HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 123

Chapter one hundred and twenty three

Bianca’s POV

“What?” I said, my mouth actually falling open a little. “If you are joking, please stop that joke right now. Marry you?”

“Calm down,” he said, still holding my hand between both of his like that would make this less insane.

“Okay,” I said, even though I was nowhere near calm, but stop that joke.”

I pulled my hand back slowly and folded my arms, trying to put myself together to hear what he had to say. I kept my eyes on him, waiting for him to laugh, to say he was just testing me, to do literally anything that would make this conversation. make sense again but he didn’t.

“It’s not a joke,” he said. “It’s the only way to get my family completely off my back. And before you start panicking, it’s no like you would actually have to marry me in the real sense. It would be a contract marriage. I just need it as proof. / something to show for the inheritance, something to wave in my family’s face so they’ll finally leave the topic alone.”

I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, arms still folded, staring at him like maybe if I looked hard enough, the whole conversation would rearrange itself into another topic that made more sense.

“Bianca, you’re not saying anything,” he said after a while, leaning forward slightly, trying to catch my eyes.

But my eyes had already drifted somewhere else, to the shirt he had on, dark blue, definitely not the one he wore last night.

“You changed your clothes?” I asked, tilting my head.

He blinked, clearly not expecting that question. “Yeah. I had someone deliver a change of clothes here this morning.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, nodding slowly.

“Bianca,” he called my name again. “I’m not going to let you change the topic. So what do you have to say about what I just told you?”

I don’t have anything to say about that,” I said, and I meant it, or at least I meant it enough to say it out loud without flinching because what can I even say to something so sudden as this?

He studied me for a second. “There’s a pay attached to it too. You wouldn’t even really have to work…” He added, like it was supposed to help his case.

“And what do you mean by that?” I said, my voice going higher than I meant it to.

“Oh, oh, sorry, sorry,” he said quickly, holding both hands up like he was trying to take it back before it caused any real damage.

I rolled my eyes so hard, “don’t move that way with me,” I said, my arms tightening across my chest. “I really do not care about your money.”

He didn’t say anything to that, he just kept looking at me and I gave him one firm nod, the kind that ends an argument whether the other person agrees or not.

The truth was, my head was already too crowded to give him an answer right there. So I told him plainly that I couldn’t say yes immediately, that I needed time to think, and that I was going to take three days.

“Okay.” He said. He didn’t push it, which surprised me a little, he just nodded and let it sit. He stood up, then he started moving around my room. picking things up and putting them back down in the wrong place just to annoy me.

Then, out of nowhere. You still haven’t used the card I gave to you,” he said, arms folded.

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“Because I don’t need to for now.” I said, not even looking up from my phone.

“You need a new phone at least,” he said. “That thing you’re holding looks like it survived a war.”

“It works fine,” I said, which was a lie, because the screen had a crack running across the top now, it happened some days ago

“Go get yourself a new one,” he said.

“Okay.” I replied, mostly just to get him to stop talking about it, but in my mind I had already decided I wasn’t doing any such thing. My old phone is fine.

Except Adrian, being Adrian, didn’t actually trust my “okay” for one second. Not even up to twenty minutes after he left my place, his driver showed up at my door.

“Boss said I should take you to the store ma,” he said.

“I didn’t agree to that arrangement,” I said, glaring in the direction of my own bedroom like he was still there.

I ended up in the store forty minutes later, arms crossed, sulking through the entire process while the driver stood by patiently. In the end I picked one, mostly because the driver made it clear he wasn’t leaving without me holding a receipt. and once it was done, he drove me straight back home.

When I walked in, Emma was in the sitting room, curled up on the couch with a bowl of something in her lap, and she looked up the moment the door shut behind me.

“Where are you coming from?,” she said, her eyes on the small paper bag in my hand.

“Adrian happened,” I said, dropping down beside her and pulling the new phone out to show her.

Her eyes went wide immediately. “Wait, he bought you this?”

“He forced his driver to buy it, technically,” I said, “there’s a difference.”

“There is no difference, Bianca,” she said, already turning the phone over in her hands like she was inspecting it for fingerprints. “This man is also buying you phones now.”

“That’s not even the main thing I need to tell you,” I said, taking a breath.

She looked up immediately, sensing something was coming. “What now?”

“He asked me to marry him.

Emma went completely still, phone forgotten in her lap. “I’m sorry, he asked you to what?”

I told her everything then, the contract, the six months, the way he said it wasn’t real in the way marriages are supposed to be real, and she went quiet for longer than usual, which for Emma was saying something.

“Don’t do it if you don’t feel like doing it,” she finally said, “but if some part of you wants to, then do it, just make sure you set your own rules first. Don’t let him or his family push you into something you didn’t agree to.”

“Since when did you become the wise one,” I mumbled, and she laughed.

“Since always. You just never think I’m old enough.”

“Oh wow… See you later Em.” Walking towards my room.

The next person I called was Amanda, and the second she picked up, she started apologizing about the whole address situation, her words falling over each other in a rush, but I cut her off almost immediately, because if anyone needed to apologize first, it was me.

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I’m sorry for dragging you into my mess,” I said, and she made this dismissive sound like she was waving a hand through the phone.

“I don’t mind, honestly,” she said. “I probably would have folded for less, don’t feel bad about it.”

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