The Marriage Dare

“I don’t care.”

“I’m serious. People are going to call you crazy. There are going to be people you don’t know coming up to you and telling you that you shouldn’t be anywhere near me because I’m going to steal your money. Marrying me is likely going to be the worst press that you’ve ever gotten.”

I shrug. “Like they say, there is no such thing as bad press. And my marrying somebody isn’t going to change the fact that customers like my casinos. And once we get the wedding taking care of, and all those pictures hit the media, I’m sure that there will be no problem.”

Monica nods, but I don’t think she actually agrees. She’s biting her lip, and her hands are fidgeting in her lap. I reach across the seat and grab her hand, and she startles a little. “Do you trust me?” I ask her.

“I do,” she says. “It’s just that I think that you barely know about what happened with my family, you don’t understand how bad it really is.”

It’s a fair point, and I don’t discredit her worry. All I can do is help distract her from it. “Well, don’t think about that now. That’s not the point of what we’re doing today.”

She smiles. “I know.”

“Would you like an engagement ring? I’d like you to have one, but if you don’t feel like we had enough of engagement, I would understand.”

Monica thinks about it for a second, and I appreciate the fact that she’s actually taking time to think about it and not just saying yes to me. “How about we get there and we see what the selection is?”

“Fair enough. And the same rules apply today as yesterday. Only choose what you actually like, not what you think I would like.”

“I can do that,” she says.

Using the hand that I have trapped, I pull her closer to me. The amount of satisfaction that runs through my body when she comes without resistance and leans her head on my shoulder is overwhelming. I feel like I could take on the world, conquer anything. The media, every business deal in the book, fuck, I think I could climb Mount Everest in this moment.

Traffic on a Friday in Las Vegas is always a cluster fuck, so it takes us a while to get to Cartier. But when we pull up, Monica goes still. “Cartier? We’re going to Cartier?”

I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Where else?”

“You know that I honestly hadn’t thought about it? I just assumed… I don’t know. Maybe I thought you had some exclusive secret diamond dealer in the basement of one of the hotels.”

I laugh. “I won’t pretend that I don’t have diamond connections, but meeting in hotel basements is generally unpleasant.”

I get out of the car first and there are photographers here as well, but not as many as there were at the hotel. Not everyone has the connections to find out that I closed down the store. I help Monica out of the car, and then I hold her close as we walk toward the doors. Devon and Jack are already flanking us, so the photographers don’t get closer than they need to to yell their questions. But they already know she is. That was fast.

The voices blend too much together for me to catch entire questions, but I get the gist. What are we doing together? Why are we here? How do I feel about her father’s crimes? And of course, the question that she just warned me about, and that I knew would come up, why would a billionaire like me associate with someone so closely tied to scamming and cheating?

A Cartier employee holds open the door for us, and we slip inside. The walls are well insulated here, and as soon as the door shuts the noise cuts off like we pressed pause on the radio. Monica looks uncomfortable, and I know that she heard what the reporters were asking. I turn her toward me and use a finger to tilt her chin up, but she still avoids my eyes. “Look at me, Princess.” She does. “When I said I don’t care about that, I meant it. I know it’s not an easy thing, but try not to let it get to you. They don’t know you.”

“You barely know me,” she says. “They’ve been following me for years.”

“Has any of what they’ve said about you ever been true?”

She laughs. “Barely.”

“Then fuck them all,” I say. “They’re doing their job and they’re trying to get a story. But there’s no story for them to find. Now let me buy you some jewelry.”

That does the trick. Monica smiles a little, even though it doesn’t reach her eyes. I think I can get her to forget, at least for a little while. The atmosphere at Cartier is quiet and peaceful, and we have total freedom to look at or try on anything that we want. But for the first little while, as we’re roaming around, Monica doesn’t try on anything. She comments on how beautiful the diamonds are, and how she kind of likes one thing or another but nothing truly grabs her attention.