Madison frowned. “Yvonne, what’s going on? Is everything all right with you? Are you having some kind of crisis?”

“Christ, Madison, you think it’s more likely that I’m going crazy than that I genuinely got married?”

“You have to admit, this is completely out of character for you. And you seemed a little off while we were in Vegas.”

“I assure you, I’m not having some kind of breakdown.” Yvonne paused. She’d been planning to maintain the marriage ruse with everyone, including Madison. She didn’t like the idea of lying to her friends, but the ends justified the means. She needed the world to believe her marriage to Ruby was real.

But as she faced her closest friend, Yvonne found she just couldn’t lie.

“Look, if I tell you the truth, you can’t tell anyone else,” Yvonne said.

“Yvonne, we’ve known each other since we were teenagers,” Madison said. “You know you can trust me.”

“Then promise me that you won’t tell anyone, no matter what.”

“All right. I won’t tell a soul.”

Yvonne gathered her thoughts. “When my father died, he left me an inheritance.”

“He did? You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“Because I was never able to claim it. It came with strings. The biggest one being, I need to be married within ten years of my father’s death in order to claim it, otherwise it all goes to Nicholas. It’s been almost ten years since he died.”

“That’s why you got married?” Madison asked. “For the money?”

Yvonne nodded.

“Are you having financial problems? You know you could have asked me for help. I can lend you something. Or you could ask Amber if you need something more substantial. She’d help you out in a heartbeat.”

Yvonne shook her head. It had occurred to her to ask one of her friends for a loan, but she hated asking anyone for help. “I don’t need the money. I could really use it, that’s all. At the moment, all my money is tied up. I have my eye on some investments. I simply need some capital for it.”

The truth was, her current financial situation wasn’t great. She’d made some risky investments in the past year that hadn’t panned out as she’d predicted. She was far from bankrupt, and she had plenty of money invested, but they were the kind of investments that paid off in the long term and couldn’t simply be withdrawn on a whim. She didn’t have much liquid capital right now.

Which wouldn’t have been a problem if she only had herself to worry about.

Madison raised an eyebrow. “You decided to marry a woman you met in Vegas for money for investments?”

“The marriage is only temporary,” Yvonne said. “We only need to stay married for a year for me to get the money. It’s not a big deal. It isn’t like I’m going to get married for real any time soon.” Yvonne didn’t have room in her life for romance. “Ruby is on the same page about our arrangement. It’s purely business. She pretends to be my wife for a year, I give her a small part of my inheritance. It’s the perfect solution to my problem.”