‘Your tendency to run headlong into things without thinking is going to get you in serious trouble some day, Soli,’ her father’s voice warned her.
He wasn’t wrong.
She knew that.
But you’re not here any more, Dad, and I’m doing the best I can.
There was a chance, of course, that she was actually dreaming all this and would wake up at any moment in bed with her heart racing and her palms as sweaty as they felt right now.
But she really hoped that wasn’t the case.
In fact, she knew it wasn’t possible because when she’d actually rolled out of bed this morning, and been unable to eat her breakfast because her stomach was jumping around so badly with nerves and worry, she’d never felt so awake—and afraid. The pressure of her mum and sister relying on her to stop both their home and livelihoods from being swept out from under them weighed heavily on her.
So she was hyper-aware, sitting there now in her smartest clothes with her wild hair as neat as she’d been able to get it, that how well she performed in this meeting could change all their lives for ever, one way or another. What she hadn’t expected when she turned up here was to be confronted with such an unusual and nerve-racking way to do it.
This—this incredible stroke of luck—could be the answer to all her problems.
If she could handle it, that was.
As far as she could see, the most challenging thing about it would be having to see Xavier McQueen, property baron and high-society mover and shaker every day for the next year.
And be his wife.
The thought of living with this powerful, domineering stranger made her heart thump harder in her chest.
The guy was seriously attractive, with a lean but muscular physique which she imagined he kept looking that fit with regular trips to the gym. His face was angular, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw, and he had light green, almond-shaped eyes, framed with dark lashes, which gave him a nerve-jangling look of stark intensity. And he had really good hair. Thick and shiny and the colour of melted chocolate. It sat neatly against his scalp as if it had been styled deliberately to do that by a master hairdresser at a top salon. Which, she mused, it probably had. Her fingers twitched at her sides as she fought a powerful urge to reach out and touch the soft waves, to see if it was as soft and smooth as it looked.
‘I have some non-negotiable demands if I’m going to do this,’ she said, a little more loudly than she’d meant to out of nerves.
‘I thought you might have,’ Xavier replied, with an ironic tinge to his voice. He had to be the most sardonic person she’d ever met. Throughout all their exchanges it had seemed as though he’d been having trouble taking anything she’d said seriously.
Still, he wasn’t exactly laughing now. In fact, despite his sarcasm, he was actually looking at her as if she might be the answer to all his problems.
‘Okay. If I’m going to be your wife for a year I need to know that my mother is being taken care of properly, so I’ll need to have a live-in carer provided for her while I’m away. She’ll be mostly okay during the day, but she’ll definitely need someone there overnight to help her get ready for bed and to get up when my sister’s not there. Which leads me on to the next stipulation. I also want you to pay for my sister’s tuition fees at university. She’ll get a job to cover her living expenses, but it won’t go any way towards the fees.’ Her heart was racing as she laid all this out, wondering whether he’d just tell her to get up and get out because she was being too greedy.
But he needs you, a voice in the back of her head told her, so front it out.
There was a long pause while he looked at her with such an intense gaze she felt it right down to her toes.
‘Okay, so let me get this straight,’ he said eventually; ‘you want a full-time carer for your mother, tuition fees paid for your sister, a stay on the rent on the café for the next five years and an as yet undisclosed sum of money as soon as we’re married?’
She swallowed hard, but held her nerve. ‘Yes.’
‘And how much were you thinking of for your lump sum?’
Shakily, she said an amount that she thought would cover the wages at the café for the next year as well as giving her some spending money which she could use for marketing or renovations to the café once they were divorced.
He surveyed her for a moment, his right eyebrow twitching upwards by a couple of degrees.
Soli held her breath, aware of her pulse throbbing in her head.
Had she blown it by asking for too much?
‘Okay. It’s a deal,’ he said finally. ‘But, considering you’ll be losing your wage from the cleaning job and you’ll have to employ someone to cover your position in the café, I’m prepared to give you an additional twenty per cent on top of that.’
Soli swallowed hard, his unexpected generosity bringing tears to her eyes.
‘As long as you agree to marry to me within the next month and spend the majority of your time in my home,’ he added quickly. ‘I don’t mind you visiting your mother and working part-time at the café, perhaps one or two days a week so you can keep an eye on it, but it needs to look as though the majority of your time is spent living there with me. Particularly in the evenings.’
‘So I can only work during the day?’
‘Yes. I’d like it if you were able to attend any work or social events at the drop of a hat. For that, I need you focused on your life with me as much as possible.’
She suspected that what he wasn’t saying out loud was that he wasn’t the sort of man to have the owner of a board game café for a wife and he didn’t want to have to explain himself to anyone.
‘So what will I do for the rest of the time?’ she asked as indignation rippled through her. What was wrong with working in a board game café? She really enjoyed it. It was sociable and kept her fit because she was on her feet all day.
He frowned, momentarily stumped by her question. ‘Perhaps you could work on that “high-concept business strategy” you haven’t had time for?’ He waved a hand. ‘I’m sure you’ll find plenty of things to do with your day.’
‘And what do you want me to tell people when they ask what I do for a living?’ she asked, still riled by her suspicion that he didn’t value her choice of livelihood. ‘What do the kind of women you normally date do for a job?’ she added, perhaps a little tetchily.
He rubbed a hand over his forehead, looking taken aback by the directness of her question. ‘Most of the women I’ve dated have either had a media job or been a doctor or solicitor.’
‘Well, I don’t think I’m going to convince anyone I’m a doctor or lawyer,’ Soli said, raising a wry eyebrow. ‘My sister got all the brains in the family.’
He frowned, apparently a little bemused by her now. ‘Okay, well, if you want to choose a different career for yourself, go right ahead. What would you have done if you hadn’t taken over the café? Do you have any burning ambitions?’
His question stumped her for a second. It had been a long time since she’d thought about doing anything but running the café. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly focused at school so I never expected to have a high-flying career. I liked designing clothes, but I did that in my spare time. My dad pressganged me into taking academic subjects to “give me a better chance in life”.’ She put this in air quotes, remembering with a sting of shame how she’d rallied against this notion, thinking it would bore her to tears to have a professional job in the future. All she’d wanted when she was in her mid-teens was to have a family of her own and