The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

To say that I had an Achilles heel would be an understatement.

Growing up in a family with five kids and a single mom, money had always been tight. So, so tight. Scarce, really. Crayons in elementary school were those off-brand ones that didn’t color so well. I’d worn mostly hand-me-downs exclusively until I was old enough to pay for new things myself, and that hadn’t been until I was with my foster parents.

But if there was one thing that having so little for so long had taught me—it was the value of money and appreciation of belongings. No one respected money more than I did.

So, it had been to my utmost horror, when I applied to college and received zero scholarships. None. Nada. Not even $500.00.

I was smart, but I wasn’t an extraordinary student. I was shy in school. I didn’t raise my hand much in class, or joined every extracurricular activity available. I didn’t play sports because there wasn’t disposable income lying around to buy uniforms, and there hadn’t been any for us kids to join league teams either. My favorite thing had always been hanging out by myself, drawing and painting, if I had paints. I didn’t excel at anything that could have gotten me a scholarship. My high school hadn’t had a fine arts program worth anything; the closest class I’d been able to take was Wood Shop and I’d excelled at it. But where did that lead me?

There was a very clear memory of my high school guidance counselor telling me how average I was. Really. She’d said that to me. “Maybe you should have tried harder.”

I’d been too shocked to have to count to ten after that.

All As and a couple of Bs hadn’t been good enough. Yet I’d still been horrified and disappointed when I got accepted to every decent school I applied to, but received no financial help other than a federal grant I qualified for because of my financial need, but that only covered 10 percent of my total yearly tuition.

And, of course, the school I wanted to go to was out of state and incredibly expensive. I’d loved it more than I loved any other one I’d gone to check out with my friends the fall of my senior year.

So, I did the unthinkable. I took out loans. Massive student loans.

Then I did the next most unthinkable thing in the world: I didn’t tell anyone.

Not my foster parents, not my little brother, or even Diana. No one knew except me. There was no other person in the world who carried the burden of nearly $200,000.00 on their conscience but me.

In the four years since graduating with my bachelors, I’d been paying off as much as I could from my loans while also attempting to put money aside in savings to eventually be able to dedicate myself full-time to my dream. A debt as large as the one I had was a bottomless pit that you had to accept like it was Hepatitis—it wasn’t going anywhere—but it only served to make me work harder, which was why I didn’t mind going to work for Aiden, and then doing my design work well into the middle of the night afterward. But there was only so much you could take, and I’d saved and paid off a significant enough of a chunk to get to the point where I felt like I could breathe for the first time in years… as long as I didn’t let myself look too closely at the loan statements I got in the mail every month.

But…

“What do you think?” the big man asked, leveling his stare right at me as if he hadn’t just busted out the greatest secret in my life.

What I thought was he was out of his damn mind. What I thought was my heart shouldn’t have been beating so quickly. What I also thought was no one else should have known about how much money I owed.

Mostly though, a small part of me was thinking there was a price for everything.

“Vanessa?”

I blinked at him before looking down at my poor, contaminated sandwich sitting in the sink. Then I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and opened them once more. “How do you know about my loans?”

“I’ve always known.”

What? “How?” I felt… I felt a little violated honestly.

“Trevor did a background check on you.” That sounded vaguely familiar now that he mentioned it, even though it was disturbing to hear they knew something I’d tried so hard to keep to myself. “There’s no way you’ve managed to pay them off,” Aiden stated.

He was right.

Vomit. Vomit. Vomit.

“Whatever you owe, I’ll pay it.”

Just like that. I’ll pay it. Like $150,000.00 was no big deal.

I liked to watch that show on television where bosses went undercover at their businesses and then at the end, they surprised their employees with some crazy amount of money to go on vacation, or to pay off whatever it was they owed money on. More often than not, I got teary-eyed watching it. The employees would usually always cry and say how they never expected something like that to happen to them, or they would talk about how much of a blessing the money was going to be for their families. Or how much the gift they were being bestowed was going to change their lives.

Yet here I was.

My hands shook. The ability to breathe was stolen from my lungs.

My loans were my Achilles heel.

I was only slightly ashamed of myself for not immediately thinking his offer was preposterous. Why wasn’t I kicking him out or telling him to go eat shit? Why wasn’t I laughing at his idea? Or telling him to get the hell out because he couldn’t buy me? He hadn’t treated me well. He didn’t deserve for me to do him a ‘favor’, and put my life on the line for him.

Clenching my hands at my sides, I let the sensation of being overwhelmed wash over me. He was offering to pay off this thing that weighed on my soul like a cement block in a pool. Who did that?

