What Matters Most: The Billionaire Bargains, Book 2 (26 page)

“They’ll ruin your carpet and Will’s patience at least, your reputation at worst.”

“You need to explain,” Tony said flatly.

The look in his eyes was new. To date, he’d looked at her with heat, humor, mischief, adoration—several very positive, amazing emotions. Now he was looking at her with frustration.

“My mother married Kyle for his money,” she started. “My mother never wanted, never
intended
to work, but after my dad decided that he wasn’t going to work any longer either and faked his back injury so he could get disability payments instead of having a job, my mom quickly got fed up with having to do without. They finally split up, but the dumb thing is, I think they still love each other. They say there’s a fine line between love and hate, and my parents can’t be in the same room for two minutes without fighting with each other. So Mom found a rich husband instead. My sister loves older men who like having a younger woman in their bed and have the money to ensure she stays. My brother lives off his friends—who all also have money—until they get wise and kick him out. They’re all schemers and use other people. They take the easy way out all the time. And they are going to freak out when they find out I’m
married
to Tony Steele.”

Tony’s scowl returned. “Are you actually saying that if you’d known how much money I have, you wouldn’t have married me?”

“Exactly,” she exclaimed before she thought better of it. She took a deep breath and said more gently, “I didn’t really know who you were. Maybe that was foolish—” She took another deep breath. “Okay, that
was
foolish of me. But I thought I’d already met Anthony Steele of T.S. Enterprises. I knew there were other Steeles around, but I figured you were maybe a distant cousin or maybe not even related. Though I didn’t really think about it that much. You were this guy—I was crazy attracted to you, I loved flirting with you, but I didn’t think there was any return on my feelings. And I got involved with Jeff, and…I just didn’t think about your last name or what it meant, to be honest with you.”

“My money is usually an asset when it comes to women,” Tony said.

“I’m sure. But I’m…allergic to money.” She shrugged. “Money has been the root of so much angst and anger in my life. I’d rather not have any. Because when my family come around and act like they want to see me and act interested in my life and then ask me for something, it hurts. I’d rather not have anything that they could want.”

Tony was quiet for several seconds. Then he said firmly, “But you
are
married to me, Reese.”

She sucked in a breath. She was. And he didn’t seem inclined to budge on the whole divorce thing.

“And I would never have a shot with you again, so there is no way I’m letting you go.” He stretched to his feet.

Reese was hit with a strange impression that he was bigger now than before.

“I’m not worried about your family,” he said.

“You’re like prime rib in the midst of a pack of wolves,” she said. “They’ll never leave you alone. They’ll take everything they can get.”

Tony nodded. “Well, it would take them a long time to go through everything I’ve got.”

Reese bit back a growl of frustration. “That’s not the point. I don’t want them around.”

“I can handle them.”

“My brother will make you feel sorry for him.”

“I’m not easily manipulated.”

“He’s already living in your house!”

“Temporarily. I haven’t made him an heir yet,” Tony said dryly.

“You might want to do a full inventory when he leaves,” she said, crossing her arms again.

“I’ll put Will right on that.”

“I don’t want my sister to try to seduce you,” Reese said, voicing another very real possibility.

“I only want one woman. There is no risk there,” he said easily.

Reese got goose bumps in spite of being perturbed with him. “I don’t want my father filling your head with ideas that I’m like my mother and I’m with you because of your money.”

Tony took a step closer. “Honey, trust me, you’ve been very clear on that point.”

“Just make Sebastian leave,” Reese said. “Get him out of your house. Before the others hear the news.”

“Calm down,” Tony said. His tone made her next words die in her throat.

“I’ve got this,” he said. “I will have Will talk to Sebastian in the morning and see what we can work out.”

Reese stared at him and then shook her head. She couldn’t completely explain her tension and worry except to say that she was so tired of fighting and being frustrated by her family. Or more generally, people who took the easy way out, who didn’t have to work and worry and try like she and her friends and her clients did. That group of people included her family. And it included Tony.

“You’ll have Will talk to Sebastian,” she repeated.

“Yes. First thing in the morning.”

“So you invited him to stay, told him it was no problem, and now that it
is
a problem, you’ll have someone else handle it.”

Tony pulled a long breath in through his nose, obviously fighting to stay calm. “Will handles these types of situations well and I pay him handsomely for that skill,” Tony said. “Also, I intend to be
here
with my wife, because she wanted me to move into
her
apartment, so I won’t be able to have this seemingly urgent and delicate conversation personally.”

Seemingly urgent—yeah, she caught that jab. He clearly thought she was overreacting.

“Well, in that case, you’re free to go,” she said, also faking calm. “Please feel free to leave and go back to your house to deal with Sebastian. Whether it’s to throw him out or to deal with whatever havoc he’s already wreaked in your life. I hope all your passwords are appropriately complex and updated and I hope you’ve got a locksmith who can come right over and change all your locks.”

“Is that what you want?” Tony asked, his gaze studying hers intently. “For me to leave?”

She pulled her gaze away, unable to look at him directly. She paced to the door, needing space. “What I want is for you to handle a tough situation without throwing money at it. I want you to do something to make a situation better without having to use your wallet.”

There was a long, tense silence behind her. Reese felt tears stinging her eyes, but she swallowed hard and kept her back to him.

