KIRKLAND: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  I blushed. He made a sort of groaning sound when he saw it.

  “That’s not what I meant. There won’t be any sexual contact between us. At the very least, you’ll have to suffer my kiss at the wedding. But that’s all.”

  “Where will we live?”

  “I have a house outside of town. It’s an old colonial I fixed up. You’ll love it.”

  I started to shake my head, but his hand was still under my chin.

  “I am an honorable man despite what the press says. I will not force myself on a woman.”

  “Just for a few months.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I want out early?”

  “You’ll lose some of the money. But you’ll still have your aunts’ house and my name. But if you stay the whole time, I’m make sure you get a good job. Your dream job. I’ll arrange for it personally.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’m Miles Thorn, son of Jackson Thorn. I can make anything happen.”

  He pulled me back to the table and pushed me down onto the chair. I stared at my hands, unable to think. It was…insane. Who asks a complete stranger to marry him? And what was worse, who actually considered taking him up on the offer?

  But, the thing was, I was considering it. If all he did was pay off my aunts’ house, that would be incredible. I certainly wasn’t going to do it working at Starbuck’s for ten bucks an hour. It was like a dream come true.

  “I have the paperwork at my office. I can have it sent to you in the morning.”

  I nodded, not really thinking of what I was agreeing to. It wouldn’t hurt just to take a look, would it? I think I was in shock. I don’t really remember anything that happened over the next hour or so. I vaguely remember eating my shrimp. I remember getting into the car so that he could drive me home. But that was about it. The rest was just a blur.

  Don’t they say that the night you get engaged will be the most memorable one of your life?

  Not mine.

  Chapter 3

  I slipped inside the house after Miles dropped me off, trying to be as quiet as possible so that my aunts wouldn’t hear me. But, despite their advanced age, they seem to have super hearing.

  “Riley? Is that you, darling?” Aunt Edna called.

  “It’s me,” I said, pausing at the base of the stairs.

  “Did you have a good day?”

  She came to the door, a ball of yarn wrapped over her hands. Aunt Colleen was right behind her, the rest of the yarn trailing between them.

  “Did you eat?” Aunt Edna asked.

  “Yes. I went to dinner with a friend.”

  She looked at me through narrowed eyes, as though she was not sure if she should believe me or not.

  “I’m fine. I’m just tired. I’m going to go up and take a shower.”

  “Get some rest then, darling,” Aunt Colleen said.

  I nodded as I glanced at them, taking in their well-coifed hair and perfectly laundered clothes. They were classy ladies who were always concerned about their appearance. They were from a time when a woman could face just about anything as long as her face was put on just right. It almost hurt how familiar they were to me. They hadn’t changed much in the years since I came to live with them. A few more wrinkles, maybe their hair had gotten slightly whiter over the years. A little more stoop to their shoulders. It made my heart hurt when I thought about the bleakness of their future.

  I went upstairs and jumped into the shower as I said I would. I almost felt human again when I stepped out. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, I curled up in the center of my bed and opened my laptop.

  If I was going to consider marrying a stranger, I wanted to know as much about him as I could. I’d done some cursory research on Thorn Construction when I applied for the job, but it never occurred to me to research its founder and CEO. That was a mistake I was going to try to rectify now.

  All I had to do was put his name into Google and it came up with dozens of articles complete with pictures. The first few were in association with Thorn Construction, basic profiles that were designed to promote the company. They didn’t really tell me anything about Miles Thorn himself. I clicked on another article below those and found one that was focused on his father, Jackson Thorn. The senior Thorn not only had his own massively successful finance company, but he was also the grandson of a former senator who was well-known and well-loved in the eastern part of the country. When I saw his grandfather’s name, even I recognized it, and I’ve never really cared all that much about politics.

  Not only that, but the grandfather’s mother came from a family who could trace their roots back to some of the country’s founding fathers. There was a great deal of history and prestige in Miles’ family.

  Now I understood what he meant when he said that I could benefit from his name after this marriage of convenience ended. His name would definitely open a lot of doors for a nobody like me.

  How was it I had never heard of him before?

  I continued to click through the articles and links that had come up in the Google search. There was a lot that showcased his parents, his sister, Lila, and his brother, Robert. His sister was beautiful, the kind of woman who had the right amount of curves and the right balance of dark hair and pale skin. She was the kind of woman I’d admired and wanted to be when I was a teenager. And Robert…he and Miles could be twins. The only difference I could see was that Robert was slightly shorter than Miles and there was something different, darker, in his eyes.

  I found myself wondering if Miles was close to his siblings. One of the articles said that both Lila and Robert had recently married, and both still lived in Massachusetts near their parents’ home. It made me wonder why Miles had chosen to move thousands of miles across the country to begin his new business—in a state that was as different from his home as the desert is from the Bahamas.