Better yet, who said no to an offer like that? I liked to think I made wise decisions; that I did what was the best for me, or would be the best for me in the long run. But $150,000.00? Holy shit.

“I’m willing to compromise,” Aiden offered, his eyes even, his voice steady, which didn’t help any.

I sputtered.

Shut up, Van, I told myself. Shut up, shut up, shut up and just say yes, you idiot. Don’t talk him out of this. Don’t be that dumb. You can get over anything for that much money. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, even if he hurt your feelings, even though it’s stupid and illegal, and doesn’t make any sense because there are a million other women in the world who would do it for less.

But I couldn’t shut up. I just couldn’t. It was that nagging little part of my personality that I’d had to hone over the years—the one that didn’t know how to keep quiet sometimes.

I lifted my eyes and looked at the bearded man standing in my apartment offering me a lifeline, an opportunity. A felony, I made myself remember. He was asking me to do something that was essentially illegal. This man that had never given two single shits about me until now that he needed something, and he had no one else to ask. “Aiden….”

The most muscular man I’d ever known took a step forward, and dropped his hands to his sides, pinning me in place with his gaze alone. “It has to be you. I’ve thought about it. No one understands my schedule the way you do. You don’t get on my nerves, and you’re…” He shook his head and crucified me on the spot. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Tell me what you want and you’ll have it. Anything.”

The headache that had been hanging around my temples from hunger suddenly intensified.

Tell him no, the smart part of my brain said. I could pay off my loans eventually. I still had time.

But the other part of my brain, the logical one, told me it would be dumb to waste this opportunity. All I had to do was marry the guy, right? Sign a piece of paper? Save a fortune worth of interest?

Oh, hell. I couldn’t seriously be changing my tune from one minute to the next. I’d just been telling him how we weren’t friends and how much he’d hurt my feelings, and how dumb he was being for even bringing it up… and now I was thinking about his offer all in a matter of a few minutes. Then again, over a hundred thousand dollars was riding on this offer. This wasn’t nothing.

It was when my hand started shaking worse than before that I had my temporary answer, and even then, simply wanting to consider the option made me feel like a prostitute.

I might be thinking of myself as being a prostitute, but at least I’d be a prostitute free from debt, wouldn’t I?

His gaze was totally fixed on me standing there, in my tiny kitchen in baggy Dr. Pepper pajama pants and a spaghetti strap tank with no bra. This incredibly handsome and intimidating man wanted…

There was something wrong with me. There was something seriously wrong with me.

Tell him to screw off. Tell him to screw off.

I didn’t.

“Let me think about it,” I said, my voice breaking, unsure.

He didn’t cry victory at me not immediately telling him to go to hell, which was surprising. Instead, Aiden said very calmly, “That’s fine.” He hesitated for a second, rocking from one foot to another. “I am sorry I messed up.”

A knot formed in my throat at the expression on his features.

“I’m used to being on my own, Vanessa. Nothing that I did or said had anything to do with you. I want you to understand that.”

Without another word, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg let himself out. The only sound signaling his departure was the door slamming shut behind him.

I was going to think about it. Going to think about marrying a guy for money when I’d walked out on him a month ago for not defending me to his manager, for not upholding the tiny bit of a bond I thought we shared. What the hell was I doing?

Being smart, that logical part of my brain whispered.

I didn’t get any sleep the next two nights, and that wasn’t exactly surprising. How the hell was I supposed to sleep when all I thought about was if I was really considering committing fraud—marriage fraud it was called—to make a lot of money? Was this what thieves went through?

I felt guilty, and I hadn’t even done anything.

I felt slightly cheap too, for not saying “hell no” right off the bat, but I didn’t feel that cheap.

Getting my loans paid off—and the possibility of having a house bought for me—enticed me a lot more than my morals would have ever expected. Then again, morals didn’t exactly mean much when you were shelving out what was a mortgage worth on loans each month. I lived in an apartment that would horrify my foster parents if they knew what it was like. My car was twelve years old. I kept my expenses to the absolute minimum, just to spend my money the way I needed to.

And then I started thinking to myself… if I did this, I would have to get divorced one day. I would have to tell my future husband—if there was one—that I’d been married once, and I would never, ever be able to tell him the truth as to why I’d done it. It wasn’t like I could lie and pretend it had never happened, even if it would be fake and in word only.

Was that cool? Was that fair? Maybe it was because my mom never married while I was young, but I’d always envisioned it as being this ultra-serious, special thing that not everyone got to do. A union of two people who decided they were going to tackle the world together—so you should be picky with whom you chose as your partner. ‘Til death do you part and all that stuff, otherwise you would just be wasting your life. Right?

