Escorting the Groom (The Escort Collection 4)

"Oh. Huh." She looked momentarily boggled. "What about your sister?"

"Serena. She lives close by, too. But thankfully, I don't run into her too much."

Blake looked at me with sympathy. "Why are they so terrible?"

I shrugged. "You'll see soon enough."

"What's our story going to be, anyway?" she asked. "Do they think you're dating someone already?"

I surprised myself by laughing. "I haven't told them a thing. I'm going to introduce you to them this weekend. I was thinking we could plan a dinner."

"That sounds good… but can you tell me more about your situation? And your trust?" Blake asked. "Elena mentioned something about it, but she didn't go into much detail. I like specifics. I want to do the best job I can for you."

"Good. I appreciate that." I stared out the window as the city passed by. There was a lot of traffic on Massachusetts Avenue, commuters heading back to the suburbs from their downtown jobs. "The trust is from my mother's side of the family. It's a generation-skipping trust, which means that my mother never inherited any of it. It will pass directly to me and my sister if we comply with its terms. The provisions of the trust stipulate that in order to inherit the corpus, Serena and myself both need to be married by the age of thirty-five, and that the marriage must last for at least one year."

"What's the ‘corpus'?" She wrinkled her nose. "And why would it have terms like that?"

"The corpus is the bulk of the money in the trust instrument. And as for the terms, it's pretty common to have terms that denote that the grantee is mature enough to handle the inheritance." I scrubbed a hand across my face. "In my case, my mother's family wanted to be sure that the heirs only got access to the money if we were mature enough to take care of it. And they thought that marriage—one that wasn't short-term—was a good marker of that… or their trust and estates lawyers did."

Blake was quiet for a moment, appearing to process what I'd told her. "You said Serena was older than you?" Blake asked. "Is she married?"

"She was. She's divorced now." I turned back to Blake. "But she's qualified for her portion of the trust. She's met the requirements. The only thing standing in the way of her inheriting the whole thing is me. She doesn't get her money until it's been determined whether or not I'm getting the other half. That's why you're here."

"But otherwise, she gets everything?" Blake asked.

I sighed. "That's right. And if you knew my sister, you'd know why I don't want that to happen."

"I can't wait to meet her," Blake said, deadpan.

BLAKE

We pulled up outside The Stratum, and the valet opened my door.

"Wait a minute," Lucas snapped.

The valet nodded and immediately closed the door.

"This will be the first time we're seen in public." Lucas turned to me, his green eyes searching my face. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

I nodded. "Absolutely. This money will be life-changing for me. I'll be able to take care of my mom, not to mention what a million dollars would do for me."

"If this works, you'll get two million." Lucas's intense gaze held mine. The outrageousness of what we were doing hung in the air between us.

I smiled at him gamely. He needed to see that I was his ally. "I can do what you're asking, and I'm more than happy to. I promise I'll do what you ask, when you ask. Okay?"

"Okay. Then I should give you this." He pulled out a box and opened it. "We should start as we mean to go on." An enormous, square-cut diamond engagement ring glittered in the box, leaving me breathless.

I stared at it, open-mouthed. "Huh. Wow."

"I don't socialize with the people in my building too often, but they should see you wearing the ring. Everyone should."

I ogled the huge ring. "They'll see it, all right."

He took my hand, giving me a solemn smile and simultaneously, the chills. "Blake Maxwell, will you marry me?"

I smiled back at him. This was not how I'd pictured this moment as a little girl… but since when had my life ever gone as I'd hoped?

"Lucas Ford, I accept." He slid the ring on my finger, and I wondered vaguely whether his driver, who was double-parked and completely silent, thought we were insane. Then the valet opened the door again. I stood on the sidewalk, watching the diamond sparkle in the late-afternoon sun. I remembered the money.