Best Friend Bride

by Kat Cantrell

  And he’d invested way too much in this marriage to let it fail now.

  His phone beeped from his pocket, and since the CEO never slept, he handed over the glass dish to check the message.

  Grandfather. At 6:00 a.m. Seoul time. Jonas tapped the message. All the blood drained from his head.

  “Jonas, what’s wrong?” Viv’s palm came to rest on his forearm and he appreciated the small bit of comfort even as it stirred things it shouldn’t.

  “My grandfather. My dad told him that we got married.” Because Jonas had asked him to. The whole point had been to circumvent his grandfather’s arranged-marriage plan. But this—

  “Oh, no. He’s upset, isn’t he?” Viv worried her lip with her teeth, distracting him for a moment.

  “On the contrary,” Jonas spit out hoarsely. “He’s thrilled. He’s so excited to meet you, he got on a plane last night. He’s here. In Raleigh. Best part? He talked my dad into having a house party to welcome you into the family. This weekend.”

  It was a totally unforeseen move. Wily. He didn’t believe for a second that his grandfather was thrilled with Jonas’s quick marriage or that the CEO of one of the largest conglomerates in Korea had willingly walked away from his board meetings to fly seven thousand miles to meet his new granddaughter-in-law.

  This was something else. A test. An “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Maybe Grandfather scented a whiff of the truth and all it would take was one slipup before he’d pounce. If pressed, Jonas would feel honor bound to be truthful about Viv’s role. The marriage could be history before dark.

  A healthy amount of caution leaped into Viv’s expression. “This weekend? As in we have two days to figure out how to act like a married couple?”

  “Now you’re starting to see why my face looks like this.” He swirled an index finger near his nose, unbelievably grateful that she had instantly realized the problem. “Viv, I’m sorry. I had no idea he was going to do this.”

  The logistics alone... How could he tell his mom to give them separate bedrooms when they were essentially still supposed to be in the honeymoon phase? He couldn’t. It was ludicrous to even think in that direction when what he should be doing was making a list of all the ways this whole plan was about to fall apart. So he could mitigate each and every one.

  “Hey.”

  Jonas glanced up as Viv laced her fingers with his as if she’d done it many times, when in fact she hadn’t. She shouldn’t. He liked it too much.

  “I’m here,” she said, an echo of her sentiment at the wedding ceremony. “I’m not going anywhere. My comment wasn’t supposed to be taken as a ‘holy cow how are we going to do this.’ It was an ‘oh, so we’ve got two days to figure this out.’ We will.”

  There was literally no way to express how crappy that made him feel. Viv was such a trouper, diving into this marriage without any thought to herself and her own sense of comfort and propriety. He already owed her so much. He couldn’t ask her to fake intimacy on top of everything else.

  Neither did he like the instant heat that crowded into his belly at the thought of potential intimate details. He couldn’t fake intimacy either. It would feel too much like lying.

  The only way he could fathom acting like he and Viv were lovers would be if they were.

  “You don’t know my grandfather. He’s probably already suspicious. This house party is intended to sniff out the truth.”

  “So?” She shrugged that off far too easily. “Let him sniff. What’s he going to find out, that we’re really legally married?”

  “That the marriage is in name only.”

  To drive the point home, he reached out to cup Viv’s jaw and brought her head up until her gaze clashed with his, her mouth mere centimeters away from his in an almost-kiss that would be a real one with the slightest movement. She nearly jumped out of her skin and stumbled back a good foot until she hit the counter. And then she tried to keep going, eyes wide with...something.

  “See?” he said. “I can’t even touch you without all sorts of alarms going off. How are we going to survive a whole weekend?”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t—” She swallowed. “I wasn’t expecting you to do that. So clearly the answer is that we need to practice.”

  “Practice what?” And then her meaning sank in. “Touching?”

  “Kissing, too.” Her chest rose and fell unevenly as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “You said we would best get through the adjustment period by spending time together. Maybe we should do that the old-fashioned way. Take me on a date, Jonas.”

  Speechless, he stared at her, looking for the punch line, but her warm brown eyes held nothing but sincerity. The idea unwound in his gut with a long, liquid pull of anticipation that he didn’t need any help interpreting.

  A date with his wife. No, with Viv. And the whole goal would be to get her comfortable with his hands on her, to kiss her at random intervals until it was so natural, neither of them thought anything of it.

  Crazy. And brilliant. Not to mention impossible.

  “Will you wear a new dress?” That should not have been the next thing out of his mouth. No would be more advisable when he’d already identified a great big zone of danger surrounding his wife. But yes was the only answer if he wanted to pull off this plan.

  She nodded, a smile stealing over her face. “The only caveat is no work. For either of us. Which means I get dessert that’s not cupcakes.”

  Oddly, a date with Viv where kissing was expected felt like enough of a reward that he didn’t mind that addendum so much, though giving up cupcakes seemed like a pretty big sacrifice. But as her brown eyes seared him thoroughly, the real sacrifice was going to be his sanity. Because he could get her comfortable with his hands on her, but there was no way to get him there.