When I wasn’t contemplating all that stuff, I asked myself what in the world I would tell the people in my life. They would know I was up to my neck in shit if I suddenly said I was marrying Aiden. I would have to bring up the loans if I told them the complete truth, and I would rather stick my hand in a boiling pot of water than do that.

It was all too much. Way too much.

And so, I finally picked up the phone and called the only person who I wouldn’t be able to fool with my lies. I couldn’t live with it any longer. I was tired, grumpier than ever, and I wasn’t focusing because I was too distracted. I needed to make a decision.

“Diana, would you marry someone for money?” I asked her out of the blue one afternoon when I called her during her lunch break.

Without missing a beat, she made a contemplative noise. “It depends. How much money?”

It was right then that I knew I’d called the wrong person. I should have dialed Oscar, my slightly younger brother, instead. He was the levelheaded one in my life, the basketball player studying mechanical engineering. He’d always been wise beyond his years. Diana… not so much.

I only told her the partial truth. “What if someone bought you a house?”

She “hmmed” and them “hmmed” a little more. “A nice house?”

“It wouldn’t be a mansion, you greedy whore, but I’m not talking about a dump or anything either.” I figured at least.

“All I had to do was marry someone, and they would buy me a nice house?” Later on, I could laugh over the entire situation leading up to this conversation, and how easily Di was considering it.

“Yes.”

“Would I have to do anything else?”

What else would there be? The marriage would just be to get his residency; it wouldn’t be a forever thing. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh.” Her tone perked up. “Sure. Why not?”

Sure. Why not. Good grief. I snorted.

“Wait a second. Why are you asking? Who’s doing it?” She finally chimed in, extremely interested.

When I was done explaining to her just about everything minus what had been my tipping point to quit, I waited for her sage—usually not so sage—advice.

What I got was: “Do it.”

“That’s it?” I scoffed. I was asking her for her opinion on a life-changing decision, and that was how she was going to respond?

“Sure. Why not? He has money, you know the worst things about him, and he’s willing to pay you. What do you have to think about?” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She was definitely the wrong person to call for advice. “It’s illegal.”

“In that case, make sure you don’t get caught.”

Okay, Aiden Junior, I thought before she continued on.

“People do it all the time. Remember Felipa?” That was her cousin; how could I forget? “That Salvadoran guy she married paid her five thousand dollars. You might get a house, Vanny. You could be a little more grateful.”

Definitely the wrong person. “We’re not each other’s biggest fans.”

That had her exasperated. “You like almost everyone. He can’t exactly hate you if he’s asking you and not someone else. I’m sure he’d have bitches lining the block if he even remotely put in some effort.”

Her comment had me groaning. “You really think I should do it then?”

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. You don’t have a boyfriend. You have nothing to lose.”

She was making this too easy, making me feel dumb for not immediately jumping at the chance, but something had been lingering in my gut, and it wasn’t until she said the thing about bitches lining the block that I realized what it was. My pride. I cracked my knuckles. “I don’t know how I’d feel about being married and having my husband,” I almost choked on the word, “being with other people during. Even if it was fake. Someone would find out that we’d gotten married, and I don’t want to look like the poor idiot wife whose husband cheats on her and everyone knows.”

Diana hummed again. “Did he date around while you worked for him?”

He didn’t. Ever. He didn’t even have any females saved in his contacts on his phone. I would know. I was the one who had gone to the store to get him a new phone and have his contacts transferred, and I might have looked through them. There had definitely never, ever been any sleepovers at his house, or any women hanging around. There couldn’t be any after away games because, according to Zac, Aiden always went straight back to his hotel room afterward.

So, yeah, I felt a little dumb. “No.”

“So then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

I swallowed my saliva. “I can’t date anyone either.”

That had her cracking up and I suddenly found myself insulted at how hard she was laughing. “You’re funny.”

“It’s not funny.” So I hadn’t had a boyfriend in a couple of years. What the hell was the big deal?

Her hysterical laughing reached a peak. “I can’t date anyone either,” she mocked me in a voice that I knew was supposed to be mine. “Now you’re just making shit up.”

It was a well-known fact that I didn’t date much.

Diana sounded like she was covering her mouth with her hands to smother her laughs. “Oh, V. Do it and stop thinking about it so much.”

She wasn’t being any help, and I found myself still torn in half. “I’m going to keep thinking about it.”

“What’s there to think about?”

Everything.

But I thought about it. Then I kept thinking about it some more.