  As I made my way through the links, I found many, many pictures of Miles with a variety of women. He seemed to have a type—tall, rail thin, blond women. Like Lisa. As opposite from me as possible. And each one seemed to have a name that meant something, if the way they were written in each article meant something. A few of them I recognized. There were a couple of actresses and the daughter of a well-known business man. And then I stumbled across an engagement announcement:

  Miles Thorn, son of Jackson and Elena Thorn, has just announced his engagement to Claire Watson, daughter of Stanley and Amelia Watson.

  I knew who Claire Watson was. She was a supermodel who’d appeared in everything from Vogue to Sports Illustrated to a multitude of album covers and internet ads. Lisa always pointed out her pictures, claiming that Claire was the perfect woman and we should aspire to be like her. I never really saw it, personally, but I always agreed with Lisa to appease her quiet obsession. If she knew that Claire Watson’s fiancé had just asked me to marry him…

  But why would he want to marry me when he had someone like Claire?

  None of it made sense to me. He was a man who could have anyone he wanted. Why would he need to get himself trapped in a marriage of convenience? What could be happening in his life that would require a wife of a certain type? He’d said that I was perfect for his needs—I was intelligent, quiet, unassuming. Essentially, I was boring. And he thought that was something he needed right now? It just didn’t make sense.

  But who was I to argue when a man wanted to hand me a million dollars and the right to use his influential name for the rest of my life? I mean, hell, it was a win-win situation for me. I marry a hot man for six months and I’m set for life. Well, at least for a few years.

  I couldn’t see a good reason not to do this. If he could save my aunts’ house and give me the money I would need to make sure they were never alone, that was worth six months of my time. But there was this side of me that still felt the sting of the realization that he hadn’t asked me out on a date and that he wasn’t really interested in me as a romantic partner. He wanted me to play a role, and then he was going to
toss me aside like it didn’t matter. Even though I didn’t know him, even though I knew he was out of my league, that idea still hurt.

  Could I do this and remain emotionally whole? Could I spend six months pretending to be something I wasn’t and not lose who I am?

  I wasn’t confident I could. Yet, I kept coming back to the idea that this would fix everything for my aunts and I couldn’t walk away from it. I couldn’t turn my back on the one solution to all my problems.

  I set the computer aside and curled up against my pillows. It was insane. But how could I make my aunts go to an assisted living facility when I had the opportunity to keep them in their own home for the rest of their lives? After everything they’d done for me—giving up so much to care for a child—the least I could do was give up six months of my life for them.

  I would do it. But he had to live up to his end of the bargain first.

  Chapter 4

  “What does this mean?”

  Miles leaned close to me to look at the documents I had spread out in front of me on the conference table. He smelled like wood and spice, his expensive cologne washing over me every time he moved. And he was so close to me that I could feel his breath against the back of my neck when he spoke.

  “It just means that you agree to live in my house during the course of the marriage.”

  “Then why doesn’t it just say that?”

  “Lawyers can’t just say things out straight. They have to wrap it up in complicated language so that we have to go to them to explain it to us.”

  “Then how do you know what it means?”

  “I went to law school.”

  I looked up at him as he moved away, crossing the room to his desk. It was late. Most of his office staff were gone before I arrived, which is why I suspect he asked me to come after my shift at Starbuck’s. He was dressed, as always, in jeans and an old t-shirt, mud splattered on his pant legs despite the fact it hadn’t rained in weeks. He picked up a bottle of soda off his desk and took a long drink, sighing when he set it down again.

  “You’re a lawyer?”

  “No. I went to law school. There’s a difference.”

  “Why didn’t you finish?”

  He glanced at me, his expression tightened. “I never said I didn’t finish.”

  “But if you’d finished—”

  “I just didn’t take the bar exam.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Because it was what my father wanted. And I try very hard not to do what my father wants me to do.”

  I turned back to the legal papers laid out in front of me, trying not to ask why that might be. It was obvious he didn’t like talking about it, but it seemed to answer a few questions, like why he’d moved so far from home.

  I ran my finger over the words on the page, searching for the section I had been reading. He came back over—I could smell him again—and settled in a chair beside me.

  “It’s all very straightforward,” he said, a touch of boredom to his voice. “It basically just says that you agree to marry me and act as my legal wife for as long as I need you to. Then, I agree to pay you a million dollars, as long as you don’t contest the divorce or the prenup.”

  “I have the option of fighting the divorce?”

  He shrugged. “Everyone has options. But I wouldn’t recommend fighting it. My father’s lawyers would keep you in court for so long that you wouldn’t get anything.”

  I brushed a piece of hair from my face and turned back to the contract. To be honest, none of it really made much sense to me. Yet, I felt compelled to read it from beginning to end, just to be sure I knew what I was getting myself into.

  After a few minutes of silence, Miles sighed quite heavily.

  “Look,” he said, gathering the papers and shuffling them together, “there’s no reason to read the whole thing. If you agree to be my wife, I’ll pay you. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Why?”

  His hands paused for a minute. “Why is that so important to you?”

