“You signed the contract.”
“Fuck.” I slide down in the seat. “I forgot about that.”
“Yeah, it’s all legal now. Tane sent you a copy of it?”
“Yes.”
“So I don’t want to hear any ‘I’m not going to do that.’”
I poke my tongue out at him. “That’s why you paid me the money straight away, isn’t it?”
“Totally.” He smiles.
“Thank you for that,” I say softly. “I didn’t expect you to do it right away.”
“I didn’t want you to worry about it. And sometimes payments take a while to go through.”
“No, it came through this morning. I opened my bank app and my balance was $100,027.43. My eyes nearly fell out of my head.”
He stares at me. “You had twenty-seven dollars and forty-three cents in your bank account before the payment turned up?”
“Yeah. A whole twenty-seven! It was a good week.” My lips curve up at the look on his face. “What?”
He returns his gaze to the road, taking the turning for the ferry, and doesn’t say anything.
“Anyway,” I continue, “I went to see my parents at lunchtime.”
“Oh… how did it go?”
I shift in the seat as I remember the moment I told them. “Mum just sat there with her mouth open. Dad cried.”
He sighs. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I expected it.”
“You told them we were engaged?”
“Yeah. They remembered you. I said we’d been dating for a few months and had become really close. They bought it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, they bought that I’d agreed to marry the tall, gorgeous billionaire. Shocking, isn’t it?”
He laughs. Then he glances at me. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
“Beneath all the hair? Maybe.”
He strokes his chin. “It’s probably time I trimmed it.”
“You think?”
“You don’t like it?”
I smile. “It’s very you.”
“Not quite sure if that’s a compliment.” He follows the directions of the ferry assistant, parks the Porsche behind the row of cars, and turns off the engine. “Come on. Let’s get a coffee or something.”
We get out of the car and he locks it. We climb the steps to the deck, and as we walk past the seating that’s gradually filling up to the cabin, he holds out his hand.