I looked online at how much I still owed on my loan, and I almost threw up. Looking at the balance was like looking at an eclipse; I wasn’t supposed to do it. The six digits before the period that glared back at me from the screen made me feel like I was going blind.

This thing with Aiden was a lottery, and I happened to be the only one with a ticket to it; it also happened to be the winning ticket. This small nugget of uneasiness jiggled around in my chest, but I ignored it as much as I could until I couldn’t handle it any more.

I would be helping someone whose sincerity I couldn’t judge completely.

I would be signing away years of my life.

I’d be doing something illegal.

And I would be doing this all as technically a business transaction. It wasn’t that complicated because I understood what Aiden was doing and why he was doing it, for the most part.

I just didn’t completely understand why he insisted on trying to reel me back into his life.

Regardless of everything else though, a part of me was resentful that Aiden I-get-everything-I-want Graves, had his mind set on me to be the one to help him out. I guess I didn’t feel like he deserved my help or my loyalty when he’d never exactly done anything to deserve it.

But…

My student loan debt wasn’t just a paycheck; it wasn’t payable in five years like a car loan. Plus, if a house would also be a form of payment… We were talking a lot of money, a lot of heartache, and a lot of interest. Thirty years on a mortgage. It would be a massive relief.

Wouldn’t it?

Could I just forgive Aiden and do this?

I knew people made mistakes, and I understood that you didn’t always know what you had until you didn’t have it; I had learned that myself the hard way about small things I’d taken for granted. But I also knew how resentful I could be, how I held on to grudges sometimes.

I found myself driving to Aiden’s house, heart in my throat, risking my life and freedom for a freaking student loan that I couldn’t just forget about or disregard.

The security guard at the gate grinned at me when I pulled in to the community Aiden lived in. “I haven’t seen you in forever, Miss Vanessa,” he greeted me.

“I quit,” I explained after greeting him. “He shouldn’t be surprised I’m here.”

He gave me a look that said he was a little more than impressed. “He’s not. He’s been reminding me every week to let you in if you came by.”

He was either a little too confident or…

Well, there was no ‘or.’ He was a little too confident. I suddenly had the urge to turn my car around to teach him a lesson, but I wasn’t egotistical or dumb enough to do it. With a good-bye wave at the guard, I drove passed the gate and toward the home I’d been to too many times to count.

I knew he’d be home, so I didn’t worry about the absence of cars in the driveway as I parked on the street like I had every time in the past, and marched up to the front door, feeling incredibly awkward as I rang the doorbell.

I wanted to turn around, walk away, and tell myself I didn’t need his money. I really wanted to.

But I didn’t go anywhere.

It took a couple minutes for the sound of the lock getting tumbled to let me know he was there, but in no time, the door was swung open and Aiden stood there in his usual attire, his towering body blocking the light from inside the house. His expression was open and serious as he let me in, and led me over to where everything had begun—the big kitchen. It didn’t matter that his couch was incredibly comfortable; he always seemed to prefer to sit in the kitchen at the island or in one of the chairs of the nook to eat, read, or do a puzzle.

He took a seat on his favorite stool, and I took the one furthest away from him. It was weirder than it should have been considering what was at stake.

I was a person, and he wasn’t any more or any less special than I was, and regardless of what happened, I had to remember that point.

So I sucked in a breath through my nose, and just went for it. Honesty was the best policy and all that, wasn’t it? “Look, I’m scared,” I admitted in one breath, taking in his familiar features, the slants of his cheekbones, the thick, short beard that covered the lower half of his face, and that ragged white scar along his hairline.

For two years, I’d seen his face at least five times a week, and not once had we ever had a moment remotely close to this. I couldn’t forget that, because it mattered to me. It would be one thing to have a stranger ask me to marry him because he wanted to become a U.S. resident, but it was a totally different thing to have someone that I knew, who had never cared for me, ask.

Honestly, it was worse.

Aiden’s long lashes lowered for a moment, and the man who was as greedy with his attention and affections as I was with the red and pink Starbursts, lifted a rounded, hunk of a shoulder. “What are you worried about?” He commanded the words.

“I don’t want to go to jail.” I really didn’t want to go to jail; I’d looked up marriage fraud on the internet and it was a felony. A felony with up to a five-year prison sentence and a fine that made my student loans seem like chump change.

Apparently the male version of my best friend said, “You have to get caught to go to jail.”

“I’m a terrible liar,” I admitted because he had no idea how bad of one I was.

“You knew you were planning on quitting for months before you did. I think you might be okay with it,” he threw out suddenly in a slightly accusing tone.