“I see.” His response was curt. She’d definitely never heard that tone from him before.

“I guess that blows my plan to pay your brother a million dollars to leave my house and not come back.”

Reese knew he was being facetious, but the problem was that scenario wasn’t completely absurd. He not only could do that, but possibly would. He’d offered to pay her to stay married to him. Tony was used to using his money to get what he wanted and needed.

“I’m trying to be honest.” She turned to face him finally. “You married into a family of freeloaders. I’m sorry. Like I said, I wouldn’t have married you if I’d known you had money.”

Tony stared at her in disbelief. “Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered.

“I just want you to be—”

“Jesus, Reese! I am
not
a dumbass!”

Reese froze and felt her eyes go wide. She might have just pushed the easygoing, laidback Tony Steele too far.

“The real reason you don’t want to stay married to me is apparently I’m stupid,” Tony went on, pacing toward her. “I realize that I’m a hell of a good time and I’m hilarious and charming and irresistible, but holy shit, Reese, I’m also intelligent and can stand up for myself and can tell when someone is trying to fuck me over!”

She stared at him, her heart pounding. She knew being aroused at this moment was completely inappropriate, but damn…she liked seeing Tony riled up.

She also knew that her reactions were part sleep deprivation, part embarrassment and frustration over her family and part just craziness. She didn’t think Tony was stupid. She did, however, fear that her family was going to absolutely and irrevocably screw everything up.

Which was the craziest of all.

This was the one time that her family getting involved could make everything better. If Tony couldn’t handle them, if they swooped in and drove him nuts or pissed him off, he’d be a lot more willing to talk about a divorce.

And that’s what she wanted. It meant nothing that the idea of losing Tony made her stomach clench and her chest tighten. They couldn’t stay together. Even outside of all the issues with her family, Reese really was opposed to one person having as much money as Tony did, and her preaching about it would make him insane over time. She was already making him feel like she thought he was an idiot.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she told him honestly.

“Good. I don’t either. I’ll take care of everything.”

“I think you should go.”

Reese raised her chin and braced herself as Tony froze and his jaw tightened.

“Excuse me?” His voice was deadly soft.

“You need to leave. I can’t do this. You’ll give my loser brother a thousand dollars after knowing him an hour because he’ll go party with you, while my good friend, a single working mom, is working an extra shift so she can make her rent
and
pay her phone bill this month. I asked you to live on a limited budget and you couldn’t even make it a day.”

“I thought I was helping your
brother
.”

“The point is,” she went on, needing to get this out. “The money is an issue. It always will be. You’ll make me crazy with your spending. I’ll make you crazy with my penny pinching. You’ll make me crazy by never taking anything serious. I’ll make you crazy by making everything serious.”

Tony was clearly gritting his teeth and she was struck again how fierce he looked. And how appealing that was on some strange level.

“You said for
richer
or poorer,” he said tightly.

She rolled her eyes. He didn’t remember what she’d said or not said in front of the official in Vegas. But yeah, okay, she’d said that.

“I was not fully informed as to what that meant in this case,” she said.

“Jeff has money.”

She actually gave a short laugh at that. “Not your kind of money.” No one did except his brother, Adam, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and maybe Oprah. “Jeff’s father has money. And occasionally gave Jeff access to it.”

She knew Tony couldn’t argue with that. Jeff’s father was well off and Jeff would be when he inherited, but he would never be at Tony’s level.

Unless, of course, Tony lost his entire fortune to Reese’s brother and father.

“Did you try this hard to protect Jeff? Did you give him this whole speech?”

She laughed lightly. “Protect you? I could never protect you from all the risks you take, Tony. You make your own choices. But it’s only fair to make sure you know all the information.”

“Right. You don’t save people. You make them save themselves.” He sounded bitter.

She frowned. “Giving people things, doing things for them, doesn’t help them. People need to take responsibility and own what they do and the choices they make.”

“But why does that have to be difficult and negative?” he asked. “Why do the choices have to be something hard to count? Why can’t someone make the choice to just throw caution to the wind and have a hell of a good time? As long as they own it, as long as they take responsibility to clean things up later? Having fun, enjoying life, isn’t a
bad
thing. And just because I don’t have to worry about paying my rent or my phone bill month to month doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy or that I don’t appreciate what I have. I don’t do manual labor and I don’t work twelve-hour shifts, but that doesn’t make me a selfish asshole. And it doesn’t make me like your father or your brother.”

Reese pressed her lips together. She was judging him, she knew that. She was aware of it but couldn’t seem to stop.

“Some things are easier for me,” Tony went on. “I have a big house and a nice car and a private plane. I don’t have to stand in line in security in the airport or sit for long layovers in between flights. I don’t have to rely on my neighbors for loans to fix my car and I don’t have to worry about things like health insurance. That’s all true. And I know that you want me to realize that there are more important things than money. I know you want me to decide that paying people for car repairs actually isn’t as nice as having friends willing to do it. But guess what? I like having money. I like being able to give it away and help people out. I like not worrying. I
love
not having to fly commercial. And none of that makes me a bad person either. Because every human being on this planet would agree with me that flying commercial sucks!” He pulled in a breath. “I know you want me to be a better person, and I thought I needed to be too, but you know what? I don’t think I’m really so bad.”

Reese’s heart was thundering and she couldn’t make her lungs expand.