Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

by Wylder, Penny

  By the time I hang up the phone, I have to lean against the wall and take some deep breaths before I can go back into the workshop and pretending everything is normal.

  My phone buzzes again, startling me so badly I almost drop it. But when I check the screen, I see it’s just Lea. Lunch?

  I text her back right away. Yes please. What I really need now is to talk this over with a neutral party. A friend who was there and knows exactly how this situation got so wild in the first place. She’ll talk sense into me. She’ll explain that it’s been fun to enjoy my time with John, but that I can’t go and stay married, let alone to my boss, and potentially blow up my first job in the industry.

  I need to get my priorities back in order, and my best friend is just the person to help me do that. Even if she can be a bad influence on nights out, when push comes to shove, Lea’s always practical where it really counts.

  With a fresh distraction in my immediate future, I push my way back into the studio, intent on grabbing my things and heading straight to lunch. I don’t make it farther than my desk, though, before a familiar face appears beside it, wearing a bright, curious smile.

  “Mara! Hadn’t seen you this morning. I was wondering if you were in yet.” Bianca grins and offers me a coffee.

  Bianca has been great this week too. Almost as friendly and easygoing as Daniel. Not to mention, her habit of providing caffeine for all the staff, no matter the hour of the day, has certainly saved my sanity more than once when my energy is flagging.

  “Thank you.” I accept the coffee, my second of the day, and raise it toward her in a toast. “But yeah, got here early as usual.”

  “You were here so late last night too, though, weren’t you?” she asks.

  “No rest for the wicked,” I joke, taking a sip of the coffee. Two creamers, just the way I like it. Bianca’s got a good head on her shoulders. She notices a lot more than people give her credit for, I’ve realized. It wouldn’t surprise me if she works her way up the corporate ladder quickly. I’m surprised she went in for a secretarial job at all, considering she seems more the business major and marketing type.

  Then again, she is always talking about how much she admires John, and how much she wants to learn from him. She keeps calling him a genius, too. Often enough that I worry his ego might grow out of control if he listens to her for too long.

  “What time did you finally get home?” Bianca looks worried, concerned about my sleep schedule—or lack thereof—maybe.

  I blush again, remembering what I was distracted by most of the second half of the evening. “Oh, I don’t know, eleven maybe?”

  “John stayed late too, didn’t he?” She cocks her head, looking so innocently curious that it just makes my flush even more obvious.

  I force my smile to remain steady, and clench my hands a little harder around the hot coffee cup. “I guess so,” I reply, my smile turning forced. “Excuse me for the moment, though, Bianca. I was just about to head out for lunch.”

  “Oh!” Her eyes shift to my hand. My left hand, I notice. Then they dart away again. “Are you meeting someone? Your husband?”

  “Just a friend,” I answer, and this time I really do manage to extract myself, grabbing my purse from the desk and bringing the coffee with me as I beeline toward the exit.

  That was close. Too close. The hairs on the back of my neck are still standing on end, my stomach churning with worry. Does she suspect something? Has she noticed that both John and I have been staying late every night this week?

  Moreover, would she tell anyone else, if she did notice?

  I force myself to forget about it for now. There’s nothing I can do in the meantime. And who knows, maybe this will all be a moot point soon anyway.

  That’s what I need to decide now, after all.

  I spend most of the drive to the restaurant going through the two competing scenarios. In one, John and I annul this marriage and continue as coworkers. And I spend every day for the next however long I’m at this company trying to forget about how it felt to be with him. Trying to forget the mind-blowing orgasms, or how hot it is to hear him call me his wife as we fuck. Trying not to think about the searing hot glances he shoots my way when nobody else is looking, glances that promise just how many filthy things he’s doing to me in his head.

  Forget undressing me with his eyes. John full on fucks me with his.

  And then there’s all our late-night talks over the work bench about our career goals, the plans we have for our futures. We’re surprisingly in sync, on so many things…

  Stop it, I tell myself as I pull up to the restaurant. You can’t do this for real.

