My Twin Took My Husband. I Kept the Billions. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Hallie sets her terms with Giles Livingston in the hallway and he agrees too fast; Wayne then tells her Reese knew the plate on his truck.

My father took the signed contracts into his study to fax them to his lawyers, and he left me alone in the hall with my new husband-to-be.

Forty floors.

Only one person alive knew how tall my tower had been, and she had just whispered the number in my ear.

Reese remembered the first life too.

I put that away to think about later, because Giles Livingston was already speaking.

Giles Livingston leaned against the wall by a framed photo of the first Vanderberg hotel.

He still hadn't put his phone away.

"You added a sentence to a contract I'd already approved," he said.

"I did."

"Most people ask first."

"Most people want something different from the marriage than I do."

He looked at me for a moment.

"What do you want from it, Miss Vanderberg?"

"Two years, then a clean exit, and nothing of mine goes with you."

"That's already in the contract."

"Then we agree."

He didn't smile, but the corner of his mouth moved.

I had spent ten years learning to read men in rooms like this one.

This man was hard to read because he gave me nothing to read.

No flirting, no sizing me up, no polite lie.

He just waited.

"I have one more term," I said.

"Of course you do."

"I need a loan. Twelve million, secured against nothing, to buy one piece of land. I'll repay it with interest before the two years are up."

"What land?"

"I'm not telling you yet."

"You want twelve million dollars for a place you won't name."

"Yes."

I waited for him to laugh, or to ask my father, or to tell me a woman of twenty-four didn't walk into a hallway and ask a stranger for twelve million.

He said, "Fine."

"Fine?"

"You'll have it by Friday."

I stared at him.

Last time, I'd needed eight months and a bank officer who liked my face to raise a tenth of that.

"You're agreeing very fast," I said.

"You told me what you wanted and what you'd pay for it. I'm not going to make you argue for something I'm willing to give."

"Why?"

"Because a contract is only worth the person who signs it."

He said it so evenly that it took me a second to hear what it meant.

He had decided I was worth it, before I ever opened my mouth.

I didn't like how that made my chest feel.

"The land's not a gift," I said. "Don't expect anything for it."

"I don't."

"And don't touch me. Not in front of my father, not in private. It says separate bedrooms, and I'm holding you to that."

"I read it."

"Good."

"I'll keep my hands where you can see them, Miss Vanderberg."

He pushed off the wall.

He was taller than I remembered, and I didn't know why I thought I should remember him at all.

I had met Giles Livingston once in the first life, at a hotel gala, for four minutes.

He had told me my company's numbers were too good to be true, and then he had gone back to his table.

That was all.

So why was he watching me so carefully?

"Is there anything else?" he said.

"Yes. Put the phone away. You've been holding it for twenty minutes and you haven't looked at it once."

He glanced down at the black screen.

Then he slid it into his jacket pocket, unhurried, and said nothing.

I walked down the hall toward the front door to get air.

I needed a minute where nobody was watching my face.

The door to the porch stood half open.

Wayne was leaning on the railing, with his jacket over his arm and the sun on his sandy hair.

His truck sat at the bottom of the steps, a blue pickup with a cracked left taillight.

He turned when he heard me.

"Hallie, right?"

"Right."

"Look, I don't know what's going on in there." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I thought they were picking one of you. Nobody told me your sister would just, you know."

"Jump on you."

"Yeah." He laughed, short and uneasy.

It was the same laugh I used to love.

"I didn't ask for any of this," he said. "I came because your dad said it would save my father's land."

"I know."

"Do you? You seem to know a lot." He frowned, honestly puzzled. "That's what's weird. You've been looking at me like you know me."

"I don't."

"Okay. But your sister does."

My hand tightened on the doorframe.

"What do you mean?"

He pointed down the steps.

"When she hugged me, she whispered in my ear. She said my plate number, and she said to fix the taillight before somebody pulled me over."

He looked at me, and for the first time the charm was gone from his face.

"Hallie, how did your sister know what's wrong with my truck?"

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