Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

I speed us through another three loops around the track, until my hands are shaking from the adrenaline rush, and my head swims with the high. There really is nothing like

this—flying over the pavement at death-defying speeds, all the while knowing that I’m in complete control. At the end of my race, I decide to go for the full drift. I spin the car wheel and hit it at just the right angle to send the car lurching around a corner at a breakneck speed. It throws us both to the side of our seats, and I white-knuckle the wheel to hold on. When we finally level out on the straight again, both of us are cheering in unison, and I spin to face Jasper, laughing, unable to believe how well that worked, how good it felt.

And then his hands are cupping my face, pulling me to him, and our mouths collide.

At first, all I taste is spearmint. Then I part my lips, let his tongue slip through mine and wrestle with mine, and I sink forward, into the kiss, losing myself in his scent—dark and heady, like a drug I could never get enough of—and the way he tastes, like salt and sweet and something I can’t resist.

Then I remember who I am. Who he is, and what we’ve agreed to do.

I jerk back, breath coming hard and fast, and lean away from him, despite every muscle in my body crying out in protest. “We can’t do that,” I say, before I even realize I agreed to let my mouth speak.

“Why not?” he asks. His dark eyes are still fixed on mine, unreadable. But there’s passion in that gaze, a white-hot desire that I can feel mirrored in my own. His heart must be beating every bit as fast as mine, thundering with all that adrenaline.

That’s all it is, I tell myself. The adrenaline, making me reckless, foolhardy. “I just met you,” I say, turning away from him, tearing my eyes off his, to start the car back into motion and roll slowly toward the pull-off where I can park it. “And besides, I agreed to be your fake wife, not a real one.”

“Nothing wrong with having a little fun along the way,” he points out. “Besides, it would help sell the story.”

“Oh, so you just kissed me to sell the story to this whole bunch of witnesses?” I wave at the empty track with one hand, and with the other, steer the car into the parking area.

“You know what I mean. It’s good to test out our chemistry. Make sure that will play well in front of others.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“Impossible to resist?” When I cast another glance at him, he’s grinning, a knowing smirk on those full lips of his. Almost like he knows how much I enjoyed that damn kiss. Almost like he knows I’m already picturing doing it again, but for longer—crawling over into the passenger side of the car and tearing his shirt off, and running my hands over those sculpted abs of his, which I can already see through that damn tight T-shirt fabric…

“Oh please.” I roll my eyes. “Are you always this overconfident?”

“I wouldn’t call it overconfident. Just the correct amount of confidence. For example, I’m confident you enjoyed that kiss just now as much as I did.”

“I… That’s…” I sputter, then shake my head. “That’s hardly the point.” I shove the car into park and push the door open. “We work together, Jasper. Whether your coworkers know the exact terms of our business arrangement or not, it’s important to me to keep this professional. Understand?”

“Understood.” His eyes lock on mine for a moment before I climb out of the car. “But you didn’t deny it, I’d like to point out,” he adds.

I groan. “Are we done with this portion of the tour?”

“We’re done,” he replies, and my heart seizes a little at the sound of that.

But still, I follow my instincts. Shut the car door behind me and leave him there while I walk inside, alone. Because I know I’m doing the right thing, hard as it may be when my lips and my body are both singing at the memory of him.

The last thing in the world I need is to start developing feelings for Jasper Quint.

“I don’t understand, you’re going to need to say this slower.”

On the other end of the phone, I can hear Melissa chewing the spoonful of cereal she’s eating as we both watch our favorite wind-down trashy reality shows. Her after a long day of nannying, and me after a long day of, well…

“Basically the owner’s obsessed with family.”

“Antoine Quint,” she replies. “I don’t live under a rock, Dee. But you’re saying he’s forcing his son to… what, just jump on the first wife opportunity that comes along?”

“When I say obsessed, I mean really, truly he doesn’t think his son can run a business without a wife.” I twirl my spoon between my fingertips, the ice cream I’m eating poised forgotten on my thigh. “Which, actually, after spending the whole day touring the place with Jasper, I can’t say I don’t understand…”

“Jasper. You’re on a first-name basis with Jasper Quint. You’ve been hired to pretend to marry Jasper Quint.”