That might have made me wince if I felt guilty about what I’d done, but I didn’t. It also didn’t occur to me right then that he somehow knew I’d been planning on quitting for a long time. It just sort of went in one ear and right out the other. “I didn’t lie to you. I only stayed because you had just gotten better, and I felt bad leaving you so soon afterward. I couldn’t talk myself into doing it, and I was only trying to be a nice person. There’s a difference.”

His thick eyebrows went up a millimeter but no other muscle in his face reacted to my comment. “You told Zac,” he pointed out like an accusation.

An accusation I wasn’t going to grab onto. “Yeah, I told Zac because he’s my friend.” I damn sure wasn’t going to apologize for it. “Please tell me when I was supposed to casually tell you, and expect a high five. Or were you going to give me a hug and congratulate me?” I might have nailed him with a look that said ‘are you fucking me?’

“When I did finally tell you, you didn’t care, Aiden. That’s what half of this comes down to. I’m still… I’m so mad at you, and I accept that I shouldn’t be. I just can’t help it. You’re not my friend; you’ve never tried to be my friend. You haven’t once given a shit about me until you needed something, and now for some strange reason, you’re making it seem like you can’t live without me. And we both know that’s bullshit.”

He stayed quiet for a moment, taking a sharp sniff, his eyes seemingly trying to pierce a hole straight through my head. “I’ve apologized to you. I meant it. You know I meant it,” he insisted, and I could grudgingly admit to myself that the logical part of my brain recognized that statement as a truth. Aiden didn’t apologize, and for all the things he was, he wasn’t a liar. That just wasn’t in his genes. For him to actually say the ‘A’ word? It wasn’t insignificant. “I don’t have time for friends, and if I did, I wouldn’t go out of my way to make them anyway. I’ve always been this way. And I really don’t have time for a relationship. You understand that. I’m not worried about getting caught—”

So he was changing the subject. “Because you won’t be the one going to jail,” I reminded him under my breath, frustrated at his tactics.

He raised one of his eyebrows another millimeter, but it was his flaring nostrils that gave away his irritation. “I’ve done a lot of research, and I consulted an immigration lawyer. We can pull it off. All you would have to do at first is file a petition for me.”

Aiden didn’t say I think we can pull it off, he said we could do it and I didn’t miss that nuance.

“You know, Aiden, you make saying yes so damn difficult. I would have done just about anything for you if you’d asked me when I worked for you, but now, especially when you act—you still act—like one single ‘sorry’ makes up for disrespecting me in front of other people, and letting someone talk about me, it pisses me off. How can you ask me to do this huge favor for you when I feel zero obligation to? We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I didn’t want my loans paid off.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I want to tell you to leave me alone, that I’ll pay off my debt on my own like I had always planned on doing. I don’t need your money.” Meeting his eyes, I had to fight the urge to tear up. “I wished you had respected me enough to appreciate me back when it would have meant something. I liked you. I admired you, and in the course of a few days, you killed all that.”

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

We stared at each other. And stared at each other. Then stared at each other a little more.

When I was a kid, I learned the hard way how expensive the truth was. Sometimes it cost you people in your life. Sometimes it cost you things in your life. And in this life, most people were too cheap to pay the price for something as valuable as honesty. In this case, I could tell the price tag had hit Aiden unexpectedly.

Slowly, after a few breaths, he ducked his head, and rubbed at the back of his neck with that great big hand. His breathing got harder, raspier, and he sighed an Alaska-sized breath. “Forgive me.” His tone was rougher than ever, seemingly dragged through sand, and then covered in shards of glass. Yet somehow, it sounded like the most real, heartfelt thing to ever come out of his mouth, at least in front of me.

But it still didn’t feel like enough.

“I can forgive you. I’m sure you regretted it later on when I wasn’t around but—” I shoved my glasses to the top of my head and rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand before lowering them again. “Look, this isn’t a good start to a fake relationship, don’t you think?”

“No.” He moved his head slightly, just enough so that I could see those dark coffee irises with that bright amber ring surrounding the pupil peering up at me beneath the fanned cover of his long eyelashes. “I always learn from my mistakes. We made a good team once. We’ll make a good team again.”

Lifting his head completely, a dimple in his cheek popped out of nowhere, and he raised his hands to cup the sides of his head. “I’m no good at this kind of stuff. I would rather give you money than have to beg, but I will if that’s what you want,” he admitted, sounding about as vulnerable as ever. “You’re the only person I would want to do this with me.”

Why wasn’t this so black and white?

