by Kayla Wolf
Ugh, now she was thinking about her jerk-ass boss. Was her job even going to intrude on her one guilty pleasure? She tried to focus on the dashing, handsome male lead of the novel, trying to picture his huge muscular arms around her… but the handsome face of the man on the cover kept blurring into Grant’s. It was frustrating that her boss was her exact physical type… he was built like a bear, broad and strong with enormous arms, and god, did he know it. He spent every morning in the gym (one of her responsibilities was getting his protein shake ready) and constantly bragged about how much weight he could press. Thankfully, his personality was so repulsive that even the best body on Earth couldn’t have swayed her into feeling anything but disgust for him… but still, it was frustrating when the doting descriptions of the male lead’s muscles made her think of Grant. Quite the buzzkill.
Sighing, she closed the cover of her Kindle and resolved to try to get some sleep. Grant had a big meeting with a potential business partner the next day and would be insufferable all morning. The more sleep she got, the less likely she’d be to drive her letter opener through his smug throat.
A restless—and rather short—night of sleep helped a little, but Jasmine was still not in the best shape when she headed for work the next morning, stopping at a coffee shop drive-through to grab herself some fuel for what was promising to be a pretty crappy day. Triple shot, and a bit of whipped cream… the sugar would help.
”That stuff’ll kill you.”
Jasmine gritted her teeth as she stepped through the doors to the office. Grant’s voice had a way of setting her teeth on edge—it was low and raspy, like nails on a blackboard, and he had a habit of barking at her like she was some kind of well-trained dog and not a professional PA with a knack for the job and years of experience. But part of that professionalism was the ability to hoist a smile onto her face despite her inner feelings, and she did that now, turning to face her boss.
”I thought you’d still be at the gym, Mr. Eckersley.”
”Went in early,” he grunted. “Did my own shake—you’re welcome,” he added, shaking his half-empty cup at her. She tried not to grit her teeth.
”You should have said. I’d have come in earlier—”
”You should join me at the gym sometime,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. His close-set dark eyes were roaming over her body. She pretended not to notice, but she could feel the tension in her jaw as he appraised her. “Lose some of that extra weight.”
”Oh, my yoga classes are enough for me,” she smiled, trying to get him away from her least favorite subject… but he was oddly fixated on it today.
”Yoga’s crap. Doesn’t get a sweat on. You need to get your heart rate up to see any results. Build some muscle, that ups your fat-burning capabilities, too.”
”I’ll keep that in mind. Now, your meeting with David is—”
”Don’t you want to be more attractive?” Grant demanded. “I know you buy into all that body-positive crap, but you could be really pretty if you lost… oh, fifty pounds or so. Even twenty would make a big difference.”
Jasmine turned away to hide the look of anger that she knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep off her face for long. She knew she was a few sizes bigger than the rest of his female staff. It had taken her a long time to come to terms with her bigger body, and before she’d started this job a year ago, she’d been in a great place. She’d loved her curves, loved the way her clothing hugged her voluptuous figure… loved her softness, her strength, the way she took up space in the world. But Grant’s insidious little comments had been wearing her down for so long that even her strong commitment to self-love was starting to waver. Would it be so bad to lose a few pounds, she found herself wondering as she took a seat at her desk? Grant would be happy… maybe they could bond over gym routines. She sipped at her coffee, irritated to discover that her bad mood was stopping her from enjoying the extra whipped cream she’d ordered.
“I love my body,” she whispered to herself, trying to believe it. “I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m beautiful at this or any size, and the size of my body doesn’t define who I am.”
It didn’t help much… especially when the fashion industry people came in to meet with Grant. They’d brought a couple of models with them to demonstrate their new line of clothing—two identical, almost emaciated women with long blonde hair and bored expressions. Jasmine could feel the way their eyes settled on her, the slight widening of their eyes, the unconscious judgment in their stares. She knew exactly what those stares meant… she’d spent enough time hearing it from her own internalized self-hatred. They thought her size meant she was lazy… that she lacked self-control and discipline, that she spent all day gorging herself, that she couldn’t summon the energy required to force her body into an unnaturally thin state like theirs.
Well, she wasn’t going to let them make her feel that way about herself, too. She couldn’t control their prejudices, but she could control her own behavior. So she fixed them with a bright, cheery smile as she came around her desk, giving them a good view of her ample bosom and curvaceous butt. And she didn’t miss the way David looked at her. People might judge big women like her for their size… but that judgment certainly didn’t stop them from trying to sneak a peek down her shirt.
“Grant will be right with you,” she said, smiling her biggest, fakest smile. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”
She showed them into the meeting room, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirrored walls of the room as she did. She hated feeling self-conscious about her body like this—especially when she was looking so good. She’d gotten up early to curl her long, chestnut hair, and her new conditioner was paying off—her hair tumbled down over her shoulders, offsetting her deep hazel eyes. Not that appearance was everything… but she was every bit as beautiful as the bored-looking models sipping their black coffees at the conference table, no matter what anyone said.
