Part-Time Husband

  Part-Time Husband

  Trophy Husbands, Book One

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend

  About Noelle Adams

  One

  A COFFEE COMMERCIAL runs during the cable news show I turn on first thing in the morning.

  The ad never persuades me to buy that brand of coffee, but I watch it every day while I run on the treadmill. An attractive woman in pale cotton pajamas wakes up before dawn to feed her new baby with a bottle. Then her handsome husband gets up a few minutes later to surprise her with a cup of coffee as a sappy symbol of his love.

  Each morning, I stare at the woman’s expression on my television screen. Her eyes get big. Her mouth trembles. A single tear rolls down her cheek.

  At a cup of coffee.

  If a hot guy wants to bring me coffee, I’m not going to turn it down, but I’m also not going to cry about it. I cried at fourteen when my parents died, and I’ve hardly ever cried since.

  I’m not that woman—the sweet, sentimental one who tears up over a kind gesture.

  I’m the woman who makes an appointment on a Wednesday afternoon to ask a smug asshole to marry her.

  That’s me. Melissa Greyson. Twenty-eight years old. Hardworking. Efficient. Good at managing the world around me. Not a crying-over-coffee woman but a proposing-to-the-asshole woman.

  I guess it all starts one Monday at lunch with my grandfather, whom the entire world knows as Pop.

  Pop has white hair and a long, carefully groomed mustache, and he always wears jeans with a blazer. He’s been among the elite of Charleston, West Virginia for most of his life, after starting a successful restaurant chain called Pop’s Home Cooking that has expanded into twelve surrounding states.

  He looks harmless, but he’s not.

  When I told him at seventeen that I wanted to work for his company, he laughed and patted me on the head. Literally.

  I was a girl, he said. I’d be better off finding myself a good husband.

  He didn’t think I was capable of succeeding in the business world, so I did it. I went to UVA as an undergraduate and then to Harvard for an MBA. I interned for Pop seven summers in a row before he would give me a full-time job. He finally did four years ago when I finished the MBA, and ever since, I’ve been working fifty- or sixty-hour weeks just to prove to him that I’m capable.

  Six months ago, he finally gave me an executive-level position.

  Maybe he concluded that running Pop’s Home Cooking by the good-ole-boy network might have worked forty years ago but would only lead to failure today. Or maybe he’s seen how the work I’ve done and the changes I’ve made to the company have consistently increased our profits.

  For whatever reason, he promoted me. Half the staff hates me, of course. They think I’m a heartless bitch—I know they use the word because I’ve heard a few of them saying it under their breath—who will do anything to get ahead, and they also think I’m only in this position because I’m Pop’s granddaughter.

  Maybe you wonder why I stay on at Pop’s Home Cooking when I could get a good job somewhere else.

  I could. And after a bad day, I’ll even think about it.

  But this is my family. This is my heritage. I lost half my family in one blow—a car accident that killed my parents and both my grandmothers. All I have left are my two sisters, Pop, and this company. I’m not giving it up just because working here can be hard.

  This is also why I end up proposing to the asshole, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Each Monday, I have lunch with Pop, and he grills me on the work I’ve been doing for the past week.

  I also get lectures on my (always lacking) social life. Pop thinks women should be married and have kids, so I hear about it almost every week.

  Today he begins this topic in his normal way—asking me about whether there are any men in my life and what steps I’ve taken to meet them.

  I give him my normal vague answers, hoping it will be enough.

  It’s not.

  I know something is different today because his mustache starts to quiver. It always quivers when he’s feeling something intensely. “It’s time, Melissa,” he says. “It’s time.”

  I smile patiently, my habitual expression with him. No matter how angry he makes me, I never show it. I learned long ago that losing control with Pop is the way to lose the battle. “I’m only twenty-eight, Pop. I have plenty of time. A lot of women wait to get married these days. They don’t marry as young as women of your generation did.”

  “That’s stupid. If you wait any longer, you’ll end up having babies in your forties.”

  Babies are very far down on my list of priorities, but I’m not foolish enough to say this to Pop. “I’m not even thirty yet.”

  “It’s time. It’s time.” His mustache is quivering even more, and it’s making me decidedly nervous.

  This isn’t normal.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Pop, but I’ll ask around and see if any of my friends know a nice guy to set me up with.” This suggestion has worked several times before. I never do it, of course, but it works as a stall.

  “Good. Good. You do that. But I think the problem is you work too hard.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You work too hard. You don’t leave any time in your days for courtship. I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to change your job.”

  My hand grows still around the stem of my water glass. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m going to change your job. You have too much responsibility, so I’m going to restructure. If you have less to do, you’ll have more time.”

  A couple of things to understand about my situation. First, Pop owns the company outright. There is no board. He’s the sole decision-maker, so my job is entirely up to him.

