Marriage of Convenience (The Raven Brothers 1)

When Alex and Sara left, I stood and went to the bar to pour a drink. This was just another example of why I should be the next CEO of Raven Industries. My brothers were smart and very good at what they did, but they didn’t have the self-control or temperament to manage all aspects of the company.

I chuckled as I figured Alex wouldn’t think I had the temperament either. Of all us boys, I was the one most like my father. I could focus and ignore my dick. My father wasn’t a great husband or father, but to his credit, I don’t think he ever cheated on my mother. He was married to his work. Just like I was.

This ridiculous plan of his was insulting on so many levels. Who the fuck was he to change the rules so late in the game? All my life I was raised to put the company first and eventually helm it just as he did. He should have been praising me, not making me jump through more hoops.

If all I needed was a wife, I could probably easily arrange that. There were plenty of women I could pay to marry me for however long I needed, and then let her go. But having a kid? What the fuck? Why would my father want to subject more children to an absent father like we had?

I supposed there was a woman out there willing to marry me, give me a kid and walk away. Everyone had a price they’d take to do almost anything. Still, I expected it would be harder to find that since most women had a maternal instinct. And assuming I found a woman willing to walk away, I’d still need someone to raise the kid. I guessed that was what nannies were for.

I downed my drink, deciding not to worry about it now. We had time, and so far, none of my brothers seemed inclined to marry and produce kids.

Right now, I needed to focus on business, and making sure Hunter didn’t come sniffing around Ms. Sheppard. She was off limits to all my brothers. And of course, to me. But fuck, what I’d do to have a taste of her on my desk.

4

Sara–Thursday

I sat alone at a table in the staff lounge reading the employee handbook while Ms. Oliver went off to take care of something. She’d given me a tour and had HR take my picture for a badge and then brought me to the lounge.

“You don’t need to remember it all now, but start going through it. I’m going to grab your badge and deal with an issue for Mr. Raven senior, then I’ll be back. You can get a snack if you want.” She nodded toward the vending machines in the room.

I wasn’t hungry, so I opened the large binder. There was a LOS to read, but my difficulty concentrating had nothing to do with the content. Instead, meeting Chase Raven had my brain in a tizzy.

Did he call his brothers fuckheads?

I knew that people in New York City had a reputation for being abrupt to the point of rude, and I’d run into people like that before, but I’d never worked for someone like that. I’d had to endure perverts and lechers, but not someone like Mr. Raven. He had a dark stare that could probably whither flowers.

My goal was to work hard and hopefully parlay this internship into a job, but now I wasn’t sure I wanted to work in such a hostile environment. It was bad enough that I rented a room from a man who could possibly be a serial killer. Well, maybe not a murderer, but still, I was uncomfortable. My discomfort could be from my sheltered background and the fear mongering my parents used to keep me in line. In the end, the statement that beggars can’t be choosers was true, and I took the cheapest place I could find that didn’t have cockroaches. It was basically a closet with a bathroom shared by four other people who also had closet-sized rooms.

Focus, Sara. I turned my attention back to the handbook and was pleased to see a policy of no fraternizing and a process for reporting people who engaged in sexual misbehavior at work. Good. Not that men wouldn’t look, but at least they wouldn’t touch or say lewd things. I hoped that the rule was strictly enforced.

“I’ve got your badge.” She studied it. “I bet you never take a bad picture.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t had my picture taken very often.” My parents had a few pictures, but they were mostly school photos.

“Really? You’re so pretty, I’d have thought there’d be plenty of pictures.”

I shook my head.

“You ready to go back to Mr. Raven’s office?” There was a tone in her voice that sounded disapproving and I wondered if maybe the no fraternizing rule didn’t extend to the owners.