“I know it sounds crazy—”

“It is crazy, Dee. You know I love you, and I’ll support you no matter what, but have you considered how this will look on your résumé once you leave? ‘Yes, Ms. Smith, how did your first internship go?’ ‘Well, I married and then divorced the head of the company…’”

“It’s not going to be a real wedding. We’ll just play-act until his dad hands over the CEO-ship, and then go our separate ways. Plus he’s going to write me a letter of recommendation specially—”

“Recommending you for what, wife of the year?” But I can hear the amusement in her voice. Not to mention the tap of keyboard keys.

“What are you doing?” I ask, suddenly suspicious.

“Googling your hubby-to-be, of course, as any good friend would do.”

I groan. “Melissa…”

“Holy shit girl.” I hear the click-click-click of her keyboard as she scrolls through images. “Okay, I revise my earlier stance. Husband that immediately. Is he really that good-looking in person?”

I snort. “I mean… He’s not not. But he’s also a, a…” I think back to our tour today. The way he leaned in in the car, adrenaline racing through our veins, and for a moment, I could imagine the taste of his lips, the feel of that scratchy five o’clock shadow against my cheek… “I don’t know. He’s too flirty. Too forward.”

She laughs, too. “I’m sorry, are these bad things?”

“It’s a business transaction! He’s blurring the lines. That’s a red flag.”

“Mhmmm.” Melissa’s tone on the far end sounds far too knowing for my taste. “Well, I hope you enjoy your business transaction. You’ve got to keep me posted on how much you enjoy blurring the lines once your new hubby gets you into the wedding night bed—”

“I’ve got to go now,” I call into the phone, though we’re both cracking up.

“Also, you need to tell me if his hair still looks that good after he’s been rolling around in the sack all night—”

“Goodbye, Melissa.”

“Love you, Dee.”

“Love you too.” I hang up with a groan and an eye roll. But I can’t deny it. I’m smiling, too, ear-to-ear. And that makes me more nervous than anything else.

4

Jasper

I tell my father I’m going out of town for the weekend. Then I leave several brochures for the romantic getaway I’ve planned for me and Dee, all in very obvious places, so that Dad will be sure to stumble across them. Nosy as he is about my personal life, he won’t be able to resist asking around, and Greg will be all too happy to report that I’m out of town with a girl I’ve been courting. A girl, who Greg will tell my father, I’m actually serious about for once.

We figure this will help cement the lie that we eloped, once we finally spring our marriage on my father in time for the family reunion. Which is in three weeks’ time now—not a moment to lose.

I sent Dee a text inviting her to meet me at the office and bring a suitcase for the weekend. I figure that if Dad doesn’t get nosy and snoop around, at least this will stir up enough office gossip to reach his ear before I return on Sunday evening, hopefully engaged. Well, fake engaged, but still.

Now to just put the finishing touches on the weekend. I call

ahead to the resort and request the honeymoon suite. There’s a little back-and-forth, until I drop the surname Quint, and then suddenly, “Oh of course, Mr. Quint, not a problem at all, of course it’s free.”

I have to hide a smile when I disconnect. Normally I hate to pull that card, but it does come in handy, at times.

Especially in situations like this. Situations where I’m about to go away for the weekend with a woman I cannot get out of my head.

The moment I first saw her, sitting in Greg’s office in an outfit that looked like she found it on a sale rack at Target, sounding desperate while she talked about her college plans, I knew she’d be perfect. Just the unwitting gold-digger type my family would hate. Lack of class and poor and all.

But the more I got to know her, giving her the office tour and listening to her ramble about the cars like she’d grown up under the hood of one, the more I started to realize… I could actually like this woman.

The way she handled the stick shift on the test track, I have to admit, made my own stick shift hard as a rock to watch. I’ve never seen anyone drive like that—well, anyone except yours truly. And the kiss we shared afterward, her pert little mouth hot against mine, her tongue curling my own. She wanted it. She wanted it as bad as I did, I could feel it, taste it in that kiss.

And then she pulled back, walked away, and it’s been all I can do not to text her constantly or linger around the offices where the other interns are working to try and catch glimpses of her. I spotted her near the water cooler the other day, in a perfectly work appropriate top that still made me think all kinds of naughty thoughts.

I keep coming up with excuses to text her—first I had to compliment her on a small job the intern supervisor tells me was very well done. Then I had to ask for her preference on getaway locations (“outdoorsy but not too I’m-going-to-murder-you-in-the-middle-of-nowhere,” she’d replied, which led me to pick this amazing little seaside resort town over a cabin in the woods type). Then I had to find out her dress size, since obviously she won’t be packing anything we’ll be able to wear to a decent restaurant in town.