  Second, he doesn’t make idle threats. Ever. When my father was twenty-five, he decided he wanted to become a high school math teacher instead of continue working at Pop’s. So Pop wrote him out of his will.

  When my sister Chelsea was in high school and dating a guy with a motorcycle and tattoos, Pop stopped her allowance for an entire month until she broke up with him.

  If he threatens to do something, he’ll actually do it.

  So I know he’ll gut the position I’ve spent a decade working to shape for myself if I don’t fix this immediately.

  “Pop,” I begin.

  “Don’t Pop me. You’ve wasted too much time already. You and your sisters too. At least you support yourself. They still live on my money, and they’re not making any more progress toward husbands than you are. Something has to be done.”

  An icy chill runs down my spine. This is a threat too. A subtler, more malevolent threat. He’s implying my sisters’ financial support is also in jeopardy.

  “If one of you doesn’t start moving in the direction of marriage, then I’ll have to do something about all of you.”

  Well, that’s clear enough. Get married or my job and my sisters’ security pay the price.

  The best strate
gy when Pop is on a tirade is to mollify him for the moment and hope he turns his attention to something else before he takes action. That has worked for me many times in the past, so it’s my instinct right now.

  “Pop, there’s no reason to take drastic action yet. My social life isn’t as barren as you think it is.”

  His eyes narrow, and he studies my face. He’s sharp. Sharp as cut glass. “So there is a man?”

  “Yes. I just didn’t want to tell you.” I’m smiling and lying and praying he’s buying it.

  “Why not?”

  Before you judge me for lying right to his face, you have to understand that this is the only way to deal with a man as controlling and manipulative as he is. If I hadn’t learned to lie to him, he’d have married me off to one of his middle-aged friends years ago, and I’d have no job and four or five babies by now.

  That’s not the life I want.

  So I say the first thing that comes into my head, the only reason I can imagine at the moment why I wouldn’t have told Pop about this fictional man I’m seeing. “I didn’t think you’d approve.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “I’m not ready to get into all that yet.”

  His mustache is quivering alarmingly. “Is it serious?”

  There’s only one answer that will placate him, so I give it to him. “Yes.”

  “You want to marry him?”

  “Yes.” I know I need to apply some brakes, or I’ll trap myself in an impossible corner. So I add, “But we’re not there yet.”

  He stirs his coleslaw with his fork and thinks for a very long minute. “Okay.”

  I straighten up, hopeful that I’ve successfully managed to overcome this hurdle. “Okay? So you’ll let me keep my position? And not do anything about Sam and Chelsea?”

  “Yes. But you have to actually marry this man.”

  “Wh—” I choke on the word. “But I just said we’re not quite there yet.”

  “That’s just cold feet. If you love him, you’ll marry him. It’s stupid the way young folks keep stalling for years these days. If you marry him, you can keep your job.”

  “But—”

  “You have to marry him. And I have to meet him by the end of the week.”

  Damn it. He’s called my bluff. “I don’t know if he’ll—”

  “If he loves you, he’ll marry you. If he won’t, then you need to find someone else. But I have to meet this fellow so I know he’s real. How do I know you’re not just making him up to get me off your back?”

  It’s a struggle, but I keep the gentle smile on my face. “Of course he’s real. It’s just a... a complicated situation. I’ll have to talk to him about it.”

  “Then talk to him. Introduce him to me by the end of the week. Then marry him. If not, I’m going to take steps to give you more time to spend on finding a husband.”

  Bastard.

  Manipulative old bastard.

  He suspects I’m lying, and he’s just walked me back into that corner I was trying to avoid.

  Since that day when I was seventeen and he patted me on my head, I’ve never given in to him on anything important. I’m not giving in to him now.

  I love my job. He’s not going to take it away.

  “Okay,” I say with another smile. “I’ll talk to him and see what he says. But just so I’m clear. You’re saying that if I get married, you’ll stop constantly nagging me about my social life and let me do my job? And you won’t use Sam and Chelsea’s well-being as a threat anymore?”

  His mustache wobbles. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying. But it has to be a real marriage. I wouldn’t put it past you to pay some poor fool to act like your husband. But a real marriage—where you live in the same house and sleep in the same bed—and one that isn’t over in a month or two. It has to last at least a year. If you do that, I’ll be satisfied.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Pop always keeps his word.

  My mind is spinning, already trying to work out a plan, but this is the last thing I imagined I’d be tasked with when I arrived at lunch forty-five minutes ago.

  “Okay.” I gulp down several swallows of water. “I’ll work on it.”

  THAT EVENING, I CALL my sisters for an emergency meeting over dinner. We have emergency meetings whenever Pop starts meddling, but this is the worst crisis we’ve dealt with in years.

  The three of us Greysons are nothing alike, other than the fact that we’re all blond and all female. I’m the oldest of the sisters and a typical oldest child, good at taking care of other people and taking care of myself.