  But my mind won’t stop playing over the other scenario. In that second one, John and I stay married. We tell people, we stop hiding and slinking around in dark corners of restaurants with discrete owners. The whole world finds out that I’m married to one of the richest, most eligible bachelors out there…

  And I get to keep him. I get to keep both my job and this man. Maybe my coworkers judge me for it; maybe Daniel and Bianca won’t treat me the same way anymore, but is that a good enough reason to give up on something that could be real? Just because people might not understand or approve?

  I’m torn up all over again as I stride into the restaurant and pick out Lea along the back wall, already eating an appetizer. That girl could eat most men twice her size under the table. I join her with a hug and steal one of her croquettes. “I finally heard back from Vegas,” I say by way of greeting.

  “And?” Lea’s eyebrows shoot upward. I’ve kept her filled in on my progress with the annulment so far—or rather, the lack thereof until today. But I haven’t told her everything.

  I haven’t kept her posted on what’s been happening between John and me, exactly.

  “I can annul it, but I’d need to do it within the next two weeks in order to do it the easy way.”

  “Okay. Easy way sounds good.” She picks up another croquette and bites in with enthusiasm. “Why do you look so upset, then?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering how much to tell her. But she’s my best friend. And besides, I don’t think John would be upset if I said something about us. Far from it—he wants to declare I’m his to the entire world, as he keeps saying. It’s taken all my powers of persuasion to keep him from revealing this marriage publicly just yet.

  So in the end, I cave. “John and I have been hooking up,” I tell her. Then I shake my head. “No, not hooking up; not even fucking. Well… sometimes fucking.” She laughs, and my face heats up. “I just… I think maybe it could be something real. I actually like him.”

  “Mara.” She fixes me with a narrowed glare. “You know I love a good wild fling as much as the next girl. And I fully approved of you letting loose for once in Vegas. But you cannot marry a guy you barely know. Not yet, anyway! If this becomes a relationship, cool, but date him and think about it for a while, y’know?”

  “No, you’re right. I know. I just… He’s really into this. He wants me to be his wife.”

  Her eyebrows shoot upward. “Okay, first of all, congrats on snagging the world’s most eligible bachelor so quickly. But secondly, this is still pretty worrying, don’t you think?” She tilts her head. “I mean, what’s his motivation? He never seemed like the type to be all traditional about marriage and commitment before… Although, he did have that failed engagement,” she muses.

  I frown. “He had a what?”

  Lea rolls her eyes. “Girl, did you not even google the mega-famous guy you’re wedded to?” She reaches for her phone, and a few taps later, I’m staring at an article about John Walloway’s “disastrous almost-marriage.” It’s dated months before we met, but still, it makes something clench in my gut, uncertainty settling in.

  Am I just a rebound for him?

  I stare at the girl in the grainy photo who’s throwing a suitcase full of clothes into the trunk of her car, a trail of clothing behind her leading back into the front of an expensive-looki
ng apartment complex. I bite my lower lip. He never mentioned anything about her.

  Then again, neither of us really mentioned anything about our pasts. We were too focused on the present—and in my case on the looming future ahead of us. A future we need to annul before it becomes permanent, and far too real.

  “You’re right,” I murmur. “I’ll get the annulment.” But deep down, part of me wonders if I actually want it. After all, why does my chest hurt so much just saying those words? And why does it make my head throb, to think about leaving him?

  I push the questions away, along with the remaining salad on my lunch plate. My appetite is long gone. “What about you, how are you doing?” I ask Lea, mostly for the distraction. But my head is pounding so much it’s hard to even pay attention to her answers.

  What am I doing? I just keep asking myself, over and over again.

  * * *

  Back in the office, Daniel catches me staring into space beside the drill machine, my gaze focused on the wall and not on the stack of wood I should be cutting, dremmeling and preparing for assembly. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, with a smirk that makes me wonder how much he’s guessed about my moodiness lately.

