The Marriage Dare

But then again, that might just be hoping and wishing that my father isn’t as terrible of a person as the rest of the world believes him to be.

I fill my plate with some of the amazing smelling food and eat. Daniel goes back to reading his newspaper like someone who stepped out of the men’s fashion magazine.

So there’s going to be a lawyer here. This is actually going to happen. “Are you going to have me sign a prenuptial agreement?”

Daniel looks up from where he’s reading. “Do you think I need to do that?”

“As a lawyer, I would say yes. You’re a man who’s worth is likely in the billions of dollars. You’re marrying somebody on a whim and any divorce in the future would likely immensely reduce your net worth.”

“And what would you say as a woman and not a lawyer?”

“That I don’t know why you’re marrying me in the first place, so I wouldn’t even know what to put in a prenuptial agreement. Of the two of us, you have all the assets. Of the two of us, you’re the one who can choose to drop me at any time. Because of that, it is to my benefit not to sign one. In case you decide you’re done with all this. Even if the split wasn’t 50-50, I wouldn’t be back on the street.”

He nods. “That sounds fine then. No agreement it is.”

“You’re crazy,” I say.

“That’s not the first time that I’ve been told that in my life. You don’t get to y position without people thinking that you’re some kind of evil genius. Even if all it was was a combination of luck and determination.”

“You’re really going to risk your entire fortune on a marriage that you are going into because you won a hand of poker?”

Daniel folds the newspaper and sets it on the table. “I guess luck and determination aren’t all that’s required. I am very good at reading people. And I’m very good at predicting how things will turn out. I may have bet our marriage on the hand of poker, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it through.”

“So you were serious when you said you’d give me a big wedding?”

“Of course.”

This could go so many directions. Weddings get expensive fast, and I wonder what it will take to realize that he’s in over his head. “What about Paris?”

He nods. “I have some business associates in Paris. We’re working on opening some European branches of Brazen Casinos. A wedding on top of the Eiffel Tower could be fun.”

“I’ll have to have at least two dresses. One for the ceremony and one for the reception. Maybe a third if there’s a cocktail hour.”

“I’ll have my assistant pull a list of designers that I’ve worked with before. I’m sure some of them would be ecstatic to work with you.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee, staring me down, not taking the bait.

“What about Bali?”

“The pictures in Bali would be nice. Very good for social media and the newspapers. Because naturally people are going to want to know that I got married. I’m sure you can expect a lot of people to attend the wedding. That would be my only complaint about Bali. It wouldn’t exactly be conducive to a large affair.”

I take a bite of pancake, pondering. “What about the Taj Mahal? It’s certainly big enough.”

He chuckles. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“And I’d like a world tour for the honeymoon. There are plenty of places that I’ve always wanted to see but have never gotten to.”

Daniel leans back in his chair and puts his arms behind his head. “If you plan it, and as long as I have an Internet connection from which to do work, then that sounds fine.”

“And of course I’ll need real live monarch butterflies to be released after we say I do.”

Daniels eyes narrow and he suddenly sits up. “Come here.”

I freeze. “What?”

“Come here.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I get up from my chair and walk the few feet to his. Without warning, Daniel grabs my hips and pulls me onto his lap so that my knees are straddling his waist. The sudden proximity makes me catch my breath, dizzy with his presence. His hands wrap around my wrists and hold them down by my sides. “I know what you’re doing, Princess. It’s not going to work.”

“I’m only trying to plan a fabulous wedding, husband.”

“No,” he says. “You trying to push me. You’re trying to go so far that I think you’re more trouble than you’re worth. You trying to get me to walk away.”

I blush, the now familiar feeling of embarrassment washes over me. He sees what I’m thinking three steps ahead of me. I don’t say anything to him.

“I’m only going to say this one time,” Daniel says. “So you better fucking listen. You can ask me for whatever you want. If you want to get married on the goddamn moon, I’ll do my best to make it happen. If you want to get married at the bottom of the Marianna’s Trench, I have people I can talk to. If you want to re-create the wedding scene from Moulin Rouge, that is well within the range of possibility.