“I’m not asking you to beg me. Come on. All I’ve ever wanted from you was… I don’t even know. Maybe I want to think that you care about me at least a little bit after so long, and that’s pointless. You want this to be a business deal, and I understand. It just makes me feel cheap because I know if Zac was asking me, I would have probably said yes from the beginning because he’s my friend. You couldn’t even find it in your heart to tell me ‘good morning’.”

He sighed, his index finger and thumb pulling at his ear. Dropping his gaze to the kitchen countertop, he offered, “I can be your friend.”

Two years too late. “Only because you want something.”

To give him credit, he didn’t try to argue with me otherwise. “I can be your friend. I can try,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “Friends take a lot of time and effort, but…” Aiden looked up at me again with a sigh, “I can do it. If that’s what you want.”

“I get so angry thinking about everything; I don’t know if that’s even what I really want anymore. It’s probably not what I ever wanted. I don’t know. I just wanted you to see me as a person instead of just that person you don’t ever have to tell ‘thank you’ to. So for you to tell me you can try to be my friend, it’s so forced.”

“I’m sorry. I know. I’m a loner. I’ve always been a loner. I can’t remember the last time I had a friend who didn’t play football, and even then, it usually never lasted. You know how much it means to me. You know how seriously I take it, maybe better than most of my teammates do,” he explained like it was taking everything in him to make that admission.

I just kind of side-eyed him.

He continued. “I know you know. I can also accept responsibility for not being very nice to you either, all right? I said I’m not good at this friendship thing, I never have been, and it’s easier not to bother trying.”

If that wasn’t the most slacker comment to ever come out of his mouth, I didn’t know what was. But I didn’t say it out loud.

“If you got on my nerves, I would have fired you the first time you flipped me off.”

I found myself not exactly feeling honored.

“You’re a good employee. I told you that. I needed an assistant, Vanessa; I didn’t want a friend. But you’re a good person. You work hard. You’re committed. That’s more than I can say about anyone else I’ve met in a long time.” That big Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared right at me. “I need a friend—I need you.”

Was he trying to bribe me with his amazing, once-in-a-lifetime friendship? Or was I just being a cynical asshole?

As I stared at his facial features trying to decide, I realized I was being dumb. This was Aiden. Maybe he’d done something shitty by not defending me, but if I really thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have defended Zac either. He’d said time and time again in interviews that he solely wanted to focus on his career while he had it. From every interview that had ever been made with one of his coaches, they all said the same thing: he was the most single-minded, hardworking player they had ever come across.

He started playing football his junior year of high school. Junior year. Most NFO caliber players had been on the field since they were old enough to walk. Yet Aiden had a calling, Leslie, his high school coach had said. He became a phenomenon in no time at all, and attended a university on a football scholarship. Not just any run of the mill school either, but a top one. One that he’d won a few championships with, and even graduated with a degree from.

Damn it.

God damn it.

He wouldn’t be asking me to do this if he didn’t think he had to.

And I was well aware that people didn’t change unless they wanted to, and this was a man who did whatever he put his mind to.

This pitiful, resigned sigh pulled its way out of my lungs. An answer to what he was asking of me sat at the front of my brain, at the tip of my tongue, curled in the pit of my belly. Was there any other possible response that wouldn’t lead me to being the biggest idiot on the planet?

“Let’s say we can. How long… how long would we have to stay marr—?” I couldn’t say it on the first try. “Stay married for?” I rushed out in a small voice.

He made sure to look me right in the eye when he answered. “Five years would make it seem less suspicious. I would only be given a conditional green card at first. After two years, I could get a permanent one.”

Five years? Aiden was thirty now; he’d be thirty-five. I was twenty-six for the remainder of the year. I’d be thirty-one when we’d technically get divorced. Thirty-one wasn’t old, not even close to it. The number didn’t seem as atrocious as it should have… if I was really considering agreeing.

But still. Five years. A lot could happen in that period of time. What I knew most though, was that there was no way in hell I could manage to pay off my loans in ten years, much less five, even if I sold my car, rode the bus everywhere, disconnected my cell phone, and ate ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Five years,” I repeated, blowing out a breath. “Okay.”

“Makes sense?”

I eyed him, reminding myself that I wasn’t saying yes to him yet. We were just talking. “Yes, it makes sense. If I were saying yes, which I’m not doing right now, so calm your horses.” I’d give myself a pat on the back later for being so ballsy and firm.

He stared at me evenly, unfazed. “What else are you worried about?”

I huffed. “Everything?”

Aiden blinked at me. “About what? I’ll pay off what you owe and buy you a house.”

