“Ms. Robeson, I assure you that your father is not selling you off. I was told that you were made aware of all the nuances of this arrangement and that you agreed to them.”

“Just because I agreed to do this for my father, and the family business, does not mean that I’m not being sold off to save the company, Sir. It just means that I’m willingly allowing myself to be put on the auction block. Let’s not pretty up this dirty business, shall we? I don’t enjoy telling lies, and I really don’t like having them told to me. Now, if you don’t mind, I need you to hush that mouth of yours and wait until I’m done reading this book-sized legal document you’ve presented me with. And let this be a lesson to you, next time you want to add all this legalese to bog a document down and make yourself sound important, someone like me might want to take the time to actually read and understand every single word of it.”

I was sure I sounded badass, scary, and maybe a tad bitchy all things considered. Someone looking in from the outside may have been cheering for the fact that I wasn’t letting the man push me around. Those people on the outside looking in couldn’t see me literally shaking in my boots though. I kept my fingertips pressed down into the document as I read, just to control the shaking in my hands.

As I told the stuffy, stodgy lawyer sitting beside me, I may have agreed to this arrangement, but no matter how scary it was, there was only me, myself, and I to make sure I didn’t get bent over and screwed in the worst way when this all came crashing down around us later. The only interaction I managed with Samuel Brighton Tucker in the past month had been the one time when I refused to meet his eyes in my father’s office. Since then, every time our parents tried to get us into the same room, one of us would always have a reason for not showing up. Truthfully, it didn’t bode well for our sham of a marriage, but then again, I never expected great things out of it anyway.

Last I heard, Sammy-boy was out slutting it up all over Atlanta, the Hollywood Hills, some dodgy beach in California, more beaches in Florida, and even at some wild party in Vancouver. Yes, that meant Canada. I rolled my eyes. How anyone was supposed to think we fell madly in love and decided to get married was beyond me, considering the very public spectacle he was making of himself. That made me stop reading and glance up at the lawyer – whose pretentious name I had already forgotten – because I needed some answers that probably weren’t in this ridiculous document.

“How exactly did you propose we explain my fiancé’s lack of discretion?”

“Beg pardon, Miss, but I’m unsure what you mean.”