  The date would be nothing but torture—and an opportunity to practice making sure no one else realized that, an opportunity he could not pass up. Having an overdeveloped sense of ethics was very inconvenient sometimes.

  “It’s a deal. Pick you up at eight?”

  That made her laugh for some reason. “My bedroom is next door to yours, silly. Are we going to have a secret knock?”

  “Maybe.” The vibe between them had loosened gradually to where they were almost back to normal, at least as far as she was concerned. Strange that the concept of taking Viv on a date should be the thing to do it. “What should it be?”

  Rapping out a short-short-pause-short pattern, she raised her brows. “That means we’re leaving in five minutes so get your butt in gear.”

  “And then that’s my cue to hang out in the living room with a sporting event on TV because you’re going to take an extra twenty?”

  Tossing her head, she grinned. “You catch on fast. Now, I have to go get ready, which means you get to unload the rest of these boxes.”

  Though he groaned good-naturedly as she scampered out of the kitchen, he didn’t mind taking over the chore. Actually, she should be sitting on the couch with a drink and a book while he slaved for hours to get the house exactly the way she liked it. He would have, too, simply because he owed her for this, but she’d insisted that she wanted to do it in order to learn where everything was. Looked like a date was enough to trump that concept.

  As the faint sound of running water drifted through the walls, he found spots in his cavernous kitchen for the various pieces Viv had brought with her to this new, temporary life. Unpacking her boxes ended up being a more intimate task than he’d anticipated. She had an odd collection of things. He couldn’t fathom the purpose of many of them, but they told him fascinating things about the woman he’d married. She made cupcakes for her business but she didn’t have so much as one cupcake pan in her personal stash. Not only that, each item had a well-used sheen, random scrapes, dents, bent handles.

  Either she’d spent hours i
n her kitchen trying to figure out what she liked to bake the most or she’d cleaned out an estate sale in one fell swoop. He couldn’t wait to find out, because what better topic to broach on a date with a woman he needed to know inside and out before Friday night?

  As he worked, he couldn’t help but think of Viv on the other side of the walls, taking a shower. The ensuing images that slammed through his mind were not conducive to the task at hand and it got a little hard to breathe. He should not be picturing her “getting ready” when, in all honesty, he had no idea what that entailed. Odds were good she didn’t lather herself up and spend extra time stroking the foam over her body like his brain seemed bent on imagining.

  What was his problem? He never sat around and fantasized about a woman. He’d never felt strongly enough about one to do so. When was the last time he’d even gone on a date? He might stick Warren with the workaholic label but that could easily be turned back on Jonas. Running the entire American arm of a global company wasn’t for wimps, and he had something to prove on top of that. Didn’t leave a lot of room for dating, especially when the pact was first and foremost in his mind.

  Of course the women he dated always made noises about not looking for anything serious and keeping their options open. And Jonas was always completely honest, but it didn’t seem to matter if he flat-out said he wasn’t ever going to fall in love. Mostly they took it as a challenge, and things got sticky fast, especially when said woman figured out he wasn’t kidding.

  Jonas was a champion at untangling himself before things went too far. Before he went too far. There were always warning signs that he was starting to like a woman too much. That’s when he bailed.

  So he had a lot of one-night stands that he’d never intended to be such. It made for stretches of lonely nights, which was perhaps the best side benefit of marriage. He didn’t hate the idea of having someone to watch a movie with on a random Tuesday night, or drinking coffee with Viv in the morning before work. He hoped she liked that part of their marriage, too.

  Especially since that was all they could ever have between them. It would be devastating to lose her friendship, which would surely happen if they took things to the next level. Once she found out about the pact, either she’d view it as a challenge or she’d immediately shut down. The latter was more likely. He’d hate either one.

  At seven forty he stacked the empty boxes near the door so he could take them to the recycling center in the basement of the building later, then went to his room to change clothes for his date.

  He rapped on Viv’s door with the prescribed knock, grinning as he pictured her on the other side deliberately waiting for as long as she could to answer because they’d made a joke out of this new ritual. But she didn’t follow the script and opened the door almost immediately.

  Everything fled his mind but her as she filled the doorway, her fresh beauty heightened by the colors of her dress. She’d arranged her hair up on her head, leaving her neck bare. It was such a different look that he couldn’t stop drinking her in, frozen by the small smile playing around her mouth.

  “I didn’t see much point in making you wait when I’m already ready,” she commented. “Is it okay to tell you I’m a little nervous?”

  He nodded, shocked his muscles still worked. “Yes. It’s okay to tell me that. Not okay to be that way.”

  “I can’t help it. I haven’t been on a date in...” She bit her lip. “Well, it’s been a little while. The shop is my life.”

  For some reason, that pleased him enormously. Though he shouldn’t be so happy that they were cut from the same workaholic cloth. “For me, too. We’ll be nervous together.”

  But then he already knew she had a lack in her social life since she’d readily agreed to this sham marriage, telling him she was too busy to date. Maybe together, they could find ways to work less. To put finer pleasures first, just for the interim while they were living together. That could definitely be one of the benefits of their friendship.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not nervous. But you’re sweet to say so.”

