My Double Proxy Marriage to a Billionaire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Seconds

Tilly makes Anders test the texter live and the answer comes in four seconds; her stepsister Blair writes from her own number to say the husband is hers on Saturday.

"I don't have your number," I said. "I've never had your number."

"Then you won't mind my asking how you got my building."

"My father gave me an address and a time."

"Convenient."

"It's an address," I said. "It isn't a plot."

Greta had lowered herself into a chair at the head of the table with both hands on her cane.

She was watching us.

The lawyer had found something fascinating to look at on his legal pad.

"Let's settle it," I said. "Text her."

Anders didn't move.

"Right now. Ask her something. If she's me, my phone will buzz in my pocket. It won't."

"Or you have a partner," he said evenly. "Someone with a phone downstairs, waiting for a signal."

"Then ask her something where nobody could be waiting."

I took a step toward the glass table, and for the first time his eyes flicked to my boots.

He picked up the phone with a look that said he was humoring a child.

He typed with one thumb.

"What did you have for breakfast?"

He pressed send.

I counted in my head, because counting is what I do when an engine is about to turn over.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The phone buzzed in his hand.

He read it, and something in his shoulders eased, just slightly, like a man who's been handed his own coat.

He turned the phone toward me.

"Still in bed," it said. "Thinking about you. Is it terrible that I'm lazy on a Monday?"

My own phone had not made a sound.

"Four seconds," I said.

"She replies quickly. She says I'm the only person she leaves her phone on for."

"It's ten forty in the morning. Where is she in bed?"

"She's shy. She told me in July she had a bad flu and I shouldn't worry about her voice."

"A flu that lasts since July."

"She's recovering."

"And she's never called you."

His jaw moved.

"She prefers to write."

"She's never sent a picture."

"She said she'd rather be met than seen."

"She's never asked to meet your grandmother."

That one landed somewhere.

I saw it go in.

Greta said nothing at all, but she lifted one painted eyebrow and let it sit there.

"Ask her to come up," I said. "Ask her to come up here and meet you now. It's the fifty-second floor. It's a nice room."

"You don't tell me what to ask my wife."

"I'm not asking you to trust me," I said. "I'm asking you to run a test. You do it for engines, I'd bet."

I think the corner of his mouth almost moved.

He typed again and read it aloud as he did.

"Come up to the tower. Fifty-second floor. I'm waiting."

Send.

Four seconds.

He read the reply and said nothing for a moment.

Then he said it anyway, in the flat voice of a man reading a line he already dislikes.

"Not yet, husband. Saturday week. I want it perfect."

"Saturday week," I said.

"The Regatta Ball. She knows I'll be there. She wants to meet me there."

"In front of three hundred people."

"It's a gesture."

"It's a hiding place," I said.

The lawyer coughed into his fist.

"Mr. Engdahl, if I may, the certificate is in order. The marriage is valid."

"Thank you," Anders said, and the lawyer stopped.

He still hadn't taken his eyes off me.

"You have a very good story," he said. "I'll give you that."

"I don't have a story. I've got a pocket full of forged paper and a pair of boots that cost me a month's pay."

"Then you'll understand if I ask my security team to see you downstairs."

"Anders."

Greta hadn't raised her voice.

She had simply said his name, and the room had gone quiet.

"Nobody is seeing this girl downstairs. She is coming to the house for dinner. Seven o'clock."

"Grandmother."

"Seven o'clock, Anders. And you will be civil."

"I'm always civil."

"You are always cold, which you mistake for civil."

She got up, tapped her cane once on the floor, and held out her arm to me.

I took it, because it was a very small arm and I didn't want to leave it hanging.

"I'll send the car," she said. "You'll eat something. You look like you haven't since Thursday."

"Mrs. Engdahl, I can't stay at your house."

"I'm not asking you to stay at the house," she said. "I'm asking you to eat in it."

In the elevator going down, alone, I leaned my forehead against the cold brass and shut my eyes.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

I took it out, expecting my father.

It was a name I'd known since I was eleven years old.

Blair.

Be a good sport, Til, the text said. One week. He's mine on Saturday.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend