Contract Bride

by Kat Cantrell

  In the car, he scooted Tilda close to him and murmured all the wicked things he planned to do to her when they got home. She suggested a few of her own, which only intensified the heat that had sprung up the moment she’d walked out of that dressing room. Or, if he was being honest, he’d been hot for her since this morning, when he’d woken up next to her after a night of holding hands while they slept.

  When they spilled through the front door, laughing over a joke Tilda had made, he almost swept her up in his arms so he could carry her upstairs. It would be the fastest route to getting her out of that amazing teal concoction so he could lick the gooey center of his treat.

  But an envelope on the sideboard caught his eye. That was where the housekeeper put ultraimportant items she’d deemed worthy of his immediate attention, and a sixth sense told him he should heed the recommendation. Clasping Tilda’s hand so she couldn’t escape, he led her across the foyer. Exactly as he’d hoped, the return address was the immigration bureau.

  “Fantastic,” he said. “This should be the approval of my petition.”

  The response had been pretty fast in the grand scheme of things. He picked up the envelope and tore it open, scanning the first line. The envelope fluttered to the floor from his suddenly nerveless fingers as he reread the words over and over.

  “Warren. What is it?” Tilda asked, concern crowding her eyebrows together.

  “Denied,” he said flatly and handed her the paper. “They’ve had an influx of applicants due to the immigration uncertainties going on right now, and they’re not approving any new petitions for the next six months until some of the new regulations can be ironed out.”

  “What?” All the blood drained from Tilda’s face. “What does that mean?”

  She had to leave.

  “We got married for no reason.” Lightheaded all at once, he rubbed at his temples. “With all the illegal immigration talk in the news lately, it never occurred to me that the department would be in such flux.”

  Denied. His petition had been denied.

  Tilda couldn’t apply for a green card at this point. They hadn’t even gotten that far. None of this mattered, not talking over a glass of wine, not the budding confidence Tilda had gained, not the way she looked at him sometimes, as if he was a hero.

  “I don’t understand,” Tilda whispered as her eyes scanned the page. “We’re married. What if I was pregnant? That wouldn’t make a difference to them? We’d still be split up?”

  “What?” Dumbfounded, he pushed the paper away and grabbed Tilda’s hand, his gaze tight on hers as he filtered through her expression seeking more information. “Are you pregnant? You can’t know that already. Can you?”

  The very foundation of the earth started to spin as he internalized the vast and unforeseen complications that had just been dropped in their laps, if so. The sense of awe and wonder had no place in his gut when there were too many other things to worry about.

  Pregnant. Tilda could even now be pregnant with his child and—

  “No!” She shook her head. “I’m saying what if. God, could you imagine?”

  Yeah, he could, and that was part of the problem. All of this was a problem. He shouldn’t be this devastated. What were they going to do? They’d only just started discovering all the wonders of their relationship. She’d held his hand all night long—more than once. It was a huge stride and it was so sweet.

  “I’m sorry, Warren,” she said quietly. “I know how important this project is to you.”

  Project?

  He stared at her for a full minute before it registered that she was apologizing because the petition denial meant the project was in jeopardy. The fact that he hadn’t even considered the project swirled through his gut.

  He was in trouble. Big time.

  For the first time in his life, the vow he’d taken in college felt extremely precarious. Panic swirled through his gut and he couldn’t even lie to himself that it was due to the imminent danger of breaking the pact—it was all because he could not lose her.

  “Yes. That’s true.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but the project didn’t magically become the most important part of this equation. That was not a good thing. “We can do it remotely. It’ll be fine.”

  It would not be fine. It would be horrific. He couldn’t touch her through a screen. Tilda would be thousands of miles away where he couldn’t kiss her whenever he felt like it. She wouldn’t be in his bed. Worst of all, she wouldn’t be the author of his stolen moments of happiness. The ones he didn’t deserve but had come to want. Fiercely.

  “Fine? Are you serious?” She stared at him, a shadow dropping over her expression. “I can’t go back to Australia. What can we do to fight this?”

  “Nothing.” His voice sounded hollow, even to his own ears. “We shouldn’t fight it. There’s no reason you can’t work with the Australian contacts there and the American ones via video calls. People do it all the time.”

  The faster she left, the better. The sooner he could get her out of the nooks and crannies of his soul, which shouldn’t be such a hard task to contemplate...

  But it was.

  All the more reason to get her gone. This was all on him. He’d pushed her into his bed, never realizing how deep things would ultimately go.

  He’d lost sight of her importance to Flying Squirrel. Distance could give that back to him. Maybe this petition denial was a blessing in disguise. Her leaving was the only thing that would work.

  “I’m not people, Warren,” she choked out and he glanced at her, finally pulling himself out of his own head long enough to note that the panic going on wasn’t all on his side. Her face was still white and her hands were trembling. “Bryan is in Australia.”

  Oh, God. He hadn’t even considered how terrifying it must be for her to contemplate the idea of facing her ex again. “You’re so much stronger now than you used to be. Surely the time we’ve spent together helped?”