  Maybe not nervous. But something.

  His palms itched and he knew good and well the only way to cure that was to put them on her bare arms so he could test out the feel of her skin. It looked soft.

  Wasn’t the point of the date to touch her? He had every reason to do exactly that. The urge to reach out grew bigger and rawer with each passing second.

  “Maybe we could start the date right now?” she suggested, and all at once, the hallway outside her room got very small as she stepped closer, engulfing him in lavender that could only be her soap.

  His body reacted accordingly, treating him to some more made-up images of her in the shower, and now that he had a scent to associate with it, the spike through his gut was that much more powerful. And that much more of a huge warning sign that things were spiraling out of control. He just couldn’t see a good way to stop.

  “Yeah?” he murmured, his throat raw with unfulfilled need. “Which part?”

  There was no mistaking what she had in mind when she reached out to graze her fingertips across his cheek. Nerve endings fired under her touch and he leaned into her palm, craving more of her.

  “The only part that matters,” she whispered back. “The part where you don’t even think twice about getting close to me. Where it’s no big thing if you put your arm around my waist or steal a kiss as I walk by.”

  If that was the goal, he was failing miserably because it was a big thing. A huge thing. And getting bigger as she leaned in, apparently oblivious to the way her lithe body brushed against his. His control snapped.

  Before he came up with reasons why he shouldn’t, he pulled her into his arms. Her mouth rose to meet his and, when it did, dropped them both into a long kiss. More than a kiss. An exploration.

  With no witnesses this time, he had free rein to delve far deeper into the wonders of his wife than he had at the wedding ceremony.

  Her enthusiastic response was killing him. His response was even worse. How had they been friends for so long without ever crossing this line? Well, he knew how—because if they had, he would have run in the other direction.

  He groaned as her fingers threaded through his hair, sensitizing everything she touched. Then she iced that cake with a tentative push of her tongue that nearly put him on his knees. So unexpected and so very hot. Eagerly, he matched her sweet thrust with his own. Deeper and deeper they spiraled until he couldn’t have said which way was up. Who was doing the giving and who was greedily lapping it up.

  He wanted more and took it, easing her head back with firm fingers until he found the right angle to get more of her against his tongue. And now he wanted more of her against his body.

  He slid a hand down the curve of her spine until he hit a spot that his palm fit into and pressed until her hips nestled against his erection. Amazing. Perfect.

  The opposite of friendly.

  That was enough to get his brain in gear again. This was not how it should be between them, with all this raw need that he couldn’t control.

  He ended the kiss through some force of will he’d never understand and pulled back, but she tried to follow, nearly knocking herself off balance. Like she had at the ceremony. And in a similar fashion, he gripped her arms to keep her off the floor. It was dizzying how caught up she seemed to get. A rush he could get used to and shouldn’t.

  “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I got a little carried away.”

  “That’s what was supposed to happen,” she informed him breathlessly, “if we have any hope of your grandfather believing that we’re deliriously happy together.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t the problem he was most worried about at this moment. Viv’s kiss-swollen lips were the color of raspberries and twice as tempting. All for show. He’d gotten caught up in the playacting far too easily, which was
n’t fair to her. Or to his Viv-starved body that had suddenly found something it liked better than her cupcakes.

  “I don’t think anyone would question whether we spark, Viv,” he muttered.

  The real issue was that he needed to kill that spark and was pretty certain that would be impossible now.

  Especially given the way she was gazing up at him with something a whole lot hotter than warmth in her brown eyes. She’d liked kissing him as much as he’d liked it. She might even be on board with taking things a step further. But they couldn’t consummate this marriage or he could forget the annulment. Neither did he want to lead her on, which left him between a rock and an extremely hard place that felt like it would never be anything but hard for the rest of his life.

  “In fact,” he continued, “we should really keep things platonic behind closed doors. That’s better for our friendship, don’t you think?”

  He’d kissed his wife and put his hands on her body because she’d told him to. And he was very much afraid he’d do it again whether it was for show or not unless he had some boundaries. Walking away from Viv wasn’t an option. He had to do something that guaranteed he never got so sucked into a woman that she had power over his emotional center.

  Thankfully, she nodded. “Whatever works best for you, Jonas. This is your fake marriage.”

  And how messed up was it that he was more than a little disappointed she’d agreed so readily?

  Three

  Viv hummed as she pulled the twenty-four-count pan from the oven and stuck the next batch of Confetti Surprise in its place. Customers thronged the showroom beyond the swinging door, but she kept an eye on things via the closed-circuit camera she’d had installed when she first started turning a profit.

  Couldn’t be too careful and besides, it made her happy to watch Camilla and Josie interact with the cupcake buyers while Viv did the dirty work in the back. She’d gotten so lucky to find the two college-aged girls who worked for her part-time. Both of them were eager students, and soon Viv would teach them the back-office stuff like bookkeeping and ordering. For now, it was great to have them running the register so Viv could focus on product.