Then he kissed me.

It was slow, and it wasn't pretend.

His mouth was warm and certain.

When I made a sound against it, he drew me an inch closer.

My coffee cup crumpled between us, and neither of us cared.

Somebody behind us said "Oh my God."

Somebody else said nothing at all.

When he let me go, my knees had to be told.

He kept his hand at my back and turned to my stepfamily.

"Mrs. Bexley is going to be late for work," he said politely.

"Excuse us."

Maribeth's lawyer was already pulling out his phone.

By the time we reached the steps, mine buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

"Inspection of the household at 9 Orchard Row, Friday, 10 a.m. Please confirm your husband's presence."

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