I Didn't Marry Him, I Married The One He Hated novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Marry Me

Linnea catches the stepbrother Trevor hates in the parking lot and proposes a one-year marriage on terms; Trevor catches her sleeve and tells her to ask what Magnus did to Shelby's face.

I followed him out to the parking lot.

I didn't plan it.

My feet went after the blue folder, and the rest of me caught up on the stairs.

He was unlocking a flatbed truck with EKDAHL BOATWORKS lettered on the door when I reached him.

"Excuse me," I said. "You're Trevor's brother."

"Stepbrother." He didn't turn around. "He'd want that corrected."

"He's going to tell me what you are."

"He'll say I'm a convict." He faced me then, and his eyes were pale and tired. "He wouldn't be lying."

I had expected a lot of things.

I had not expected him to say it first.

"Why are you carrying a marriage license application?" I asked.

He looked down at the folder.

"My father's will," he said. "The yard's anniversary party is October eleventh. If I'm married by then, the last ten percent of the shares comes to me. If I'm not, my stepmother can vote it to the highest bidder."

"Trevor's mother."

"Yes."

"And Trevor wants the yard."

"Trevor wants whatever I'm standing next to."

I leaned against the side of his truck.

My hands were still shaking, so I pushed them into my coat pockets.

"You made an appointment," I said. "But you don't have anyone."

"I made it so I'd have to find someone." He shrugged. "It's been thirty-eight days of looking at the wall."

Behind us, the glass doors of the county building slid open.

Trevor came out with Shelby at his elbow and the two friends behind them.

He saw me and raised a hand.

"Linnea!" he called. "Come on, babe, you can't be serious!"

I did not move.

Magnus watched him come across the lot.

His face did not change.

"I'll go," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about the paper. I saw some of it through the glass."

"Marry me," I said.

He stopped with the truck door half open.

"What?"

"You need a wife by October eleventh. I need my name off his loan, and I need him to watch."

"Miss Nygren."

"You know my name."

"It was on the appointment sheet in front of his." He rubbed his jaw. "Linnea. You're angry. You'll feel different tonight."

"I felt different for four years," I said. "It was worse."

Trevor was thirty feet away now.

Shelby had a hand on his sleeve, and she was talking fast.

I kept my eyes on Magnus.

"I can be a good wife for a year," I said. "In public, at dinners, at the party. I can say whatever your stepmother needs to hear. You pay off the loan, and at the end we sign the papers and nobody owes anybody."

"One year," he said slowly.

"One year."

"Separate rooms."

"Obviously."

"And when no one's looking, you don't touch me." He said it flatly. "It's not about you. It's easier."

"Fine."

"You keep your own name at work. You keep your own money."

"Done."

"And I don't touch Trevor's loan until you tell me the number."

"That's my number to tell," I said. "Sixty thousand dollars."

He let out a short breath.

It was the closest thing to a laugh I had heard from him.

"That's a lot of boat," he said.

"It's a lot of Trevor."

"Linnea!" Trevor was right behind me now. "Whatever he's telling you, he's lying. He always lies. Don't get in that truck."

I did not get in the truck.

I turned around.

Trevor stood in front of me, red in the face, with his hand held out for mine.

Behind him Shelby watched with her lips pressed together and her hair pulled forward over the left side of her face.

"Let's go home," Trevor said. "We'll fix the paper. We'll do it Friday."

"No, Trevor."

"Babe."

"I'm not going home with you."

"Where are you going to go?" He laughed, but it came out thin. "You've got nowhere."

Magnus came around the truck and stood beside me.

He did not touch me.

He just stood there, taller than all of them, with the blue folder at his side.

"She has somewhere," he said.

Trevor stared at him.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

I saw Trevor's eyes go to the folder, and read the tab, and look up at me.

"No," he said. "No, you wouldn't."

"Friday," Magnus said to me, not to him. "Nine in the morning, same counter. Bring your passport."

"What about my birth certificate?"

"The clerk upstairs can print a certified copy while you wait, if you stand there with photo ID and ask her." He opened the truck door the rest of the way. "Nobody told you that, did they?"

I looked at Trevor.

He looked away.

"Friday," I said.

He got in the truck and drove away without looking at any of them.

Trevor caught my sleeve.

His voice had dropped so Shelby and the others couldn't hear.

"He's marrying you to get at me," he said. "Ask him what he did to Shelby's face."

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