But still, it niggled at her. All day, she kept herself busy, trying to keep her mind off it. She was tempted to get a salad for lunch instead of her usual more sustaining fair, but she resisted the impulse, recognizing it as unhealthy. There was nothing wrong with her body… her size didn’t stop her from doing anything she needed to do, for her job or for anything else, and she wasn’t going to cave in to Grant’s patriarchal beauty standards. What was he going to do, fire her for being plus-sized?
“You let me know if you ever wanna hit the gym together,” he said to her as she was leaving, that unpleasant, leering look in his eyes. “I’m a major player in the fashion industry, Jazzy. I can’t have a fat PA.”
She bit down hard on what she actually wanted to say to him, instead settling for: “You know I prefer being called Jasmine, Mr. Eckersley.”
He hated being told what to do—she could tell by the flaring of his nostrils. But she had to maintain at least some boundaries, and controlling what she was called was one of them. She knew she wouldn’t be able to force him to stop commenting on her weight and her body (he made as many positive comments about her breasts as he made negative ones about her size, and she wasn’t sure which one she hated more.) But at the very least, she could insist he call her by her full name. Only her best friends were allowed to call her Jazzy.
“Jazzy, you have to quit that stupid job,” Elena told her later that night. They were settled in on Jasmine’s enormous old couch—it was the most comfortable piece of furniture she’d ever sat on, and the pride of her furniture collection, even if it wasn’t the best-looking. Elena worked freelance as a computer programmer, and had the most erratic sleep schedule of anyone Jasmine had ever met—as a result, she was always free to share a bottle of wine and complain about their jobs. Jasmine had been doing the lion’s share of the complaining lately, though. “Seriously, this dude is not worth it.”
”I know,” Jasmine sighed. “I really do. He’s a nightmare. If he makes one more comment about my weight, I’m going to scream.”
”Sit on him. Crush his
head like a watermelon,” Elena said brightly. Her soft-spoken, nerdy exterior masked a rather violent soul—it was part of why Jasmine liked her so much. They’d been friends since they’d been roommates in college, and Jasmine had been delighted when they’d both moved to Denver for work.
“I would if I didn’t think he’d get off on it,” Jasmine grumbled. “For all the shit he talks about big women, he sure spends a lot of time ogling me. I don’t even wear my tighter clothes anymore.”
”Seriously, babe, what’s stopping you from quitting? Is it the money?”
”I guess,” Jasmine shrugged. “I mean, I have savings, but finding another job in this market would be pretty stressful. Why can’t some millionaire just bump into me in a grocery store and fall wildly in love with me?”
”Is that the plot of your most recent romance novel?” Elena enquired, an eyebrow raised. Elena had found out about her secret guilty pleasure back in college… but she’d always been completely cool about it, which Jasmine appreciated.
”No,” she said blushing. “The current one’s about... well, it’s another mail order bride one.”
”Your favorite,” Elena giggled, taking another sip of her wine. “I don’t get why you’re so into it.”
”I don’t know! Something about the… the intensity of it. The commitment. Any guy who orders a wife online, he’s ready to be a husband, you know? I just hate dating,” she sighed. “All the apps are just… so shitty. A bunch of guys who only want sex, or ‘something casual’, or they claim to be interested in a real relationship, then string you along for months and ghost you… it sucks. I want romance. Proper romance. Nineteenth century romance.”
”Without all the tooth decay and dying in childbirth.”
”Exactly! Why can’t I have the best of both worlds?”
”Unjust,” Elena agreed, grinning. “Would you do it, do you think? Marry some guy you’d never met?”
”Like, for real?” Jasmine frowned. She’d indulged in the fantasy, of course… but usually only through the eyes of the brave heroines in her books. “Maybe.” She warmed to the idea. “Move across the world to be with some handsome, lonely guy who saw me online and fell in love with me… yeah, I can see that happening.”
”You’d move across the world?”
”Well, what’s keeping me here? My asshole boss? This crappy apartment?” She gestured around her too-small apartment. She’d made it comfortable, but it wasn’t the kind of home you lived in forever. “I want to meet my husband. I feel like I’m just treading water, waiting for him to show up. I know that’s not very feminist of me or whatever, but I just…” She sighed. “Do I sound terrible? Like, there’s other stuff in my life, it’s not like I’m just sitting on a shelf waiting to get married and be a perfect little wife. But… I want a relationship. I want a family. And I don’t want to do it by myself.”
”It’s not unfeminist to want to get married and have kids,” Elena pointed out, shrugging her shoulders. “It’d only be unfeminist if you tried to force everyone else to want the same thing. I, for example, would rather die than let some smelly dude into my apartment. He might move stuff.”
Jasmine laughed. Elena had a knack for making her feel better… in combination with the red wine she’d brought over, Jasmine was already feeling the stress of the work week melting away. “Well, if you happen upon any mail order bride services on the deep web, sign me up.”
”Oh, you don’t need the deep web for that,” Elena said brightly. “The regular web has plenty of that stuff.”
”Seriously?” Jasmine giggled. “How do you even know that?”
”I build all kinds of weird websites, Jazzy. This is the tamer end of the stuff I’ve seen.”