  Sam is twenty-six and appears intent on becoming a lifelong student. She’s working on her third graduate degree, and she doesn’t spend any time on her appearance, although I’ve always thought she was very pretty.

  Chelsea is twenty-four and gorgeous with expertly highlighted strawberry-blond hair, a slim, toned body, and a flawless sense of style. She’s been a party girl since she was seventeen, and she’s not showing any signs of settling down yet.

  We’ve always been really close. Other than Pop, we don’t have anyone else.

  I tell them about my lunch with Pop, skipping his implicit threat against them since I don’t want them to feel guilty. I try not to sound as emotional as I feel, now that my shock has transformed into anger and fear.

  I’m not normally emotional, and coming to my sisters for advice feels strange for me. After my parents died, I was always the person they turned to for comfort. I worked hard to be the person they needed.

  Being needy has never felt like me.

  “He’s serious?” Chelsea asks when I’ve finished my story. “He really means it?”

  “Yes.” I shake my head and take a few breaths, trying to calm down and think rationally. “He’s definitely serious. He’s going to do it—take away my job—if I don’t get married.”

  “It’s just like he did with me and Wolf,” Chelsea says, referring to her motorcycle-riding boyfriend from years ago. “I still get mad when I think about it.”

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t done it to all of us by now,” Sam says, speaking for the first time in fifteen minutes. She’s obviously been thinking hard. “He thinks all of us are wasting our lives because we’re not married and popping out babies yet. I really think he’d be happy if we all just went and picked out trophy husbands just so he could say we were married.”

  “I know,” I reply. “He’s been pushing for years. But I didn’t know he’d threaten my job. I’m the one who’s gotten Pop’s growing and making money again. Would he really hurt his own company just to force me into marriage?”

  “He probably knows you’re not going to give up your job,” Chelsea says. “So there’s no threat to the company.”

  This is true. I can feel it’s true.

  He knows he’s trapped me, and he’s probably maliciously pleased with himself for doing so.

  “Okay,” Sam says. “So let’s think about this. Your choices are to let him restructure your position with Pop’s.”

  “No. That’s not an option. I’d rather quit entirely than let him do that to me.”

  Sam nods. “Okay. So your choices are to quit your job and work somewhere else or to find a guy—any guy—to marry for at least a year.”

  “Rod Bryson has always been into you,” Chelsea puts in. “I bet he’d marry you if you ask.”

  “I told Pop that it’s someone I didn’t think he’d approve of. He wouldn’t have any problems with Rod. And honestly, that giggle of his would drive me crazy if I had to put up with it for a year.” I slump forward onto my hands, which are propped up on the table. “I can’t believe I’m actually trying to figure out how to marry a guy for a year just to keep my fucking job.” My voice breaks on the last two words.

  Just to be clear, I’m not close to tears, but if I were a crier, I’d be crying right now. It’s a genuine betrayal, afte
r all the work and devotion I’ve invested in Pop, out of love and loyalty and family duty. He still thinks I’m forever lacking, never good enough.

  I was just starting to believe I was proving myself to him after so long.

  I clear my throat. “I’m not going to pick out a trophy husband since that’s what Pop would probably want. It would serve him right if I pick out the most outrageous guy possible, a guy he would despise, just to show him I’m not a puppet to be led around by his whims.”

  Chelsea giggles. “You should find a guy like Wolf—with tattoos, piercings, and a bad attitude. Pop would hate that so much.”

  Sam slants me a knowing look. “You know who it has to be, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “You’ve set the whole thing up with only one guy who will work. A man who Pop wouldn’t approve of. A man who Pop despises.”

  I know immediately whom she’s talking about, and it sends a wave of hot anxiety rushing through me. “Pop despises a lot of people.”

  “Sure, but how many of them are single and available? You need a single, available guy Pop hates. A guy he never stops complaining about. An obnoxious asshole.”

  I’ve frozen in my seat now, my mind so full of resentment, confusion, and excitement that my vision has blurred. “Damn. Pop would hate that so much. Every time someone even mentions his name, Pop snarls. Can you imagine if I married him? Shit, it would be perfect.”

  Now that the idea has solidified in my mind, I can’t get it out of my head.

  “You mean... Trevor Bentley?” Chelsea says the name like it’s a secret curse.

  Trevor Bentley. The most arrogant, obnoxious man I’ve ever met—and I’m including Pop in the summation.

  Could I really marry him for a year, just to keep my job, just to hold my own, just to prove something to Pop?

  No.

  There’s no way.

  I can’t stand the guy.

  But it would be so good...

  “You don’t like him either though,” Chelsea says. “Could you tolerate living with him for a whole year?”

  “Maybe.”

  Sam is still thinking. “You’d have to offer him something to convince him to do it. He doesn’t like you either, so you’d have to offer him something really good. Something he wants.”