Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

8

Dee

We were supposed to arrive back from our weekend getaway early on Sunday morning. Originally we’d planned to come back in the afternoon and swing by the office, in case anybody was still around over the weekend working late hours who might be able to play witness to our rendezvous.

But then Saturday night happened. And then Sunda

y morning happened. And then neither of us wanted to get out of bed, much less drive all the way back just to go to work and pretend we’re pretending to be a couple, when in reality… I think maybe something else is happening.

I don’t know. All I know is we ordered room service again Sunday, ate brunch naked on the bed, with several platters of room service between us, polishing off waffles with decadent piles of cream and strawberries in between taking plentiful helpings of that cream and those strawberries and spreading them across each other’s bodies. Then eating the strawberries, one by one, him sometimes foregoing the strawberries altogether to concentrate on trailing his tongue around my nipples instead, making them hard as rocks before he finally relents with a grin.

He knows exactly how wild he drives me, damn him.

By the time the front desk called to remind us of the checkout time, we were so distracted by that Jasper told them to book us for another night.

“But—” I started to protest, thinking about work, but he shushed me.

“We’ll head back first thing in the morning. You’ll be there in time to meet with the other interns.”

The other interns. The other interns who spent all last week casting side-eye at me and whispering about how I skipped orientation for a private tour with Jasper Quint instead. The ones who didn’t bother to hide their slack-jawed shock when I left the office with Jasper just after noon on Friday, after he wrote to my supervisor to notify her of a business need.

Not going to lie, I’m a little nervous about returning now, like this, in the same clothes I left work in on Friday, speeding up to the door with Jasper in his father’s vintage car.

Not to mention, I have about a million unread messages from Melissa on my phone.

So, did it happen? was the first one on the docket. The whole lead-up to this weekend getaway, she’d teased me that Jasper wanted to get in my pants. I kept denying it, kept saying we were keeping things strictly business. Now…

My stomach churns.

“You okay?” Jasper casts me a sideways look from his side of the car. He’s driving this morning, so I can apply a little bit of makeup, at least enough to look semi-presentable in an attempt to pretend I have a real job here.

I want to work hard in this internship. I want to be taken seriously. But I didn’t really think about that side of things when I signed on for this extra position—the Mrs. One: I didn’t think about what the other people at the company would say or think about me, the new girl who rolled into the office and straight into Jasper’s bed.

And normally I’d be able to brush it off, since this is all for show anyway, all pretend, the wedding, all of it…

Except now I’m not so sure it is, anymore.

I mean, the wedding is fake. The ring is fake. Our engagement, that side of things, fake. But Saturday night? Sunday morning? Hell, even this morning, when Jasper caught me in the shower and pinned me against the wall, kneeling between my legs to eat me out one last time, soapy water cascading down my body as my cries of pleasure echoed in the marble tiled bathroom?

That was real. Sharing a bad was real. And I’m worried that there might be more to this thing than just sex. Because—don’t get me wrong, the sex is fucking phenomenal, and I regret none of it… But the way he stared into my eyes this morning, like a man lost at sea. The way I stared back, like a woman reaching out to him for a lifeline…

He scares me. This scares me. I didn’t expect it, didn’t see it coming. Never in a million years would I have guessed I could form a connection this deep with somebody, let alone somebody like Jasper. But we stayed up late into the night last talking about our families—I shared stories about my parents, and for once, telling those stories didn’t make me sad or send me right back into the depression I first fell into when they passed. Instead it made me happy, because it made Jasper so obviously happy to hear those stories.

And he shared right back. He told me about his and his father’s close relationship, about how much he loves working with his dad at the company. He talked about his cousins, the huge family that awaits us at the reunion in Greece. He lit up when he talked about how many cousins he has, and about how many little kids in the extended family her gets to spoil. He has no nieces and nephews, since he has no siblings, but his cousins are like siblings to him, from the sound of it, and he treats their children the same way I’d spoil any nieces or nephews if I had some.

“I’m fine,” I tell him now, gaze fixed out the window of the car.

His mouth tightens into a thin line, like he doesn’t believe me. But to his credit, he doesn’t press me. He just stares out the window ahead and steers us up toward the work lot.

