My Husband Bought Me To Settle A Debt — He Didn’t Expect Me To Fire His Entire Staff
Part 1
Thirty women sat in the velvet wingback chair before his desk.
They smelled of rosewater and rehearsed obedience.
Every single one of them smiled with perfectly painted lips.
They promised to be the docile and fertile wife his vast wealth demanded.
Greg knew they were lying.
They knew he knew it too.
I was the thirty-first woman.
I didn’t smile.
I dripped.
The grand study of his manor smelled like a dying hothouse.
For eight hours, those heavy oak doors had swung open and shut.
A steady stream of the realm’s most eligible daughters had marched through.
Each left behind a lingering trace of her presence.
Lavender water and heavy musk hung thick in the air.
The sharp tang of nervous sweat was masked by expensive powder.
Greg rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The grit of exhaustion must have been heavy behind his eyelids.
The combined olfactory assault was nauseating.
It clung to the heavy velvet drapes.
It settled into the grain of his mahogany desk.
His tea sat completely stone cold.
A scum of milk had formed on the surface.
He drank it anyway.
I watched his throat work as he swallowed the bitter metallic taste.
He wanted to wash the phantom taste of floral perfume away.
Brian stood beside the fireplace with a ledger resting in the crook of his arm.
The stoic butler held a graphite pencil poised over the thick parchment.
His voice was a dry rasp.
It was completely devoid of judgment.
“Cross her off,” Greg muttered.
Brian’s pencil made a single definitive scratch.
The sound was loud in the quiet room.
Outside, the cold rain lashed against the leaded glass windows in uneven, spiteful sheets.
The fire in the hearth had died down to a sullen orange glow.
It spat occasionally as a drop of moisture found its way down the chimney.
Greg slumped back in his leather chair.
He was thirty-two years old and orchestrating the most clinical transaction of his life.
He needed a wife.
His massive estate needed an heir.
The board of trustees demanded someone to balance the ledgers of social propriety.
He did not need a companion.
He certainly didn’t need the simpering devotion the last thirty women had feigned.
They were trained to say those things.
They were products of a brutal market where their futures depended on securing a man like him.
The sheer transparency of their lies grated on his nerves.
He looked like a butcher inspecting cuts of meat.
“How many remain in the drawing room, Brian?”
“One, sir.”
Greg exhaled a long ragged breath that ruffled the papers on his desk.
He looked at the ornate brass clock on the mantel.
The pale afternoon light had already surrendered to an iron gray dusk.
His jaw flexed.
“Who is it?”
Brian adjusted his spectacles.
“A Miss Megan Croft.”
Greg knew exactly what that meant.
Impoverished gentry.
I was the unwanted relative kept in the drafty wing of a country house.
My uncle Dan owed Greg money.
A considerable sum.
Offering up a spinster niece for this cattle call was a pathetic attempt to delay the collection of his debts.
“Send her away,” Greg said.
He rubbed his temples.
“Tell her I have made my choice.”
Brian didn’t move.
He looked toward the door and then back to his ledger.
“I am afraid that Miss Croft was rather insistent.”
None of the other women had complained.
They had sat in rigid, uncomfortable silence.
A sharp spike of irritation flared in Greg’s chest.
He dictated the terms.
He felt a sudden, mean desire to crush that insistence.
He wanted to look this distant impoverished niece in the eye.
He wanted to watch the inevitable desperate pleading crumble when he dismissed her.
“Very well, send in the final applicant.”
The heavy oak doors opened.
There was no rustle of expensive silk.
There was only the heavy rhythmic thud of my sensible boots on the hardwood floor.
The soft wet squelch of soaked fabric followed.
Greg looked up.
I did not glide into the room.
I marched.
I was twenty-six.
Society deemed me tragically past my prime.
My dark gray traveling cloak had seen better decades.
It was heavy with rainwater.
It plastered to my shoulders and dripped a steady dismal rhythm onto the floorboards.
Halting in front of the massive desk, my boots left a puddle on the Aubusson rug.
Refusing to curtsy, my posture remained stiff and defiant.
My eyes locked onto his, completely unyielding.
The long walk from the gates left me breathing slightly hard.
A harsh scent of wet wool, damp earth, and cheap lye soap radiated from my soaked clothes.
It was a harsh bracing scent that violently cut through the cloying perfume suffocating the room.
Greg’s lungs involuntarily expanded.
He took in the clean bitter smell of the storm I had brought in with me.
Greg leaned forward, the shadows catching the dangerous glint in his eyes.
“You have fifteen minutes to convince me why I shouldn’t throw you back out into the storm.”