  She shook her head, her mouth a firm line. “I can’t. I cannot go back to Australia.”

  So all the strides they’d made—that he’d made with her, denying his own needs and desires until she was ready—none of that mattered.

  Of course it didn’t. He had no business letting his bleeding heart run this show. “I’m not sure what choice we have.”

  “That’s it?” Baffled, she glanced up at him, her eyes wide and rapidly filling with tears. “You can’t call someone, or fly me to Canada or England? Surely there’s someplace in the world we can go—”

  “We can’t, Tilda.” Before she could spin more fairy tales that could never come true, he had to cut her off. He was the CEO. Flying Squirrel was his life. “If you want to go someplace that’s not Australia, we can look into it. But I can’t come with you. You know I have to stay here.”

  And in that moment, a part of him knew he’d have given it all up for her. Which was why this could not be happening.

  It was an impossible quandary. He wanted things to be the way they had been, where there were no choices and he’d been forced into this bit of wonderful for reasons beyond his control.

  “So, all of this is over?” she whispered. “You’re done with me now that your project has taken a hit?”

  “All of what is over? Our marriage, definitely. That’s all there ever was. Now there’s no need for it. What else are you looking for?”

  The distance in his voice was perfect. Exactly what he wanted. It matched the numbness and vast empty spaces inside that he’d only recently realized were Tilda shaped.

  “I...don’t know.” She crumpled the paper in her hands and held it tight in her fist. “Some indication that you haven’t just been leading me down a path to nowhere. You’ve been so kind and I thought... Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “You thought what? That I might have feelings for you?” He clamped down on the truth before
he blurted out things that wouldn’t be good for anyone in this situation and shook his head. “I told you about Marcus. What did you think was going to happen, knowing I took a vow?”

  Certainly not that he would fall in love with his wife. If he couldn’t have predicted that, how could she?

  She nodded. “I get it. Everything is a means to an end for Flying Squirrel. The people involved are just incidental.”

  And with that, she turned and walked upstairs without a backward glance.

  * * *

  Somehow, Tilda was not shocked that Warren followed her to her bedroom.

  “This conversation is not over,” he told her as he stood at the door, his arms crossed over his incredibly hard heart.

  She had to pack. Blearily, she tried to think about where she’d put her suitcases in the cavernous room, but her brain was as frozen as the rest of her. “What else is there to say?”

  “What are you going to do? Let me help you figure it out.”

  “Because I’m your employee? Or your wife?”

  What did it matter? She already knew the answer. He was Warren Garinger, CEO of Flying Squirrel. Despite the fact that he’d told her he cared, anything she’d let herself believe—including that—was a lie.

  “You’re both,” he argued. “That was the deal from the beginning. I couldn’t have one without the other.”

  “Right. If my visa hadn’t been messed up, the wife part wouldn’t have happened.” She’d have missed all the gloriousness of being with Warren: his patience, his selflessness. The terrace. This dress.

  Falling for him.

  “And I wouldn’t have you as my wife unless you’d been my employee first.”

  He came into the room, treading across the carpet slowly, as he’d done from the first. Even now, he was still patiently working through her triggers, as if he cared.

  Why would he tell her that he paid attention because he cared and then send her back to Melbourne where the worst nightmare imaginable awaited her?

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he prompted again. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “Don’t I?” She surprised them both by laughing bitterly. “What are you offering me this time?”

  Halting well shy of touching her, he took her measure. “To help. I’ll put you up in an apartment anywhere you like. Name the country. You can go there as if you’re on vacation, and the moment you have to leave due to any immigration issues, you can go someplace else.”

  If she couldn’t stay here—and the letter was frighteningly clear on the fact that she couldn’t—it didn’t matter where she went. Because Warren wouldn’t be there. It was an inescapable fact that he’d become her whole world. Of course, the job was important, too, and yesterday, she’d have said it was more important than anything. But in light of the hole in her gut due to these new circumstances, to say so would be skirting the truth.

  She was in love with him. Against her will. If only she hadn’t come to him with her need for a new dress, he wouldn’t have told her he cared and opened up hopes in her heart that had no place there. She’d been fighting her feelings just fine until that had happened.

  “So, I’d be living out of a suitcase at the whims of the country’s immigration laws.” That sounded like the opposite of what she wanted. Anything that wasn’t staying in Raleigh with Warren sounded like hell. “I can’t think about this now. I just want to go to bed.”

  And then, tomorrow, she’d have to leave the US. It wasn’t like she had a lot of time to comply with the immigration bureau. Thanks to Warren’s petition, they knew who she was, where she lived and who she worked for. And when her visa had expired, which was weeks ago.

  “I need to know that you’re going to be safe.” Warren surged forward to grip both of her arms. The automatic recoil she couldn’t control threw a heavy wrench into the works. Instantly, he dropped his hands with a curse. “God, Tilda, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered and rubbed at her arms where he’d grabbed her, not because it hurt but because it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay.

