Chapter One
Padraic
Iquietly thumb through the list of women that my brother brings to my large, custom oak desk. Has it really come to this? I’m attractive, 6’5” tall. I work out. Women all want me but… always for the wrong reasons.
“Why do I need to get married again?” I growl as I swipe past one incredibly basic woman after another. I wonder if I made a mistake by hiring too many family members.
“Because our fucked up government is now offering you a tax break that would save you $70 million dollars a year if you get married. Considering all the new laws passed to encourage growing the American family… I crunched the numbers. Legally, I have to advise you to do this.”
I raise a suspicious eyebrow at my brother, who married his best friend, a fellow rower at Cornell. I’m surprised that he of all people gives a damn what the government thinks about marriage and family.
“I’m not the marrying type, Zack.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re not listening, Padraic. Your net worth is four billion dollars. That’s worth protecting. It’s a legacy. If you don’t find some woman to marry and pass it on, the government is going to take it and do something evendumber than whatever you and some woman could come up with.”
I thought gay men were supposed to have good tastes? The women Zack presented to me are hideous and not my type at all. He looks more unimpressed at my curling upper lip the more I swipe and find my stomach churning in building disgust. When did men stop wanting to fuck people?
“I don’t like any of these women. They look like… living sex dolls.”
I have no interest in women augmented with needles and silicone. The thought of making love to a woman and having to worry about parts of her popping open disturbs me.
“You are impossible to please. Are you sure you’re not gay?” My brother thinks accusing me of being gay will trigger me, but it won’t.
“You’resure I’m not gay,” I mutter. “I just likerealwomen. Is that such a crime?”
He rolls his eyes as if I’m being the fussy one. We’ve always been close, but opposites. I’m more closed off than he is, but Zack insists that I’m the more emotional one despite that.
“You need to get married before the end of this quarter,” Zack carries on, his tone getting rather tight and frustrated with me. “You care more about March Madness than tax season.”
Who can blame me? I understand my brother’s point, but I need him to approach my marriage with a lot more realism if he expects me to get married for the tax breaks. This will be a living, breathing woman – and most likely a thorn in my side unless we can control her completely.
“If I’m going to go through with this, I don’t want to marry the same sort of woman that I could find scheming on my wealth at every yacht club across the globe. I want someone different.”
Zack snickers. “What, like someone Black or Asian?”
“Whatever. Black. Asian. Latina. I don’t care about that.”
I care less about race than having the freedom to live life on my own terms. I don’t let anyone control me, least of all some woman. My brother’s pushing has already started to get on my nerves, especially that annoying expression on his face.
“You are such a liar,” Zack says with a smirk.
“I’m not. I don’t want to get married, so it doesn’t matter who you make the arrangement with. Everything will be purely financial.”
“Right.”
“Are you done?” I ask him, since I have meetings every fifteen minutes today and hardly have time for my gay older brother to bully the crap out of me.
“Sure. I’ll bring you a wife tomorrow.”
“No more options?”
Zack snorts. “Nope. No more options. You made yourself clear. No plastic. No white girls.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Padraic.”
“Fine.”