“Yeah, so I returned that lovely one you sent me and managed to pay off the past three months’ electricity and water bills, so thank you.” I ran my hands down the old dress. “I love it.”
“Glad you found a good use for it.”
I leaned back in my seat when a waiter came by and lit the votive candle on the table. “Me too.”
I’d never been inside the store the dress had come from, but I’d thought the security guards were going to toss me out on my ass when they saw me slip through the glass doors. I held up the dress box like it was my invitation before heading to the cashier. When I found out how much the dress had cost, I gave a low whistle and promptly rushed the fresh money in my wallet to the utility company and paid what I owed.
It felt good having those bills off my hands. At least for this month.
“Is money an issue right now, Nina?”
I took another drink of water. “Money is always an issue, Max. The plight of the middle-to-lower class.”
He was quiet for a minute, and I was starting to regret bringing up the whole exchanging an expensive dress to pay arrears utility bills when he shifted in his chair. “If it would be helpful, we could revisit the payment terms of our agreement. Perhaps so you receive a portion earlier than planned.”
I shook my head. “No. We have an agreement.”
“Yes, we do. One that can be easily amended.”
I looked him in the eye. “We have a deal.”
He wanted to say more. I could tell. But he didn’t. Maybe that was because he could tell I wasn’t going to change my mind. It was strange how we already seemed to know each other after really only just meeting. Maybe that was the benefit of approaching a relationship from a position of reason instead of emotion.
When the waiter approached the table again to take our order, I stole a look at Max while he was distracted. He was in another dark blue suit, complete with a vest and white button-down shirt. His face didn’t show a hint of a shadow, like he’d just shaven, and his eyes were bright, like sleepless nights didn’t make frequent visits at his place as they did mine.
He was easy to look at—handsome in such a way it was hard to glance away. He smiled easily, seemed at ease in any situation, and I sensed he possessed a brand of loyalty that was rare in this world. I could sense that in what I’d read from his biography, as well as what I’d read between the lines.
I didn’t know why I felt a pull toward him, but I did. I’d accepted that. But just because I’d accepted I was attracted to the man I’d agreed to marry didn’t mean I needed to act on it. Actually, I’d never been so adamant against acting on anything in my life.
I didn’t care if my whole body felt like it was about to rip apart from the tension, I would not act upon that attraction. Never.
It helped that I was certain he was in no way attracted to me. Nothing like harsh reality to bring a girl back to her senses.
“Excuse me?” I called as the waiter turned to leave.
“Yes, ma’am?” He turned and waited.
“I haven’t ordered yet.” Because I was too busy checking out my future husband.
“I ordered for you. I got you the special like I got myself,” Max said.
I felt my eyes narrow, but I didn’t aim them at him. He’d probably like it. “I don’t want the special,” I told the waiter. “I’d like to order the . . .” I hadn’t looked at the menu. I hadn’t even seen one. What did a place like this serve? That I would actually eat? That I could pronounce without sounding like a hillbilly?
The waiter waited patiently for me.
Max, not so much. “Go with the special. You’ll like it, trust me.”
This time, I did aim that glare in his direction. “I’ll have the hamburger,” I told the waiter. “Please.”
“The hamburger?” He sounded stumped.
Across from me, Max was fighting another one of those damn infuriating smiles. Arrogant asshole.
“We don’t have a hamburger on the menu, ma’am . . .”
As the waiter struggled to find the right way not to piss me off, Max lifted his hand. “Talk with Jean-Luc. Tell him Max Sturm’s guest would like to order a hamburger.” As he said it, Max’s smile went higher. “I’m sure he’ll be able to figure something out.”
The waiter looked between the two of us, still confused, before nodding and rushing away.
“So the Max Sturm name carries a lot of clout in this upper circle?”
He tipped his hand back and forth. “Enough to special order a hamburger at least.”
“Unbelievable,” I said under my breath as I folded my napkin into my lap.
“You don’t even know what the special is.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Then why did you order something else instead of asking? I eat here twice a week—I know what’s good.” Max settled back into his chair, getting comfortable.
“Because it was ‘special’ ordering it all on my own and not having someone order for me.” I peaked an eyebrow and waited for his rebuttal.
“You are willfully independent.”
“Good, you’re figuring that out sooner rather than later. It will make our whole fake relationship that much more authentic.” When I wet my lips, his eyes dropped to my mouth. An expression that looked almost painful formed.
“Your independence.” He stared at my mouth one more second before diverting his stare out the window again. “Is it by choice or circumstance?”
I struggled not to shift in my chair. “Both.”
He sighed just loud enough for me to hear. He was obviously not used to people responding to his probing questions with vague answers. “Let me rephrase—how did it start out? By choice or circumstance?”
Sighing, I answered, “Circumstance.”
I was bracing for him to probe further down this unpleasant path when he cleared his throat. “Do you have any questions about anything you read in my file?”
I focused on the flickering candle between us. Over the past five days, I’d gone through his file numerous times. I’d reread certain parts so many times they were committed to memory. I had a million questions for him. A hundred follow-ups to each one of those.