  How many more clues did she need that they’d never work? Inside, where it counted, she didn’t trust anyone, obviously. The scars went too deep.

  Even if he’d professed his undying love, it wasn’t fair to saddle him with a wife who couldn’t stop herself from jumping when her husband did something as simple as reach out to express his concern. Leaving suddenly felt like her salvation, not the end of their relationship, as she’d been painting it.

  There was nothing to end. There’d have to have been a real relationship between them in order for there to be anything to kill.

  “I’ll go back to Melbourne,” she said dully as her heart sheared neatly in half. “I have family there. I can work remotely until the project is complete, as you’ve specified. You’ll send the divorce papers via courier when you have them drawn up?”

  “Are you sure that’s best? What about your ex?”

  “I’ll get over it. I’m nothing if not professional. You’ll get your market share in Australia, as promised, so don’t worry about the project.”

  She couldn’t let him know that she was breaking down inside. That’s when it was the worst. When a man got the information he could use to really hurt you.

  His expression didn’t change, but the distance between them increased exponentially. The very atmosphere grew icicles as he stared at her. “That’s great. I do want to get my money’s worth.”

  Ironic how she’d fallen for two very different men. One clung to her like a cocklebur and the other couldn’t hold on to anything outside of his bottom line.

  Something must be wrong with her that she couldn’t find a man in the middle, who understood that she stood firmly in the middle, too—one foot in each camp between proper and provocative.

  Warren had been that man for a far-too-brief blip in time.

  No. That had been an illusion. Good thing. She couldn’t imagine the conversation if her residency status had gone differently.

  Because, in the end, if he’d asked her to stay married after she got her green card, she wouldn’t have refused.

  Ten

  Get over it.

  The phrase haunted Warren. Had haunted him for a decade. But it had been fresh on his mind all day, courtesy of Tilda, who was on her way to the airport in his limo.

  Without him.

  Because he couldn’t get his head on straight.

  Tilda needed something bigger than he was capable of giving her. Obviously. After everything that he’d done and tried and bled all over, she still flinched when he forgot to be careful with her. And clearly he’d forgotten. His ham-handed qualities had been proven over and over.

  Still. He could have gone to the airport with her, if for no other reason than to say goodbye. Right? They had a professional relationship that would extend for the next nine months or so. They’d be speaking by conference call on Tuesday, if not sooner, pending whether her connecting flight from LAX was delayed.

  The reason why he didn’t accompany her had to do with the burn in his chest, the one that made it impossible to explain he couldn’t stand the thought of watching her fly out of his life. He couldn’t go with her. He couldn’t keep her here. It was a merry-go-round nightmare that had no exit.

  How the hell had he gotten here? His nice, simple green-card marriage had exploded in his face, and he couldn’t even turn to his friends for comfort because they would laugh. The word sanctimonious would likely come up. “I told you so” would be thrown around more than once.

  The house echoed with emptiness. Or was that his heart? Both. Neither.

  The staff hadn’t gone anywhere and there were no fewer than five people within shouting distance. But, as always, they were invisible, keeping their distance because that’s what he’d always pref
erred. His heart had no business feeling anything other than guilt for the sin of bleeding all over Marcus and then Tilda.

  Loneliness was his due, and he’d been combating that for eons. Of course, that had been easier when he didn’t have a basis for comparison. The ghost of Tilda was everywhere. In his bed, in the bathroom, at the dining table. Behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes. Thankfully, he wasn’t in the habit of frequenting the terrace, so he didn’t have to see it or the garden below ever again if he didn’t want to.

  That was a good plan. Just avoid everything that reminded him of how he’d screwed up and gotten in way too deep with the woman he’d married.

  So deep that it had actually wrenched his soul from his gut when she’d flinched last night. Just as well. He didn’t need it anyway. Souls were for people who didn’t have a friend’s suicide on their conscience.

  That’s why it was better for Tilda to go. He wasn’t good for her. In fact, he’d let her go for her own safety, because he did care.

  If he repeated that a thousand more times, it might sink in, too.

  Morose and sick of himself, Warren barricaded the door of the study and drowned himself in work. That lasted about an hour. He’d gotten so good at delegating as he focused on the Australia project over the last three months that he had little to do. Blasphemy. There was always something for the CEO to do. He captained the whole ship, for crying out loud.

  Digging into some of Thomas’s reports put him in slightly better spirits. There were discrepancies in the inventory numbers. Grateful for the distraction, he fired off an email for an explanation and moved on to the next report. Five minutes later, an email popped into his inbox. Thomas’s reply: I’m aware. That’s why the discrepancy is explained in the quarterly report I sent out three days ago.

  Warren rolled his eyes. Fine. He dug around until he found the report in the wrong folder on his desktop, read it and had to agree that the explanation seemed reasonable enough. What was the world coming to, that his brother had a better handle on the operations of the business than he did?