“What are you doing here?”

Standing in the hall outside my apartment is Connor Grace. Dark hair perfectly styled, steel eyes trained on me. He’s wearing black boots, dark-wash denim, and a long-sleeved black shirt, despite the warm weather. Under that shirt he is a canvas covered in beautiful art. I know because I saw it when we were in Aruba for his teammate Tristan’s wedding this summer, though mostly from a distance.

He looks gorgeous as usual, but discordant with his surroundings. Every time I see him outside of the arena, he seems out of place. Though he fits at least a little better in Lucy’s home, amidst the opulence and grandeur.

I glance over his shoulder to the closed door across the hall, where Flip lives.

“I need to talk to you,” Connor states flatly, but he still manages to infuse the sentence with certainty and insistence. His gaze drops to Dewey, tucked into the crook of my elbow. “What the heck is that?”

“Dewey, my pet hedgehog.” I pull Connor inside my apartment, quickly closing the door.

I have enough bullshit going on in my life without him and Flip punching each other out in the hall. Also, I’m terrified that something happened between Callie’s hockey game last night and now, and Lucy has met an untimely end. But Connor doesn’t look destroyed, and I have a feeling losing her would ruin him. Worse, based on the way my heart is thrumming in my chest, it will ruin me too.

Still, I ask the question, just to be sure. “Is Lucy okay?”

“For now.” That’s a painful truth.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, but they only stay there for a second before he laces his fingers behind his neck. Connor glances around my apartment. Not with judgment, but with interest, maybe—like he’s trying to see me in the things I surround myself with. Which, to be honest, is mostly old books and board games.

The apartment is a mausoleum to the life my grandmother left behind. I kept everything she had when I took over the lease after she passed, seeking some kind of connection to my history other than our shared name. It was the one gift she gave me, along with a letter explaining why she stayed out of my life.

“Let me put Dewey away.” I cross to his hedgehog condo and gently set him inside before turning back to Connor. “What do you need to talk to me about?” I cross my arms, then drop them to my sides, then cross them again. Looks like we’re both fidgety. “Can I get you something to drink?” I move to the kitchen, which is all of three steps away, and shove my head in the fridge. I need something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve wringing them.

I have water, a single can of no-name lemon-lime soda, strawberry cordial, and two ultra-light beers.

I grab the beers. Whatever the reason, Connor being here can’t be good.

I uncap them both and pass him one, then chug half my own and grimace because I dislike the taste of beer immensely. I only have it because Flip left them here for our game nights.

Connor sets his beer on the table. “Please show me the letter that fell out of your purse when you were at Meems’s the other night.”

This again? “Why?”

“Because I want to read the entire thing.”

“You already know the gist. Why do you need to read the whole thing?” And why are you suddenly so interested in me?

“Because I do.”

“And that’s supposed to be enough of a reason?”

He blinks at me.

I blink back. But I’m too intrigued by his sudden appearance at my apartment to refuse. So I fish it out of my purse and hand it over. I took it to a lawyer today. Apparently, it’s legit. That was an expensive and shitty conversation.

Connor scans it with an unnervingly attractive furrowed brow. He’s brutally handsome. His steel eyes lift. “Who else knows about this?”

“No one.” Yet. I considered telling Lexi because her dad is a fancy New York lawyer, but she’s married to Roman, and he’s tight with Flip. While I won’t hide it from Flip forever, I want to be sure of the scope of the problem first. And ideally also have a solution.

Connor employs his mind-reading skills. “Why haven’t you asked Flip for help?”

I roll the beer bottle between my hands. “I won’t do that.”

Connor’s brow pulls together. “You don’t think he would help you?”

“He would insist on it, and I won’t ask.”

Curiosity shifts his features, changing the harsh landscape to soft questioning. “Why not?”

“Because it would change our relationship, and I don’t want that for either of us.”

“Do you love him?”

God, he’s blunt. “Yes. Like family, but I’m not in love with him.”

