Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

The thought of that makes my stomach flip again, and I can’t help but steal another glance over at Bianca, who’s moved on to tidying the rest of the room after she finished sweeping up my antler mess. Does she know what she saw? Did she figure out it was me?

As if my situation couldn’t get any more awkward or embarrassing.

Bianca catches me staring at her and smiles, heading over to my side like I summoned her. Maybe I did. I’m still not really sure how this whole setup works. I know I’m supposed to have a couple of assistants on my team reporting to my same manager, to help out with tasks I set them. But I’m not sure if Bianca is one of them, or if she’s just so eager to prove herself on day one that she doesn’t care who’s giving her jobs as long as she can complete them.

“What should I do next? Anything more you need?” she asks, and I bite the inside of my lip, considering.

“Not sure. Er… do you have the time to help? I don’t want to keep you, if you have other duties…”

She shrugs and spreads her hands wide with a what can you do sort of laugh. “I’m not sure yet. Mr. Walloway is supposed to be giving me an assignment, but he told me he wouldn’t have anything put together until tomorrow, so he just said to help out for now…”

The sound of John’s last name makes my heart skitter in my chest all over again. How could I be this stupid? I’d googled John Walloway a thousand times before now, obviously. But I only ever read his work profiles, interviews about how he started this company and why. Those interviews, in magazines like the New Yorker and Economist almost never included photos—or if they did, they were moody Steve Jobs-esque photos in profile, where you could hardly make out John’s face, let alone any identifying features. It never even occurred to me to google pictures of the guy himself. Why would I? I figured he’d be some higher up I’d see but never actually speak to around the office.

Someone I’d eventually want to get to know, to have know me, but not… Not in the way you did, you idiot. My inner critic hasn’t stopped lambasting me all day. Of all the guys I could choose for a random Vegas hook up—let alone marriage….

But I force those thoughts from my head, hoping that Bianca won’t read too much into the extremely pregnant pause hovering in the air between us now. “Hmm, well, I don’t have too many more jobs around here, unless you want to help me melt down that clay and start reshaping a new set of antler designs—”

“Sure!” Bianca perks up right away, which makes my eyebrows rise.

“You really don’t have to.”

“Don’t be silly.” She elbows me. “I’d love to help. Sounds more fun than all the desk work I’ll be doing soon anyway, right?” Her smile is so open and earnest, I can’t bring myself to question it.

So together we cross over to the ovens and set about putting together some new clay molds that I can shape into the huge antler sets we’ll need. As we work, we chat about our backgrounds and how we got started at Pitfire. Unlike me, Bianca comes from a marketing background, so she’s not interested in the actual set design part of what we’re doing here. But she talks a lot about how much she admires “Mr. Walloway”’s business strategies, and how she really wanted the assistant job so she could learn from him about getting ahead at work.

“If there’s anyone who can teach a girl how to rise up through the world with the cards stacked against us ladies, it’s him, right?”

I stifle a smirk. “Why, because he had so many cards stacked against him?” I roll my eyes. “Isn’t his whole family wealthy?”

“You didn’t read the profile they did of him in Vogue?” Bianca’s gaze sharpens, then widens in disbelief when I shake my head. “Well, his family lost all their money when he was young. He’s the one who pulled them all out of borderline poverty—paid for his younger sister to go to college and bailed out his parents from huge debt, too.”

My eyebrows go up. I can’t help but feel a tiny pang in my chest, a shift, as I realign my opinions of the man I mistakenly married, just a little. Maybe he’s not entirely the rich cocky businessman he seems. Okay, no, he’s definitely still cocky. But maybe there’s more to him than just that.

Maybe you haven’t given him a real chance.

But even that thought is insane. How can I give a guy I accidentally eloped with a chance at marriage, when I barely know him? Much less when he’s my boss, and as he himself pointed out, we’re going to have to work in close proximity for… well, hopefully for a very long time, if my career plans pan out.

“You really don’t know much about him?” Bianca’s brow furrows, and I shake my head with a shrug.

“What can I say? We don’t talk much.” I pull off my gloves absently, about to go and wash my hands at the sink, having finished sculpting one half of the antlers we’ll need, and figuring now will be as good a time as any to call a lunch break for the shop.

But Bianca stops me with a single question. “How long have you been married?”

My heart jump starts in my chest. My veins turn to ice. How does she know? I think, my pulse racing, afraid she’ll use this against me, or spread rumors around the water cooler…

But then I notice her gaze fixed down, on the ring I’d forgotten was still attached like a limpet to my left ring finger, and my muscles relax. Oh. All she saw was the ring. She doesn’t know about me and John.

Well, unless she saw more this morning than she’s been letting on. Still, I clear my throat, and force the easiest smile possible onto my face. “Oh, uh…” I can’t tell the truth. It’s too humiliating. And it’s the last thing I want all my new coworkers to think about me: that I married John for his money, or that John only hired me because I’m his latest fling, his new Vegas wife. “Not too long. It’s pretty new. Keep forgetting this is here,” I add, laughing, a little bit edgily, though at least Bianca doesn’t seem to notice.

“That’s great.” She smiles and sighs a little wistfully. “I want to marry young, too. I just think there’s no point in waiting until you’re all old and gray, right? Might as well have kids early, so you can have more fun with them when they’re grown up with you.”

My stomach flips. I never thought about that. I never gave much thought to kids, period. I mean, I think I want them eventually. But it always seemed like such a far-off possibility, something to worry about years and years down the line.

Not something I might have to consider now. Much less after one drunken night of blowing off steam in Sin City.

I force myself to smile. “Yeah, I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about kids yet, but… good point.” Bianca grins back at me, and I nod toward the clock. “Lunch?” I ask, mostly to change the subject. To my relief, she nods, and she and Daniel file out, leaving me to unpack the lunch I brought with me from home.

I eat in silence and get back to work quickly. Thanks to all the stopping and starting, I’m much farther behind than I hoped I’d be by the end of the day. I’m still sculpting when Daniel clocks out and Bianca waves goodbye, off to go get some actual office assignments

from John himself.

I’m still sculpting when in a far end of the shop, someone flicks off the light.

“Still here,” I call, and footsteps approach, the light flicking back on. I don’t turn around or look up from my project—I’m at a particularly delicate part of the procedure, trying to attach one set of antlers to the base of another. I hold my breath, leaning in, just about to make the connection…

“You’re behind.”

My stomach plummets. Luckily, I catch my hands before they shake too much, and I’m able to finish pressing the two halves together, the seriously heavy-duty glue I used making them stick. I grip them while the glue finishes processing, and glance over my shoulder toward John, who’s standing at my back, arms folded, a cocksure grin on his face that both annoys me and sends a bolt of desire straight to my core.

Fuck. I still want him.

But that’s to be expected. It doesn’t change anything.

It doesn’t mean I can have him.

“I had to save someone’s hands earlier,” I respond curtly, refocusing on my work.

He chuckles.

“Not a joke,” I add. “You really should have more strict safety guidelines introduced before you let people start running around playing with these machines.”

“I had you here,” he replies, coming over to lean against my table, in my line of sight this time. “Seems like you had it all under control, from what Bianca tells me.”

I shoot him a narrowed glare. “Did you send your secretary to spy on me?”

“Hardly.” He chuckles. “She seems to have wanted to do that all on her own. I wonder why. It’s almost as if she seems jealous of you about something…”

I roll my eyes with a grimace. “You wish.”

“I don’t have to.” His hand drops over mine, his fingertips finding the ring and toying with it easily. He’s barely touching me, his palm only skimming the back of my hand, yet already it feels like my whole body is on fire, leaning into that touch, yearning for more, more, more.