Instead of listing them off one by one, I went with the one most pressing, and most relevant, to our situation. “Why are you so desperate to get a green card?” My eyes narrowed on the dancing flame. “Your family, your home in Germany . . . it all seems idyllic.”
“I love my family and I love Germany, but here, this is home.” Max motioned out the window at the darkening city of Portland. “I knew it from the first time I visited with my family the summer I was fifteen. I was born and raised half a world away, but when I stepped foot in America, it was like I’d finally come home.” He was still staring out the window when he leaned in closer. “Wouldn’t you do just about anything to stay in the place you call home?”
I didn’t have to think about that question. My answer to it was the very reason I was sitting across from him. “I would,” I said, leaning across the table as he was. “I’d even marry a stranger.”
It was strange, sitting across from the woman I was going to marry. It was strange to know I’d be spending the next few years with this person I knew very little about.
Nina was both the perfect candidate for this, and the worst. Perfect in that she was easy to be around, didn’t act intimidated by me, and embodied commitment and dedication in an age where both were in scant supply. She was the worst candidate for this because, try as I may, I felt some level of attraction toward her.
Attraction wasn’t a new concept for me—desire I was on a first-name basis with—but this, it was different. I’d never felt it before, so I didn’t have a name for it, nothing to compare it to, and no way of knowing where it would lead.
I’d hoped for an eventual friendship with the woman I married, one that stemmed from mutual respect and dedication to the plan. I could see all of that in Nina. It was what I saw in addition to tha
t that scared me.
The one woman in the world who was off-limits to me in that way was her, the woman I was counting on becoming my wife. I couldn’t let emotions and feelings and all of those other things that drove people apart endanger our arrangement. Nina was, for all intents and purpose, off-limits.
We were marrying each other—that was the plan. Desire, attraction, and love were not part of that plan.
Across the table, Nina was watching me, waiting. The light flickering from the candle was illuminating her, making her green eyes glow and her hair look like it was on fire. She knew I was staring at her. Where others would have diverted their gaze moments ago, she just kept staring right back.
“Since you know my life story, tell me a little about yourself,” I asked, letting my gaze shift first. Hers stayed on me though, still unyielding. I could feel it.
“It’s all in the folder I just gave you,” she answered.
“The folder I haven’t had a chance to open yet? Humor me.”
She leaned into the table. “I’m marrying you for money. How much more humor do you need?”
God, I was smiling again. I wasn’t a smiley person, but I couldn’t seem to control myself around this girl. “What are your hobbies? Interests? What do you do for a living? Nothing too personal, see?” I waved between her and me. “Conversation. You talk, I listen. I talk, you listen. It’s nice.”
She sighed, fighting a smile of her own. “I like taking pictures. It’s more of a hobby than a career, but who knows? Maybe one day I’ll actually sell a picture and make enough money to splurge on a bottle instead of a box of wine.”
She was making a joke. I liked how I could already tell that about her. The odd sense of humor. The straight face she kept when she delivered it.
“Speaking of wine . . .” I made eye contact with our waiter and lifted my hand. When he came over, I almost wanted to order a hamburger for myself just to see the look on his face from before when Nina had ordered hers. Priceless. “Willfully Independent? Please order the wine for us.”
When I motioned at her and waited, she almost looked stunned. I’d taken her by surprise.
“I’ll have some . . . white wine,” she ordered, rolling her shoulders back and putting on a face like she knew exactly what she was saying. Which she didn’t.
“What kind of white wine, ma’am?” the server asked, glancing at me like he was waiting for me to jump in.
I lifted my hands in response.
Nina cleared her throat and sat up straighter. God, it was like the more unsure she became on the inside, the more assured she tried to look on the outside. “The kind that’s . . . good.”
I had to fake a cough to keep from laughing.
Nina shot a glare in my direction. She probably knew exactly what I was disguising. The waiter looked even more perplexed than he had over the hamburger order, so to help everyone out, I handed her the leather-bound menu listing the bottles of wine. Nina scanned it for a few seconds before stabbing her finger at one.
I didn’t recognize the name of it, but I did notice it was the cheapest bottle on the menu. I wondered if that was why she’d ordered it or if it was sheer coincidence. Most of the women I’d taken to dinner picked the most expensive bottle listed because they could and I’d pay for it.
I didn’t know what to think of Nina—the woman I was going to marry—ordering the cheapest bottle on the menu. Had she done it for my bank account’s benefit or because she just couldn’t comprehend spending anything more than fifty dollars for a bottle of wine?
I didn’t know, and I found myself wanting to ask. I found myself wanting to ask her everything I couldn’t seem to make fit because people I could read. Most people. Their motives were easy. Their choices predictable. But hers . . . not at all.
Of course the woman I would marry was the only soul I’d never been able to get a read on right from the start.
The waiter was long gone and she was still scanning the wine menu. Her eyes got wider the farther down the list she went.
“You’re a photographer?” I asked, stealing another moment to admire her when she wasn’t looking.