Connor isn’t the first or last person to ask this. All our friends have believed it to be true at some point. So I’ll just be clear. “There has never and will never be anything romantic between us. He’s too important to me, and I won’t ask for his help on this, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Flip has been used by enough people in his life. I won’t unbalance our friendship by having him step in and fix this for me. My love for him and the health of our relationship is too essential. And Connor is the last person I would choose to confide in about any of that.

Still, he nods, seeming satisfied, and rubs his chin. “You care about my Meems.”

That’s a hard right. It takes me a moment to catch up. “Uh, yes. She’s been coming to the library for a long time.”

“You have lunch with her every week.”

“I do,” I confirm.

He cants his head, eyes locked on mine. “Do you love her like family, too?”

I bite my lips together. Admitting this feels like a trap.

My expression must tell him what he needs to know, because he hums, nods, and stares down at me with serious, calculating eyes. “I have a proposition for you.”

“That sounds ominous.” And like there are strings attached. As it seems there always are.

“It’s not ideal, but it will solve your problem. However, it will also create a few new ones.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” One person’s win is another’s loss.

“Basically, yeah.” He crosses his arms. “My Meems adores you.”

It melts my ovaries every time this perpetually broody man refers to his posh grandmother as Meems. I nod. “We’ve already established that I adore her back. I’m not seeing how that solves my problem.”

He releases a tense breath, jaw flexing as his gaze shifts to the right. “Without the surgery, she has at most a year, maybe a bit more, if she’s very careful. But her immune system is struggling to the point that the flu could take her out right now.”

My stomach sinks. “She’s that immunocompromised?” How can she come to the library when it’s often full of germ-infested, adorable kids?

He nods.

“I’m so sorry.” I want to offer comfort in the form of a hug, but Connor doesn’t strike me as very hug receptive. Besides, every time I touch him, my body goes haywire.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You didn’t do this to her body.” He rolls his shoulders back, like this next part is uncomfortable. “She wants to see me married and settled before she passes. She’s been fairly relentless about me pursuing you. If you become my wife, it would make her happy, and it would solve your financial problems.”

“How would marrying you solve my financial problems?”

“My family has a lot of money.”

Shock makes me feel weightless for a moment. He’s serious, though. His intent is written all over his handsome, remote face. “But…until yesterday you didn’t even really speak to me unless you had to. We don’t even like each other?” The second half comes out as a question. Sure, I’m fascinated by him, and I find him attractive, but that’s a far cry from wanting to marry him.

“I don’t dislike you.” He looks anywhere but me and swallows.

His phrasing seems intentional. Protective. “Not disliking me is not the same as liking me,” I point out.

He shifts from foot to foot. “I enjoy sitting beside you at Callie’s games.”

“In silence,” I note.

“It’s often better when I don’t speak.”

This is a man who is used to being hated. By everyone—except his Meems and his number-one fan, who’s a nine-year-old orphan.

“I’ll hire the best lawyer in the city to handle this for you.” He holds up the letter from my landlord. “I will cover the legal costs and the rent owed on the apartment, and for every month we’re together, starting thirty days from our engagement forward, I’ll pay you a quarter of a million dollars. When Meems passes”—he makes the sign of the cross—“we’ll annul the marriage, and you’ll be free to live your life.”

The proposal itself leaves me reeling. But more than that, the end of Meems is a heartbreaking thought.

If I agree to this, I could leave the relationship with three million dollars. I’ll never struggle financially again.

“What’s the catch?” Other than all my friends wondering whether I’ve lost my mind, and my best friend might murder my future husband. Am I really considering this?

Connor frowns. “You’ll be married to me for an undetermined number of months. It could be a handful, or it could be more than a year if something miraculous happens. You’ll also have to meet my family, who loathe me almost as much as my teammates. That’s the catch, and it’s a pretty big one.”