Think, Van. Think. It couldn’t go this easily. I had some honor, and I hadn’t completely forgiven him for being a jackass, despite his possibly manipulative and forced apologies earlier. My pride had a price too, and it was that idea that had me swallowing hard and meeting the gaze that for so long had forced me to look elsewhere.

“What if your career ends tomorrow?” I asked, despite how much of a gold digger it made me sound. This was a business deal, and I was going to treat it like one.

One of his eyebrows went a little funny. “You know how much money is in my bank account.”

He had a point.

“If I didn’t work the rest of my life, I would be fine. You know I don’t handle my money irresponsibly either,” he stated in an almost insulted tone. By that, he meant he could still go through with what he was offering me, and be okay in the end.

“I’m not going to be your assistant again either.” I made sure to keep my eyes on him even though I really, really didn’t want to. “I’ve worked really hard to do my design work full-time, and I’m not going to give it up.”

That wide, square jaw hardened, and I could tell his teeth were grinding, which gave me an oddly victorious sensation in my chest. “Vanessa—”

“I’m being serious. I’m not doing it. We tried it and it didn’t end well, and I won’t put myself through that again. You know I don’t even really want to do this, but you’re offering me something that’s hard to say no to,” I explained. “I’m not trying to take advantage of you, but I didn’t ask for this. You asked me. You’ve gone out of your way to get me to agree; I told you there are a million women in the world who would do this for you, and not want anything in return—” except to maybe sleep with him, but I kept that to myself. “You don’t need me. You have the world at your fingertips, big guy. I don’t know if you know that or not.”

After saying that, I realized I might be the dumbest person in the entire universe. The dumbest.

I half expected him to tell me to screw off then, but this was a deal breaker, and I needed him to understand that. If he told me I was out of my damn mind, then twenty years from now, I could more than likely live with myself for turning down his offer. I’d planned to quit working for him to further my dream; I wasn’t going to tie myself down for another five years with the same amount of work I’d been juggling. I just wasn’t. There was a lot I’d be willing to sacrifice, but not that.

Folding my hands on my lap, I squeezed one set of fingers tight, focusing, and keeping my breathing even.

He was frustrated. Aggravated. But he wasn’t saying yes or no. I had nothing left to lose, and I needed him to understand that yes, maybe I was being a little bit of a bitch, but it wasn’t for no reason. He did what he did for his dream, and I was going to do what I needed to do for mine. If anyone could understand that, it should have been him.

I reached up and played with one of the legs of my glasses, forcing myself not to look away. I licked my lips nervously and raised my eyebrows. I’d done it, said what I needed to say, and I could live the rest of my life with the consequences, damn it.

What seemed like a month later, The Wall of Winnipeg sighed.

I set my elbow on the counter and mirrored his position in resignation. “Are you fine with me not being your assistant or not?”

Aiden nodded gravely, forcefully.

I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved, so I went with neither. Business mode, I needed to get into business mode. “I’m not going to go to jail for you, so we need to figure everything out. What are we going to tell Zac?” Speaking of Zac, where was he? I wondered.

“Even if I told him to find his own place, he would know something was going on. We have to tell him. We would need people to confirm we’re in a real relationship together.”

Was that the truth? I nodded, thinking of Diana, and how I had told her everything already. “Yeah. I have to tell my friend. She would know something was going on. I can get away with not telling anyone else.” I’d thought about it, and I was fairly certain I could embellish Aiden trying to win me over to come back as some sort of love story. At least, that’s what I hoped. Not being super close to anyone, including my little brother who had his own busy life, obviously helped in this situation.

Aiden nodded, practical and understanding.

But… I raised both of my shoulders. “What about everyone else?” Everyone else. Literally. Everyone in the world. Just thinking about it made me want to puke. Any idea or hope of possibly being able to hide a possible marriage had gotten flushed down the toilet when I remembered an article on Aiden years ago, when he’d been spotted eating dinner with a woman—a woman who turned out to be a rep for a company that was trying to endorse him. Who cared? I’d originally thought.

Then it had hit me. Some people did. And too many people cared about all things involving Aiden Graves. He couldn’t cut his hair without someone posting about it. Someone in the world would find out we’d gotten married at some point. There would be no hiding it.

And that made me feel uneasy. I hadn’t even liked the attention I’d gotten from people when they found out I worked for him. Getting hitched to him would be an entirely different ballpark.

I had to swallow the saliva in my mouth to keep from gagging.

“We could keep it quiet for a while—” the big guy started to say. I gave him a look that he just returned with a blink. “—but someone will find out eventually. We can get married without making a big deal over it, and divorce the same way. What happens on the field is for my fans, everything else isn’t their business.” The way he stated that didn’t give me room to doubt him.

