“How has this been a gift?”
“I get to look forward to going to a wedding. You know how much I like weddings.”
“I had no idea. And there won’t be a wedding.”
“We’ll see,” Violet said as she stood up. “Ooh, when you get married, I’ll get to wear a floppy hat.”
“I’m not getting married,” Amy replied. She watched as Violet made her way to the stairs as she headed off to her guestroom.
***
Amy placed the envelope with the prenup on the kitchen table and took another sip of the gin. Her head was buzzing, and she could feel the bags forming under her eyes. When was the last time she had slept? She reached forward and opened the envelope. Ethan had placed a sticky note on the top of the stack of paper. “I knew you’d bring up Chicago.”
Was one night, years back, enough to justify making a giant leap of faith? Amy wanted to find a reason to say yes. She wanted to believe that Ethan had harbored a flame for her for all that time. It was crazy. She knew it was crazy. She had everything she had ever wanted. She had professional success. She had good friends and family members close by. She didn’t need a man in her life. She knew that. But what if she wanted one? Was she allowed to have fun? Was she allowed to relax and give something like this a shot? Then there was the money. All that money. More than she could possibly spend. All the good she could do, the people she could help. She’d never have to worry about Violet or Callie or anyone. She could take care of them.
She looked down at the contract again and picked up her phone. Slowly she ran through her contacts until she found the name she was looking for, then she hit send.
“Amy, what’s wrong?”
“Callie, it’s me. I need your help with something.”
“It’s almost midnight,” Callie replied. “Can it wait until the morning, or did Cole screw things up that badly?”
“Oh, he just blew everything else out of the water. Can you meet me in the morning? Say 6 AM? I need you to look over a few contracts.”
“Wait, my sister is actually asking me to use my legal degree?”
“Yeah,” Amy replied.
“Why don’t you ask Rich for help with this? He’s been your lawyer for years.”
“I need you to look at it, and I need you to tell no one about this. This has to stay between you and me, ok? I’m asking for your help.”
“Took you long enough.”#p#分页标题#e#
“See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Amy.”
Amy hung up and placed the phone back on the table. She stared at it for a long while as she considered what to do next. She tried to remember her advice for clients. Don’t make any decisions when you’ve been drinking. Wait until the morning. It was good advice. Sound advice. Advice she had developed based off of case after case of seeing good men and women make bad choices late at night. She smiled as she reached back down for the phone. It was great advice, she thought as she pressed send again. It was too bad she wasn’t going to follow it.
Amy listened to the silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and then she spoke those two fateful words: “I’m in.”
***
Chapter 4
Callie Haven pulled her hair back into a bun as she stared down at the pile of paper before her. She had expected crates of documents, some kind of impending disaster, really anything other than twenty pages of boilerplate legal text. She looked up at her sister, who was pacing back and forth at the other end of the conference room. Within a minute, she had a good idea of what she was dealing with.
“Amy, this is a prenup.”
“I know.”
“Amy, this is your prenup. I get it. I crossed the line. You’re not married to your job. I’m sorry.”
“This is real. Ethan Cole asked me to marry him last night.”
“I knew it!” Callie shouted. Her voice rose an octave at the end of the sentence. She grabbed the papers, jumped up from her seat and ran over to Amy. “I knew you must have been seeing someone. It was the only thing that made sense. No one works that much. You’re marrying the most eligible bachelor in the country, and I haven’t met him?”
Amy straightened her posture as Callie hugged her. “I’m not, I mean, I wasn’t, I mean, stop hugging me! Ethan and I were not dating. This part doesn’t leave this room.” Amy made eye contact with Callie as she pushed back. “He asked me to marry him for business purposes, and, after reflection, I’ve decided to accept his offer. I just need your help looking over the prenup.”
“You’re getting married?” Callie shouted again. She dropped the papers on the table and jumped forward again to wrap her arms around her sister. “I’m so happy for you. When is the wedding?”