“Photographer is putting it generously. I’m more a hobbyist with a camera.” She closed the menu and scooted it to the edge of the table.
“But you’ve got some photographs on display?’
When her eyes lifted to mine, she caught me staring. Again. Instead of the glare I was used to, her eyes shifted away like she was uncomfortable. Was I making her so? The way I was looking at her?
“I’ve got a few photographs on display.” She searched the room like she was looking for something, but I thought that might have something to do with the way she’d just caught me looking at her.
“In what galleries?” I leaned back in my seat and tamed my stare.
“None you’ve ever heard of, I’m sure.”
Actually, I probably wouldn’t have heard of any of the galleries in the city. I wasn’t the kind of guy who paid exorbitant amounts of money for a painting that looked like someone had taken their compost pile and slimed it all around a giant piece of canvas. I didn’t buy things for the sake of owning them. I didn’t buy things for the sake of impressing people.
I bought things because I wanted them. I bought things I liked and that had meaning to me.
When the poor waiter returned a minute later, he didn’t say anything. He just opened the bottle, poured some into our glasses, and hustled away.
“Why don’t you have an accent?” she asked abruptly, like it had been weighing on her mind.
“I don’t?”
She shook her head and reached for her wine glass. “Not really. Every once in a while you’ll sneak a v into a word that starts with w, but if I didn’t know you were born in Germany, I’d assume you grew up here.”
I touched the stem of the wine glass and rolled it between my fingers. “I don’t know vhat you’re talking about.”
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and took a drink of the wine. It was obvious she didn’t like it. But she didn’t say anything.
“I’ve lived here full-time since I was eighteen. I consider myself more American than I do German.” When I took a drink of my wine, I realized why she didn’t like it. It tasted like shit. “I suppose my accent feels the same way.”
She took another drink of wine, and this time, she didn’t show any distaste for it. It was like she’d been bracing herself for it. “Why did you let your visa expire?”
I knew she’d have questions. I was surprised by how direct she was with them. I liked that though—preferred it. Set the precedent so when it was my turn to examine her folder and ask questions of my own, she’d hopefully be as forthcoming with me as I was trying to be with her.
“Because this country is as much my home as it is yours,” I answered.
“Not according to the United States government.”
“I think, given our agreement, you can figure out just what I think about that.”
She started to smile, plunging her fingers into her water cup and pulling out a chunk of ice. “Why did you choose me? You must have had hundreds of other interested parties.” She popped the chunk of ice into her mouth. It wasn’t meant to be seductive in the slightest, but she had no idea what she was doing to me as she slowly sucked on that piece of frozen water.
I had to give myself a mental ice bath before I could answer her. “Actually, I had thousands.” When I heard my voice, I cleared my throat. It sounded too low, too much like how I sounded in the bedroom.
“Why me?”
I wondered why she was asking that. Curiosity? Concern? Conversation? “For starters, you lived here in Portland. I didn’t want anyone to uproot from wherever they were and move here.”
“Or, you know, you could have moved to wherever they were.” She shifted the ice to the other side of her mouth, her lips shining from the moisture.
“No, I wouldn’t leave Portland for another person. Fake relationship or real.” My words c
ame out sharper than I’d intended.
“Any other fabulous, totally unselfish reasons why I was the lucky girl?”
Nina’s face stayed the same, but I heard the sarcasm in her voice. God knew I should be able to identify it since that was mostly what she directed my way.
“You were able to put together an email that indicated you hadn’t flunked fourth-grade English, and you didn’t use so many emojis and acronyms that I felt I was actually communicating with said fourth grader.”
She bit down on the ice. “Yeah, I was an overachiever and passed twelfth grade English.”
“I could tell. Although I was actually going to guess that you were an English major. Wrong guess?” I didn’t realize I was taking a sip of the wine before I was swallowing it. I wrestled with another wince and set the glass down. I was too distracted when I was with her. Too out of my goddamned mind.
“Wrong guess.”
“What did you study?” Besides fucking with my mind and busting my balls?
“Nothing.” She lifted her shoulders, staring out the window without really seeming to see anything. “I didn’t go to college.”
I was surprised. She seemed educated. Intelligent. Determined. Not that a person had to attend college to embody those traits, but still. “Why not?”
She was silent, then she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Instead, she sealed her lips and scooped another chunk of ice out of her glass before . . . dammit . . . she sucked it into her mouth. Next time, I was ordering water with no ice. I already had some sick fascination with her mouth—I did not need her sucking on something two feet in front of me.
“Nina?” My voice was low again.
“It’s all in that encyclopedia you had me fill out. You can read more about it later.”
From the look on her face, I wanted to tear into her biography and devour every word now. She hadn’t gone to college, but from her affect, I could see it was something she regretted. Maybe regret wasn’t the right word, but in another life . . . she would have.
What had kept her from going? A boy? God knew I understood the sacrifices people made in the name of love. Money? I might not have known the extent of her financial troubles, but I knew they were pressing enough to agree to marry someone for money.