They laughed it off, but later, after Elena had headed home, Jasmine found herself wondering about the idea. She’d always told herself that the mail order bride fantasy she found so appealing was just that… a fantasy. But as she settled into bed to finish off her novel, she couldn’t help but picture herself in the heroine’s place. Could there be a guy out there who’d marry her, sight unseen? That was crazy, right?
So why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
Chapter 3 - Bryce
Bryce dusted his hands off, looking around with satisfaction at the freshly-painted walls of the cottage. There was still work to be done, of course—they’d need to wait for the paint to dry before they got the furniture in, and the landscaping outside needed a bit of work, but they were making good progress on the cabins for the tourists. They’d been behind on the work for a while, and there was still a lot of work ahead of them, but Bryce could feel that they had momentum.
He was working alone today. He was often working alone—he was strong enough to handle most two-man tasks by himself with ease, and most of the guys preferred working with chattier partners anyway. It was nothing personal… he just preferred to work in silence. Still, today it felt a little lonely, for some reason. Bryce wasn’t used to feeling lonely. It was a strange feeling, wanting someone else to be around, and he headed out into the yard for a short break from the paint fumes. Even with all the windows open, frequent breaks were necessary to stop him from getting dizzy.
There was a bench in the backyard of this cottage—Emerson had gotten carried away carving ornate wooden benches a few months back, so every single one of the tourist cottages was already kitted out with a pleasant little garden seat… even if the gardens hadn’t even been planted yet. Bryce took a seat on this one now, smiling a little to himself as he thought of the absent-minded man who’d made it. He was good with his hands, Emerson—he had an artistic flair that Bryce very much appreciated. Bryce’s own constructions were good quality—he’d been a carpenter for decades—but Emerson brought something creative that was unique to him. He gazed out into the late afternoon, trying to decide how to spend the rest of his shift. The first coat of paint was done. He could potentially get started on the second coat in the kitchen, which had had twenty-four hours to set by this stage—but the idea of tolerating more paint fumes wasn’t very appealing.
Instead, he spent the rest of the afternoon hauling rocks out of the yard. It was a grueling part of the process, and Lachlan had firmly suggested he wait until he have help to do it—but the quicker he got it done, the quicker they could get started on turning the garden into something worth sitting in. And besides, it felt good to exhaust his body for once. Maybe it would help improve his sleep. Ever since the last dinner party with all the guys—the party at which Lachlan and Serena had announced their impending new arrival—he’d had trouble getting to sleep. There was a strange anxiety in his body, low in his chest… and he wasn’t the kind of guy who was familiar with anxiety. What was it? A fear of something. A fear of being alone? Not a fear, but a kind of… long-term, cosmic worry.
Maybe that was why his mind kept returning, again and again, to that dating site he’d found—the one that offered instant marriages, the one that promised to have a bride sent directly to him. He hadn’t revisited the website since—he was a little worried that someone would trace his internet history and find out the weird sites he’d been looking at—but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when he finally called it a day, his body dripping in sweat but a considerable dent put in the rocks that needed moving, he headed home with a new purpose in his step. He was going to go back to that website. He’d have a look at the profiles of the kinds of women who’d be willing to uproot their whole lives to move across the country to marry a stranger, and he’d talk himself out of this ridiculous fixation once and for all.
Once he was home, and the sweat and dirt of the day were washed off, he took a seat at the huge dining table. It always made him feel oddly small, this table… not a common feeling for a guy as big as him. It would be dwarfed by his dragon form, of course, but he didn’t spend much time in that shape these days. Not with so much work to be done that needed hands. Emerson’s theory on why dragons had developed the ability to shift into a human form w
as that it was all to do with the opposable thumbs. There were some jobs that claws just couldn’t do, razor-sharp or no. Some jobs, in fact, that razor sharp claws were terrible for. Well, he wasn’t complaining. Bryce rather liked his human shape. All his friends did. He’d met more traditionalist dragons on the road, people who felt that the dragon form was the truest form, and any attempt towards living a more human existence was an insult to their true nature. They often eschewed the merits of technology. But for Bryce, tapping idly away at his laptop, technology was one of the best parts of his human side. Razor-sharp claws sure wouldn’t do much for a computer screen, he thought to himself with a chuckle.
The website was still there, with a smug little ‘welcome back’ sign at the top of the page—he blinked, remembering that he’d have to set up a profile in order to be allowed to look at the site properly. He frowned a little. Just the basic information for now—name, gender, age—and that last one was a bald-faced lie. He looked about thirty, in human years, but he hadn’t been thirty for decades. Still, an answer in the triple digits was bound to get him marked for deletion. He filled out the rest of the profile too, on a whim, and even attached a photo of himself—Serena had taken it a few months ago, when they’d all been hanging out on the beach on one of the last really hot days of summer. He stared at it for a while, feeling oddly self-conscious. It was strange to look at yourself through the potential eyes of another. Was he a good-looking man? He’d certainly had his fair share of interest from women when he’d lived on the road… not that that particular style of romance had held much appeal, for all that he’d had more than a few dalliances in his time. They’d said they liked his height, his muscles, his cool blue eyes… did that mean he was good-looking?