I watch the building approach, apprehension growing in my stomach. The glares and sideways mutters I heard spoken about me last week were already bad. I can’t imagine how much worse they’ll be now, when I walk in with this rock on my finger. I didn’t think about this—we need our relationship to be visible so his father can see it, so Jasper’s plan to win his inheritance can play out. But other people will see it too. And those people will be judging my part in this, not just Jasper’s.

I suck in a deep breath, at the same moment that Jasper asks, “Are you ready for this?”

I let out my breath in a gust of laughter. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” I glance at him, then hold up the rock between us. It flashes in the sunlight. It’s gaudier than the other ring I liked, way over the top. But then again, this is Jasper Quint we’re talking about. Of course he went for the over-the-top ring. “How much of a bomb am I going to set off when I walk into the building wearing this today?” I ask.

“Well, Caroline might try to claw your eyes out,” he admits, mouth twisted in a wry expression.

“You heart-breaker,” I tease.

He sighs. “I was upfront at the start that there would be no hearts involved.”

“I know how that goes.” I lean back in my seat, twisting the belt in one hand.

“Yes, I’d imagine little Ms. I’ve Never Fallen in Love has broken her fair share of hearts in time. No?”

Now it’s my turn to blush, and turn my head away. “Only one.” Way back when. A classmate who I wanted as a friend with benefits. Turns out he wanted more, but I couldn’t offer it. “Like you said. I was upfront at the start. But sometimes people think they’ll be okay with an idea, and then the reality turns out to be very different.”

“I can imagine how that happens with you.” When I turn back to him, as he glides into a parking lot out behind the office, his eyes have gone dark and serious once more. “I’ll bet nobody’s quite able to forget about you, Dee. Not if they really get to know you well.”

My head is still spinning from those words, and his expression as he says them, when he steps out of the car. I reach for my own door handle, but before I can get to it, he’s beaten me to it, pulling open the door for me like he’s his own valet. I smirk at him as I climb from the car. “I thought you said we wealthy people were supposed to let valets do that,” I point out, recalling his lesson at the hotel.

He laughs. “Just teasing you, Dee. I’m not that pompous.”

I hear a scoff, a little ways off, and turn just in time to catch a drift of blonde hair passing into the office from the rear doors, near the parking lot. The receptionist he just mentioned. Caroline.

Damn.

I shake my head and try to forget about her as I grab my luggage from Jasper and wheel it after him into the building. We stash it in his office for now, and then, in the middle of the lobby, he pauses to wrap one arm around my waist and give me a very long, very public parting kiss, before I head for the start of my day.

My cheeks are flushed, my head ringing, and I catch Caroline glaring at me over the top of her computer monitor, eyes narrowed into pinpricks.

I try to catch my breath, but between racing to the staff meeting, arriving late, and being faced with another round of glares upon entry, it’s hard to do. I sit in the back of the

room, heart still racing, and listen to what the supervisor is saying. Or try to, anyway. Last week, we spent most of our time learning the ropes—what papers to file where, who’d need help with which projects. This week, though, we’ll be expected to take a little more initiative in deciding where we want to work for the first couple weeks of the internship. The supervisor asks us who wants to help out in the design room.

My hand shoots into the air at once. Unfortunately, so do about five other people’s in the room.

And the supervisor passes me over, pointing them out one after the other.

I lower my hand into my lap, disappointment stinging a little bit, but I ignore it and wait for another opportunity. The next shift is handed out—some people sent to assist engineering, others to the test track. Finally, only me and three other girls are left in the room, alone with the supervisor who peers over his clipboard and glances at me, then the others, then back to his assignments. “You four are going to head down to accounting for this rotation.”

My stomach sinks into the floor.

Accounting? I didn’t come here to learn how to balance budgets. My forehead creases in disappointment. But hey, the rotations change every couple of weeks. Just because I don’t get to work in design or something fun right away doesn’t mean I won’t get my chance eventually. I just have to do well at this, prove myself—prove that I’m more than just Jasper’s current gold-digging fiancée—and then I’ll have my shot.

Maybe a boring assignment is for the best anyway, when I have so much extra work on the side.

Work. Part of me laughs to think of our agreement that way now. It may have started out as an on-paper agreement, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way anymore. Not after tasting his kisses, feeling his huge cock buried inside me. Not after watching the way his face goes slack and his eyes focused on me, crying out my name when he finishes deep in me.