Chapter 4 AT CROSSROADS

Nella's POV

“Marry me”

I blinked and then I blinked again. Could this man be on some sort of drug?

“What?”

Nick didn’t even flinch. “You heard me, Nella. Marry me.”

Before I could stop myself, a laugh burst out of me. Not the funny kind. The “are you being serious” kind.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. 

“Marry you? How does that solve anything?”

“It solves everything, Nel,” he said calmly.

I hated how calm and composed he sounded, even though I was on the verge of crashing out.

“Oh, I’d really love to hear this,” I muttered, folding my arms.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, like he had already rehearsed the conversation in his head.

“My grandmother has conditions tied to my inheritance,” he began. “One of them is marriage. If I done get married before a certain time, I lose everything tied to it.”

I frowned, “everything?”

“My share in the family business, assets, all of it. It’s everything I’ve worked for. It’s my family’s. I don’t want to see it go down just because I couldn’t fulfill my obligations.”

I stared at him, trying to process what I was hearing. 

“And you decided,” I said slowly, “that the most suitable solution was to find someone random and ask her to marry you over lunch?”

He was about to say something, but I held up my hand. “I mean, yes, you’re rich and you have everything, so any girl would jump at the offer, is that it? We haven’t spoken in years and the one time we meet, you drop a crazy offfer in front of me.”

“You’re not random,” he said. “I know who you are.”

I stared at him for a moment. 

“Okay, let’s say I believe you, how does this help me?”

His gaze didn’t shift. “You get paid, Nel.”

I froze in my seat, unable to speak for a moment.

“What?” I was slowly becoming irritated at his boldness.

“I’ll cover your brother’s medical expenses,” he looked at me and continued. “All of it. Treatment, hospital bills, whatever he needs and you’ll be compensated on top of that.”

At this point, I was short of words. Then, I let out a sharp breath.

“So you saw my situation,” I said, my voice sounding a bit higher than I intended. “And you thought to yourself that I’d be easy to buy?”

“That’s not what it is,” he said. 

It looked like he was about to reach for my hand, but the look on my face stopped whatever it could be and I couldn’t be more glad!

“Really? Because it sounds exactly like that.”

“I’m not trying to take advantage of you,” he said, his voice firmer now. “I’m offering a solution. You need help and I need something in return. We both benefit. It’s a win win.” He laughed uncomfortably.

I shook my head, trying to steady my thoughts. Marriage. Fake or not, it wasn’t something you just walked into. I have always imagined a fairytale wedding, where I end up with someone I’m in love with. Not some sort of convenience thing. 

“You’re asking for too much.” I said quietly.

“I’m offering you a way out,” he replied.

There was grave silence between us as I looked down at my hands, my mind racing.

My brother, the hospital bills, the rejection email, everything.“I need time,” I said finally.

Nick nodded immediately, like he had expected that. “Take it,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card, sliding it across the table to me. “Give me a call when you’ve decided.”

I stared at it for a moment before picking it up. “Okay,” I said softly.

The cold hit me the moment I stepped outside the café. Marriage. The word kept echoing in my head. The conversation still felt so unreal. I hadn’t even gone halfway down the street when my phone rang. My heart may have skipped a beat when I saw the caller ID.

Oh dear!

“Hello?” I answered quickly.

“Miss Dupree, we need you to come in quickly. Your brother was rushed here from school. You may have gotten a call from the school.”

“I haven’t,” I said. My head was in a thousand different places. “What happened?”

“He’s experiencing increased complications. We need to run further tests.”

“I’m on my way,” I said as my pace increased.

By the time I got there, my hands were shaking. He looked…smaller. Weaker. Suddenly, all the little things I had ignored over the past few weeks came rushing back. The way he’d been sleeping more, how he’d since sometimes and act like it was nothing. How he kept saying he was fine and I had no reason to worry. I should have been more observant, I should have seen it.

“Doctor, what’s going on?” I asked, my voice shaky.

The doctor sighed. “The current treatment isn’t as effective as we’d hoped,” he said. “We need to do more.”

I blinked away the tears forming in my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“There’s a facility better equipped to handle this, we could transfer him to. But the transfer, the tests and the treatment will cost a lot more.”

Of course it would.

“How much?” I asked. As soon as he told me, I felt the ground beneath me disappear. 

I sat outside the ward, staring at nothing. My mind was blank, yet somehow too full at the moment. There had to be something I could do. There had to be a way. But, every option I thought led to the same place. Nothing. I was out of options.

My fingers tightened around my bag and then I remembered the card and the proposal. The whole conversation replayed in my mind all over. I slowly pulled out the card, staring at the name printed on it. This was my only way out. My heart pounded as I stared at the number on the card. 

This wasn’t what I wanted. This wasn’t the life I had envisioned for myself. Not doing this would make me selfish, right? I can’t watch my brother die when the solution to our problems was right in my hand. I can’t bear to lose him. Not like this. My hands were shaking as I dialed the number. I pressed the phone to my ear, awaiting his response. 

“Hello?”

I closed my eyes.

“I’ll do it.”