I glared at him. “I don’t want to hear it Simon.”
“You don’t know that until you hear it.”
“I know that I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. And since you tanked my story, I don’t have to.”
Why I’d agreed to do the story was beyond me. Well no that’s not true. While my initial response was to turn down the story Nebraska Now asked me to write after my initial reporting of Sinclair’s work to thwart Simon’s prison, there had been a vengeful part of me that accepted it. I hated that Simon had called me out on that. I wished I was a bigger person. Mason deserved a mother who didn’t waste time she could be with her son by trying to ruin his father.
“Did you love me before?” he asked. He had his impassible mask on so I knew he didn’t care about my answer.
“What does it matter?”
“If I’d asked you to marry me then, would you have said yes?”
“Simon, what happened in the past is gone. A part of me thinks it never really happened. It was never real.”
He flinched, but then his mask fell back into place. “We should get married.”
I gaped. ?
??Are you on drugs?”
He surprised me by laughing. “Well, that’s not a no. Please, Lesl--Erica, hear me out. If you don’t like my idea, say no. That will be the end of it, I promise.”
“Your promises mean nothing.”
He leaned in closer. “That’s not true. I’ve never lied and I’ve never broken my word. People think that about me because I’m ruthless in business. Think Erica. Have I ever lied or not followed through on something I said I would.”
I hated that he was right about that.
“There’s a table over there. Join me.”
I told myself it was journalistic curiosity that had me sitting in the booth with him.
“You want to write a story about me.”
“I want to expose you for the man you are,” I corrected him.
“What better way to learn about me than to be married to me?”
I laughed. “You’re serious?”
“Of course.” He leaned his forearms on the table and sat forward. “You get every sordid detail of who I am and I promise not to block the story, and I’ll even help it find a place to publish.”
I narrowed my eyes as I studied him trying to find the loophole. “What’s in for you?”
He sat back. “Improved optics.”
Huh?
“Listen, this town is full of people who banded together in fake matrimony to get what they wanted, right?”
“Usually it was to stop you.”
“Not Ryder and Trina. Not Ms. St. James and Mr. Marshall.”
God, he was right about that too. Was he also correct that we all attributed more bad acts than he was actually responsible for?
“The point is, this town builds alliances, albeit in a strange way, but they do. All I’m doing is working to build an alliance with you.”