Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance
Nicole Snow
About the Book
Accidentally wed to a screaming hot stranger.
I inherited a freaking husband.
Grandpa's will was a shocker: huge fortune, gorgeous ranch, and the best horse ever.
The fine print? Marrying Mr. Grump-alicious.
The man who's supposed to protect me from...what, exactly?
That's what I hope to find out if Drake Larkin ever talks.
I know what I'm in for the first time his glance tears me open.
A broody enigma who's large and in charge.
A mute who curls my toes when he barks a few words.
A silly, shameful, is-this-real-life crush I can't afford.
Did I mention our pretend marriage-rodeo lasts six damn months?
Long enough to teach my heart cartwheels.
Time enough to seal this madness with a kiss.
Insane enough for secrets to slip – and sting.
Grandpa's last wishes scare me. So do Drake's real motives.
But it's my beast of a “husband” who makes ridiculous seem right.
Have I found my knight?
Does love have a prayer when life throws us a dragon?
1
Unfinished Business (Bella)
My nerves can’t take much more of this.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and cringe because it’s only the beginning.
Oh, Gramps, I miss you so much already. But a big teary-eyed part of me is glad that you aren’t here to see all this bickering.
I don’t know what’s worse. My grandfather being gone, or the fact that his death hasn’t made a dent in my parents’ egomania.
Using a wadded-up Kleenex to wipe at the tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes, I open them slowly and take a good, long look at reality.
You’d think the sadness would be dried up by now, if only for a few hours.
But it’s like I’ve been crying for years rather than days. Grandpa Jonah was the only stable, sure thing in my life.
Now, the bottom just fell out. There’s nothing left to paper over this circus.
My parents want money. Nothing new. It’s all they’ve ever wanted, but they didn’t even wait until the funeral was over to start making big plans.
Dad’s new pet winery in Northern California.
Mom’s new sauna, complete with a Japanese garden that will no doubt be assembled by the very best crew flown in from Tokyo.
New harebrained investment schemes that’ll just leave them poorer and angrier, trying to turn a certain fortune into a golden goose bigger than their appetites.
God. You should’ve cut them off years ago, Gramps.
A twinge of guilt strikes me. I’m hardly better than them.
My college, my failed business ventures, always had one patient financial backer. Jonah Reed.
My parents claim they paid for it all, but I know better.
Gramps did. The greatest man to ever walk this earth.
The mold was broken several times over when he was born, and there are days, like today, when I wonder if Dad inherited a single good gene from his father.
If I had the energy, I might chastise them for being so shameless, so greedy, so...predictable.
But it wouldn’t do any good.
They’d barely arrived in time for the funeral. Not that there was anything for any of us to do.
Gramps had his goodbye meticulously planned.
One of his employees, along with his lawyer, had all the details taken care of. Including today’s meeting.
At least I’d arrived in North Dakota yesterday rather than rushing to the funeral home five minutes before the service started this morning. That dishonor belongs to my parents.
Both so eager to get to the lawyer’s office for the will, they didn’t even go to the cemetery for the burial.
No church service for Gramps, of course. No loud, chest-thumping eulogies. He went out of this world with the same amount of pomp and circumstance as he’d arrived. The quiet, simple kind.
The countless flowers, plants, and cards that people sent from every corner of the country were proof of how many lives he’d touched, though. I read every one of them this morning, alone, at the funeral home, sitting beside the small urn that contained the last remnants of the only person I’ve ever had a true connection with.
The only person I knew who loved me, unconditionally, flaws and all.
“Please, if you’d quit interrupting,” Reynold Sheridan says. The lawyer whose office looks as staunch and sterile-looking as he is points a finger at my parents. “I could get the answers to your questions much faster.”
Mother huffs. Father pats her arm. I pinch my lips together.
Ugh.
I sort of like this lawyer guy, though. His no-nonsense attitude at least makes them work for it.
They’re used to getting their way, and you’d think they’d both witnessed a sacrilege when the lawyer politely checks them. Gramps probably warned Mr. Sheridan about that.
Another big sigh. I let it out quietly.
Why am I even here? I can only imagine this meeting going down one way.
Dad’s an only child, so everything – a vast fortune that includes the sprawling ranch and an oil company worth ten figures – goes to him. To them.