Geez, this guy really can’t stand himself. He’s so rigid—prepared to either be laughed at or negotiate the terms of this business venture. Because that’s what it is. He’s offering me financial stability in exchange for his grandmother’s happiness. She would be my Meems, too. She would be my family. Having her for a grandma is almost worth it on its own. This offer tells me more about Connor as a human being than maybe he realizes. Under the gruff, cold exterior is a man with a very soft, very fragile heart.

“You said annul.”

“That’s correct.”

“So no consummating the marriage.” Why are parts of my body that have no business being excited tingling?

He clears his throat and looks away uncomfortably. “You would be under no contractual obligation to do so. Although there may be occasions when you’ll have to kiss me,” he warns.

“Like the wedding.”

He nods. “Like the wedding.”

“I assume you have some kind of legal and binding contract?”

Connor doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would come to the table unprepared.

He pulls an envelope out of his pocket. “You should read it over.”

I take a seat at the kitchen table and read the contract through twice while Connor stands with his arms crossed, wearing an expression of impassive indifference. But his thumbs tap restlessly against his biceps, belying his nerves.

“If you agree, the plan would be to have a short engagement,” he adds.

“Won’t Meems be suspicious?” My friends sure will.

He glances away, toward my bookshelves. “I may have mentioned Callie’s games.”

“You mean that we sit beside each other?”

He dips his chin.

I wait for him to elaborate, but apparently I’m supposed to draw my own conclusions. Like somehow our attending Callie’s games has made us realize we’re in love? But maybe his sitting beside me every time is a bigger deal than I’ve realized. I assumed he had ill intentions at first, but then…he just kept sitting there, just kept being sweet with Callie and not a dick to me.

And now here we are.

If I agree to marry him, I keep not only my apartment, but the found family I’ve worked so hard to foster. I won’t have to move out of the city so I can afford cheaper rent.

Flip will be pissed that it’s Connor. But he’ll get over it. He loves me like a sister. He knows what it’s like to always worry about making ends meet. And he’ll understand why I didn’t let him come to the rescue.

I reach behind me and pluck a pen from the mug on the shelf.

“You’ll have to pretend to like me,” he warns balefully. “You’ll have to make my Meems believe that we’re real.” He makes this sound like an impossible feat.

“I know.” I press the end of the pen, and the point appears.

“You’ll have to move in with me,” he adds. “You’ll have to live with me for the duration of our marriage.”

Is he trying to dissuade me now? “I understand. I’m doing this for me and Meems, in that order.”

He nods his approval. “Good.”

I hover the pen over the line with my name typed underneath. It feels like giving a blood oath. But this is the way out of the mess I’m in—probably the only way without making it my best friend’s problem. It’s a contract. Just a job with a deadline, an excellent payday, and the most amazing grandmother in the world. Besides, Connor is gone half the year.

I sign my name and date the papers before I have a chance to second-guess myself.

Connor leans in and does the same. “I’ll have it filed and send you a copy.” He folds the contract and tucks it into his pocket. Then he pulls out a small velvet box.

He doesn’t drop to one knee, and I don’t expect him to. This isn’t a love match. We’re doing it because we love the same person, and this union gives us both something we need. He flips the lid open. Inside is the most stunning engagement ring I’ve ever seen. I hope it isn’t a family heirloom.

Wordlessly he extends a hand, and I place mine in his palm. Tingles shoot up my arm, and warmth courses through my veins at the contact. Marriage has never been on my radar. Romantic love isn’t something I’m well-versed in. All love is scary, but the kind where you give your heart, body, and soul to another person has always seemed too precarious a thing to want for someone as broken as me.

But this isn’t love. This is a business arrangement. We’re helping each other, and that’s it.

Still, my heart stutters as he gently slides the ring onto my finger.

I meet his gaze, and sadness flickers there for a moment before his expression goes carefully blank. “You’re stuck in this nightmare with me now.” A small, rueful smile tugs the corner of his mouth. “It will probably get worse before it gets better, but I appreciate you doing this for Meems.”

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