“Anyway, after a few weeks of headlines, my grandfather and my dad called me in for a meeting. I thought we were discussing a business venture. They informed me that we were and then explained about wanting the merger to happen with your father’s company. Then they dropped the bomb that the merger would come with a hefty price tag. My freedom.” He laughed at that. “At first, I told them I wouldn’t do it. Then they gave me your information and told me to think on it. I was given three weeks to decide what I was going to do. Three freaking weeks to decide whether or not I was going to marry a complete stranger in order to secure a business deal.” He laughed again.

“Honestly, I thought they’d gone mad. I didn’t know that the board was threatening to vote against me taking over when my grandfather retired. They didn’t tell me that until later.”

“Okay, so what changed your mind then?”

“You did,” he said with such sincerity that I was taken aback.

“What do you mean, ‘I did’, I wasn’t even aware of the deal then.”

“No, you weren’t. Since I had your information, I decided to check you out. My first impression was that you were too young, but then I realized my mistake when I followed you into a bar. I watched you meet up with a guy there. I guess that was probably Carlos, now that I know what was happening between the two of you.”

“Maybe. I was seeing someone else before I met him in the fall semester.”

“Well, regardless, I saw you with a guy, and the crazy thing was, I became jealous of him. Just the hint that you might some day be my wife, and I suddenly felt protective, or maybe possessive of you. It was hard to stomach watching you leave the bar with him that night. I actually sat in on a few of your bigger classes and I watched you.”

“That doesn’t sound creepy or anything,” I commented.

“Shush. If you had known about our impending betrothal you probably would have done the same thing, given the opportunity.” Well, he wasn’t wrong there. I had indeed stalked him via the internet once I found out about the possibility of a marriage to Tucker. “I watched you, and I liked what I saw. No, you’re not usually my type physically, but I realized something as you became my focus for those three weeks.”

“What was that?”

“I would have missed out on something special if I’d overlooked you for a flashier person. Your appeal isn’t in the initial look, it’s in the lasting qualities that other women don’t have. Your laugh is infectious when you let go. You’re loyal. That brain of yours is something else too. The more I watched, the more attractive you were to me.”

“So, you’re saying I am an acquired taste?”

“Not at all,” he insisted. “I’m saying that I’m an idiot and had been looking for all the wrong things in a person before I got to know you.”