  But that’s just my paranoia talking. Nobody knows anything. Not about John and me, anyway. Maybe Daniel thinks I’m pining over my mystery husband—a husband I had to lie about because I couldn’t get that damn ring off my finger. Now, it’s loosened a little, but I still haven’t removed it.

  I have to wonder what that says about my current mental state.

  I tell myself it’s just because people at work would start asking too many questions if I suddenly removed the ring now. But deep down, I’m not sure. Deep down, I wonder if there’s a subconscious reason I keep this on. Or if maybe it’s just for the flash of desire I spot in John’s eyes every time he sees me, checks for the ring, and finds it still on my finger.

  Part of me doesn’t want to let him go this easily, despite this mess.

  So I force a smile at Daniel and I lie. “Just tired,” I say. “Long night last night.”

  “You were here late, weren’t you?”

  Man, does everyone in this company keep obsessive track of one another’s schedules? Still, I shrug and nod, because it’s true. I was here late. And most of the time I spent working.

  A little bit of it I spent doing other things, but hey…

  Daniel claps me on the shoulder, squeezing just once, but enough to reassure me that he doesn’t suspect anything. “Take it easy,” he says. “You don’t want to burn out after your first week here, after all, right?”

  “You’re right,” I tell him, forcing a smile.

  “Mara?” Bianca’s voice catches me off-guard. I turn and find her leaning against the doorway of the shop, arms crossed. “Mr. Walloway sent for you. He wants to talk in his office.”

  “Oh, of course,” I reply, trying to defuse the sudden bright red flush that creeps over my cheeks, the pulse of desire that flares through my veins at the thought of what John might want in his office. Of what he might want to do to me right now.

  It’s work, I tell myself. And it’s the middle of the day. He probably just wants normal, work-related things.

  “I’ll be right there,” I add, because Bianca is squinting at me, in what I hope I’m just imagining seems like a suspicious way. She flashes me a smile, and nods, reassuring me that any suspicion is just in my imagination.

  You really do need to get more sleep, Mara, I tell myself as I wave a quick goodbye to Daniel and hand over responsibility for the drill machine to him temporarily. You’re making yourself crazy.

  But when I reach the John’s office and tap tentatively on the doorframe, I’m reminded that it’s not me who’s making me crazy. Not entirely.

  It’s him.

  He’s dressed, as usual, in a perfectly fitted suit. He has the top button undone, and the casual glance he flashes in my direction when I enter the office quickly shifts into a heated one, his gaze catching fire as it sweeps over my body, lingering on my chest, my hips, my legs, in a way that tells me without any need for words exactly what he’s thinking. Exactly how much he wants to grab me and strip me down right here and now.

  “Mara,” he says, and just that, just my name on his lips, is enough to melt a sweet spot between my thighs, get me wet and hungry and wanting.

  I shut the door behind me, before he even needs to ask.

  He doesn’t wait for more of a response. He crosses his office in two strides and catches me around the waist, pinning me against the door with an audible thud before his hands wrap around my neck, cupping my chin and drawing me up into a deep, slow, hard kiss.

  When we break apart, it’s all I can do to stay on my feet and breathing. But I manage, with only the faintest hitch in my breath, and it makes me proud to know I can withstand this kind of temptation and torture in the middle of the workday.

  “Was that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I ask with an arched eyebrow, suppressing a smile.

  John’s gaze sharpens. “I want you to come away with me this weekend.”

  I tilt my head. “Where?”

  “Not far. Just a little ways outside of town.”

  My stomach flips. Does he want to take me on a trip? Some kind of vacation? I press my lips together, uncertain, but he anticipates my next question.

  “It won’t interfere with any of your work, I promise.”

  We have the same priorities, John and me. I appreciate it more than I expected to. “Okay,” I say, not even sure what I’ve just agreed to. But just that one word lights up his face so much that I know I can’t take it back, even if I find out he’s dragging me to some kind of horrible and boring event.