I would be living the rest of my life as Aiden Graves’s ex-wife.

The thought almost made me cross my eyes at how absurd it was. Then immediately afterward, I wanted to put my head between my knees and pant.

Instead of doing any of those things, I made myself process his words, and then nod. His idea made sense. Obviously, someone in the world would eventually find out, but Aiden was intensely private with the people he knew, and so much more with folks he didn’t. It wouldn’t look strange if we kept it a secret as long as possible.

The thought had just entered my head when I asked myself, what the hell had I gotten myself into?

“We wouldn’t be able to sign an agreement that says you get a house and your loan paid off, but I hope you trust me enough to know I wouldn’t back out on you.” Those dark eyes seemed to laser a message on my forehead. “I would trust you enough not to sign a prenup.”

No prenup? Uh….

“I won’t begin a relationship while the marriage is intact,” he continued out of the blue. “You can’t either.”

That had me raising my gaze. My relationship status wasn’t going to be changing any time soon. It hadn’t in years, and I didn’t foresee it doing so any time soon, but my conversation with Diana seemed to haunt me. Even as a fake wife with a paper marriage, I wouldn’t want to look like an idiot. “Are you sure you can promise that? Because you might meet—”

“No. I won’t. I’ve only loved three people in my entire life. I don’t plan on loving anyone else in the next five,” he cut me off. “I have other things to worry about. That’s why I’m asking you to do this, and not finding somebody else.” What he wasn’t saying in that moment was that he was in the prime of his career, but I’d heard him say those exact words countless times in the past.

I wanted to cry horseshit, but I kept it to myself. I also wanted to ask who the only three people he’d ever loved were, but I figured this wasn’t the time. Leslie had to be one of them, I imagined. “If you say so.”

From the way his throat bobbed, he wanted to make a comment, but instead he kept going. “I’ll help you pay off your loan over the next three years.”

And negotiations suddenly came to a screeching halt. For a moment.

Then I made myself think about it. Taking a few years to pay off the loan would look an awful lot less sneaky than if it was done in one or two big payments. If I made a few payments here and there, that would look a lot better too, wouldn’t it? Like if we waited a few months until after we signed the papers and everything? I had to think so.

“Okay.” I nodded. “That works for me.”

“My lease on this house is ending in March. We can rent another house afterward or sign another lease here. When my residency comes through, I’ll buy one that you can keep afterward. ”

Afterward was the second thing I paid attention to.

The main thing I didn’t miss was the beginning of his statement and the ‘we’ in the following sentence.

“I’d have to move in with you?” I asked slow, slow, slowly.

That big, handsome face went a bit squinty. “I’m not moving in with you.” I couldn’t even find it in me to be offended; I was too busy processing whether he’d made a joke or not. “You’re the one worried about making it believable. Someone is going to check our licenses.”

He had a point. Of course he had a point. But… but…

Breathe. Loans and a house. Loans and house.

“Okay. All right. That makes sense.” My stuff. What was I going to do with it? My apartment with all my things that I’d collected over the years….

I was going to have a panic attack at some point.

I’d known I wasn’t always going to live there—at least I’d better not. But that didn’t change anything. This house wasn’t mine and it didn’t feel like mine. It felt like Aiden’s place. Like the house I’d worked in for years. But I could move in if I needed to, especially if it was the difference between making this hoax of a marriage seem legitimate and not.

I had to. Had to.

“When do you want to do this?” I pretty much croaked.

He didn’t ask me. He just said, “Soon.”

I was going to have a panic attack. “Okay.” All right. Soon could be a month from now. Two months from now.

“Fine?” Aiden raised his eyebrows in what seemed like a challenge.

I nodded dumbly, finding myself becoming more and more in tune with the idea that we were really doing this. I was going to marry him to get his papers fixed. For money. For a lot of money. For financial security.

Aiden stared at me for a while, the bobbing of his throat the only sign that he was thinking. “You’ll do this, then?”

I would be an idiot if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?

That was a dumb question in itself. Of course I would be an idiot, a massive, gigantic idiot who owed a lot of money.

“Yes.” I gulped. “I will.”

For the first time in two years, The Wall of Winnipeg’s face took on an expression that was as close to joyous as I had ever seen. He looked… relieved. More than relieved. I’d swear on my life his eyes lit up. For that one split second, he resembled a completely different person. Then the man who wore a jockstrap on a regular basis did the unthinkable.

He reached forward and put a hand on top of mine, touching me for the first time. His fingers were long and warm, strong, his palm broad and the skin rough, thick. He squeezed. “You won’t regret this.”