  “Because I want to know what I’m getting myself in the middle of. Clearly you have a reason for doing this. If I know what the reason is, maybe I can avoid making a mistake that will make everything worse.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Nothing can make this any worse.”

  He stood up again, crossing the room in two, quick strides. He grabbed a pen from his desk and came back, setting a single piece of paper in front of me.

  “Sign this.”

  I took the pen he held out to me, but I didn’t open it. I just stared at the paper for a long minute, then sat back.

  “What?”

  “I need to know more about you.”

  He practically growled, clearly annoyed with me. He practically threw himself into a chair and stared at me with what I’m sure he thought was an intimidating looked. However, I didn’t turn away; I didn’t even drop my gaze for an instant. My aunts always said I was the most stubborn person they knew. When I wanted something, there was nothing in the world that could drag the thought from my mind. That was something Miles was going to have to learn about me.

  “Why do you need to know about me?” he asked.

  “Because people are going to ask about us. How we met. What our first date was like. How you proposed. And they’re going to expect me to know about you.”

  “So lie. Women are supposed to be really good liars. At least, they always have been in my experience.”

  There was a bitterness to his words that made me wonder what the women in his life had done to him. Was this about Claire Watson? Had she broken his heart?

  That was something I should know if I was going to be able to convince people our marriage was real.

  “I’m not a great liar. And if someone asks me what your favorite color is, I’d really like to be able to answer honestly.”

  He stared at me for a long minute, a war going on behind his eyes. Slowly, a little resignation came into them, and he sat up. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Why did you come to Texas?”

  He groaned. “You have to go for the jugular, first question out?” He dragged his fingers through his hair, as he leaned back, his eyes shifting to the ceiling for a long second. “If you must know,” he said very slowly in a tone that suggested he really didn’t want to tell me, “my brother had just married my fiancée. So, I felt like it was a good time to get out of Dodge. And Joan was here, so this is where I decided to come.”

  “You and Joan are close?”

  “I told you, Joan used to work for my father. I’ve known her since I was quite young.”

  “Why did your brother marry your fiancée?”

  His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “When you get the answer to that question, feel free to fill me in.”

  I looked away, feeling a little guilty for pushing that issue, but at least I knew now why he didn’t just ask Claire to go through with her promise to marry him and why he would run away from home. I might have done the same thing in his position.

  “Your turn,” he said. “If you have to know about me, then I should know about you, too.”

  “Okay,” I said, dragging out the syllables as I wondered what it was he might ask.

  “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

  I blushed. “What do you mean?”

  “Why isn’t there some big, dumb guy knocking me out for asking you to do this?”

  I caught the edge of my bottom lip between my teeth as I focused on the pen in my hands, twirling it between my fingers. That was actually a pretty good question. I just wished I knew how to answer it.

  “Surely you’ve had men in your life. Are you between lovers right now, or what?”

  “You make me sound like a promiscuous woman.”

  “No. Just a typical, modern woman.”

  I chuckled softly. I’d never been accused of being typical before. And he couldn’t have been further from the truth. My first kiss was from Lisa’s brother because we ha
ppened to both step under a piece of mistletoe at the same time and their mother goaded him into it. My second kiss didn’t happen until the night of my high school graduation and that was my high school crush saying goodbye. I was too tall in high school to get much action. Most of the boys were intimidated by me. And college was a whirlwind of all-nighters that were more about studying than sex.

  But I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “I’m picky about who I go out with.”

  “Yeah? What’s your type?”

  I looked at him. “Why? Does it matter now? Are you going to set me up with someone when you toss me aside at the end of this deal?”

  “Maybe.” He grinned, but there wasn’t much humor in it.

  “What kind of music do you listen to?”

  I figured a change in subject was warranted. I didn’t expect to see a light come into his eyes. He sat up again, that twisted grin turning into a pleased smile.

  “Would it surprise you if I said I was into an eclectic combination of music? Jazz, pop, rap, big band, classical…I really like a lot of things.”

  I couldn’t help but be lured in by the enthusiasm in his voice.

  “Do you listen to Sinatra?”

  “Old Blue Eyes? Who doesn’t?”

  “I grew up listening to him. My aunts—they have this thing for him. Every Sunday they would play his records, one after the other, while we cleaned the house. I grew up knowing the words to all his greats.”

  “Don’t tell Joan that. She’d be your best friend for life. She thinks no one appreciates the greats anymore. But she’s the one who introduced me to Sinatra and Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.”

  “She had a lot of influence on you.”

  “I spent more time with her as a kid than I did my parents. She was my father’s assistant, so she was always at the house, working in his home office while he was off playing golf. If not for her, my father’s company wouldn’t be what it is today. And she’d let me hang out in the office with her, sit and watch her negotiate over the phone and do all the things she did so well. She always had music playing, always had some bit of knowledge to bestow on me. I was like a lost puppy dog, following her around. I thought she was the most amazing woman in the world.”