  Although it’s hard to imagine any event being horrible or boring if I’m on John’s arm… Or able to sneak away with John for some private time together. Even the dullest classical concert would be incredible if I could distract myself by sliding into his lap in the darkened concert hall, or feel his hands run up my thighs and slip under my skirt…

  As if he’s reading my mind, John catches my me again and pins me against the door, his lips finding mine a second time. I part my lips beneath his, let his tongue slip in, exploring my mouth, claiming me. At the same time, his hands roam further down, gripping my waist, pulling me against him so tightly that I can feel him starting to harden against me, his cock pressed right against my belly, so thick I can feel him even through the fabric of both our pants.

  “We can’t,” I whisper when we break apart. “Not here.”

  “I know.” His eyes flash, and there’s more in them than just desire and excitement. Something I can’t put my finger on…. “After this weekend,” he murmurs, “everything will change.”

  My stomach flips again, though I don’t even know what he means. Are we going to annul this after all? Are we going back to Vegas to fix our mistakes? Or is it something else?

  “John…” I don’t know what I want to ask. Where are we really going this weekend? That seems like a question he’ll refuse to answer. Or maybe just What’s on your mind?

  Before I can put words to it, though, he silences me again with another kiss, hard and fast, before he almost pushes me away from him, my body tilting back into the door with the force of it.

  “Go,” he says. “Get back to work. We need to work overtime if we want to take the whole weekend off.”

  I frown, confused by the sudden shift. But I listen to him anyway, backing away slowly, waiting until he’s back at his desk, arms crossed on top of it, before I risk opening the office door again, running a hand through my hair at the same time and hoping it’s not mussed from our kiss, from his hands running through my hair and cupping my body against him.

  All I want to do is slam the office door shut and lock it behind me. Slide under his desk of his and go down on him, tracing my tongue along the length of his hard cock over and over, sucking him into my mouth until he gives in and tells me what’s going on. Until he tells me
where he’s taking me this weekend and why the idea of it has him so keyed up—acting so hot one second and cold the next.

  But I can’t do that. Not here. Not while everyone else we work with is still in the office, and while I have Lea’s warning fresh in my mind—plus that memory of John’s ex with all her things flung everywhere, leaving in a car… I need to be clearing my head of him, not clouding it further.

  So I open the office door and slip out without another word, closing it tightly behind me.

  I don’t make it more than a few steps from the entrance before I spot Bianca across the office floor. Her eyes catch mine—was she staring? Watching the office, listening to us in there? My stomach clenches all over again, for a different reason this time.

  But then she flashes a sweet smile and turns back to her own desk, and I shake my head. I’m just being paranoid. Imagining things. That’s all this is.

  The only people in this office thinking constantly about John and me are the two of us. So I smile back and retreat to the workroom, shoulders squared, head up. Whatever’s going on between us, maybe this weekend will bring more clarity.

  And if not? Well, then I’ll still have enough time to make the annulment deadline afterward. I try to ignore the heavy knot in my gut at the thought of that. It’s for the best, I tell myself. Lea is right.

  I need to be practical about this.

  9

  John

  Today is the day. I stare at myself in the rearview mirror of my car, waiting. I haven’t hit send on the text to let Mara know that I’m parked outside. I needed a minute to myself. A minute to wrap my head around what I’m about to do.

  If I do this… if I take her with me today… Everything will change. And who knows how she’ll feel by the end of this, or what she’ll decide to do.

  But it has to happen. I need to do this.

  So why do I still feel so guilty about it?

  Because this is the wrong way to do this, whispers a little voice at the back of my mind. A voice I ignore, as I hit send on the text I’ve already written. I’m outside, Mara. I didn’t tell her anything about this weekend—I didn’t want to scare her off, or worse, make her feel sorry for me. But I did let her know to pack for warm weather, and the moment she steps out of the lobby of her apartment building, I see that she’s done just that.