Kelly sat at the café table waiting for Jennie to arrive. She usually loved lunches with Jennie and if anyone could cheer her up, it would be her. She’d started spying on her boss a few weeks ago and always had something funny or interesting to talk about.
Kelly could never get over how gutsy Jennie was. She was the queen of espionage when it came to getting the scoop on things and probably should have been a journalist. The woman would kill at a career like that.
But she couldn’t get in the mood for lunch and gossip today. With no real job prospects in sight, it was beginning to look as if her bachelor’s degree in Political Science was every bit as useless as people said bachelor’s degrees were nowadays. To top it off, she’d finally received the last of the results of her applications for law school and the news wasn’t good.
Well, that wasn’t true. Most people would say the news was very good, but if you couldn’t pay for your school of choice, it didn’t matter if they accepted you.
Kelly looked up to see Jennie coming toward the table and pasted a smile on her face for her friend. She didn’t want her bad mood to ruin their lunch, and she didn’t want Jennie to feel sorry for her.
“I have juicy gossip today! You won’t believe what I overheard,” Jennie started off but slowed when she saw the look on Kelly’s face. “What’s wrong?” Jennie frowned at her friend.
Kelly shook her head and widened her smile. “I’m fine. What juicy gossip?”
Jennie wasn’t buying it. She tilted her head and raised her brows in challenge.
“I got my acceptance letter to Yale. I got in,” Kelly said.
“What? That’s fantastic!”
“I didn’t get enough scholarship money to cover even half the tuition there. I thought I had a shot at more grants, but they’re getting really tight nowadays. And if I take out that much money in loans, I’ll be paying for the rest of my life.”
Jennie leaned in and hugged Kelly across the table. “Oh, I’m so sorry. It must feel good to know you got in, though, huh? Ugh. That’s sounds so ‘hey it’s an honor just to be nominated,’ doesn’t it? I’m sorry, Kel.”
“I know.” She shrugged and tried to smile, but she knew it probably came off somewhat sad.
“How much money do you need?” Jennie asked hesitantly.
“Well, it costs $52,000 per year for three years. I got a few grants and scholarships but only about $18,000 total so when I say I’m short, I mean I’m really short. Even if I defer for a year and work the whole time I’m in school, there’s no way I’ll have enough.”
Jennie frowned. “I’m so sorry. I know you had your heart set on Yale, but maybe you can apply to other places? Maybe the state law school?”
Kelly raised her chin. “I will. I’ll work for a year while I apply at University of Connecticut for next year and save my money until then. UConn is a really good law school, too. Top fifty.”
It was really stupid of her to only apply to one school. She’d told herself some fru fru BS about letting the universe know she was all in so she’d get what she needed. What had she been thinking?
She pasted another bright smile on her face for Jennie. “So distract me. What have your secret spy skills found today?”
In hushed tones, so no one around could hear, Jennie launched into the story of the infamous Jack Sutton’s desperate need for a wife.
It was almost ridiculous to think the billionaire couldn’t find someone to marry him. He must have women lined up around the block who’d be willing to take a ring to the finger for that man. He was sexy as hell and easily New Haven’s most eligible bachelor. In fact, she was pretty sure the local papers had called him that more than once.
From what Kelly knew, he was some genius in the board room, turning companies that were struggling into Fortune 500 companies or something like that. Maybe it was water into gold he was doing. Whatever it was, it was a trick no one else seemed to be able to match to that level.
As Kelly listened to her friend talk, she wished she could sometimes be as brash and brave as Jennie. Really, who had the guts to listen in on their boss’s conversations like that?
And from the sound of it, her boss would have to find someone fast to run to the altar with him if he was going to keep his company and get his aunt off his back. In fact, she was surprised Jennie hadn’t marched into the room and proposed to Jack right then and there—just for the fun of it.
Propose to Jack Sutton?
Kelly froze. Sure it was a crazy idea, but why not? If she married Jack Sutton for one year, he’d get to keep control of his shares and his job and his company would be secure. She’d get the money to go to Yale for three years. She and Jack would go their separate ways at the end of the year. Voila!
Kelly shook herself and tried to get rid of the crazy idea. But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like a good one. A reasonable idea. The kind of idea she could pull off if she took a page out of Jennie’s playbook for once. If she didn’t let her doubts hold her back.
“Is Mr. Sutton nice?” Kelly interrupted.
“What?” Jennie asked. “Oh, well, yeah, I guess he’s a nice boss. Scares the hell out of most people in the business world. If you cross him or try to cheat him in a deal, look out. I’ve heard people say he’s crushed companies who thought they could pull something over on him. But, he’s actually really good to the people that work for him. It surprised me at first. I always thought he would be a real ball breaker.”
Jennie leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. “He has a whole division that he calls his security division, and they do some cyber security and stuff, but they’re really mostly there to investigate any companies he’s going to invest in or anyone he’s negotiating with. They say he never goes into a deal blind. If you enter a deal with Jack Sutton or walk up to the negotiating table on the other side of him, he’ll already know what color underwear you have on that day.”
Kelly shifted and looked around. “Well…but I mean, is he a nice guy? Like, would you date him or would he be a total jerk to the woman he marries?”
“Noooo, he’s not bad,” Jennie said slowly, looking at Kelly as if trying to figure out what she was thinking. “He’s a really good guy. I guess I’d date him, not that he’d ask me. I mean he dates… Oh my God! What are you thinking?” She pointed a finger at Kelly. “Oh my God! Don’t answer that. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’ll marry him!”
“It could work.” Kelly blushed. “I go in there and ask for my tuition in exchange for a year of marriage. We head to the courthouse, then a neat and easy divorce a year from now.”
Growing up, she thought she’d marry for love. That when it happened to her, it would be forever. But she hadn’t met anyone who made her think of spending her whole life with them. And a fake marriage would be okay as long as it had an expiration date, and it was to a man she could trust—a good man. It wouldn’t stop her from finding the real thing someday, and it meant that she’d be able to get her law degree.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t know the man, but Jennie did. And wouldn’t she have heard rumors if he beat his girlfriends or something? The man was always in the public eye in New Haven. The press loved him. He couldn’t keep anything like that secret for very long.
“Besides,” she said as she continued to justify her plan, “I might as well. It’s not like I’m going to miss out on falling in love with someone else because I tie myself up with Jack Sutton for a year.”
“Kelly, don’t be silly. Of course you’ll fall in love someday. You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”
She waved off her friend’s words. “Maybe someday, but I’ve dated some really great guys. I mean really, really great. But I’ve never felt more than ‘like’ for any of them—even when they said they were in love with me. I really don’t think love is in the cards for me, and even if it is, what are the chances that during the year I take off from dating for a fake marriage, I’ll miss out on the one guy who I’m destined to fall in love with? I think the chance of that is slim. And, if it’s true love that’s meant to be, wouldn’t it somehow work out after my fake marriage?” Kelly knew how to push Jennie’s hopelessly romantic buttons to win the argument.
Jennie stared at her, shaking her head. Kelly could imagine what her friend was thinking.
Jennie was supposed to be the daredevil. Jennie was the one who took risks. She did stupid things. Things with the kind of consequences that could get you in real trouble.
Kelly was the levelheaded, calm, orderly one. The kind of person who most certainly would never do this.
Jennie appeared to be speechless as she stared back at her. And if Jennie was speechless, things had to be headed in the wrong direction.