Marry Me Now: An Arranged Marriage Collection

What am I doing? I just keep asking myself, over and over again.

Back in the office, Daniel catches me staring into space beside the drill machine, my gaze focused on the wall and not on the stack of wood I should be cutting, dremmeling and preparing for assembly. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, with a smirk that makes me wonder how much he’s guessed about my moodiness lately.

But that’s just my paranoia talking. Nobody knows anything. Not about John and me, anyway. Maybe Daniel thinks I’m pining over my mystery husband—a husband I had to lie about because I couldn’t get that damn ring off my finger. Now, it’s loosened a little, but I still haven’t removed it.

I have to wonder what that says about my current mental state.

I tell myself it’s just because people at work would start asking too many questions if I suddenly removed the ring now. But deep down, I’m not sure. Deep down, I wonder if there’s a subconscious reason I keep this on. Or if maybe it’s just for the flash of desire I spot in John’s eyes every time he sees me, checks for the ring, and finds it still on my finger.

Part of me doesn’t want to let him go this easily, despite this mess.

So I force a smile at Daniel and I lie. “Just tired,” I say. “Long night last night.”

“You were here late, weren’t you?”

Man, does everyone in this company keep obsessive track of one another’s schedules? Still, I shrug and nod, because it’s true. I was here late. And most of the time I spent working.

A little bit of it I spent doing other things, but hey…

Daniel claps me on the shoulder, squeezing just once, but enough to reassure me that he doesn’t suspect anything. “Take it easy,” he says. “You don’t want to burn out after your first week here, after all, right?”

“You’re right,” I tell him, forcing a smile.

“Mara?” Bianca’s voice catches me off-guard. I turn and find her leaning against the doorway of the shop, arms crossed. “Mr. Walloway sent for you. He wants to talk in his office.”

“Oh, of course,” I reply, trying to defuse the sudden bright red flush that creeps over my cheeks, the pulse of desire that flares through my veins at the thought of what John might want in his office. Of what he might want to do to me right now.

It’s work, I tell myself. And it’s the middle of the day. He probably just wants normal, work-related things.

“I’ll be right there,” I add, because Bianca is squinting at me, in what I hope I’m just imagining seems like a suspicious way. She flashes me a smile, and nods, reassuring me that any suspicion is just in my imagination.

You really do need to get more sleep, Mara, I tell myself as I wave a quick goodbye to Daniel and hand over responsibility for the drill machine to him temporarily. You’re making yourself crazy.

But when I reach the John’s office and tap tentatively on the doorframe, I’m reminded that it’s not me who’s making me crazy. Not entirely.

It’s him.

He’s dressed, as usual, in a perfectly fitted suit. He has the top button undone, and the casual glance he flashes in my direction when I enter the office quickly shifts into a heated one, his gaze catching fire as it sweeps over my body, lingering on my chest, my hips, my legs, in a way that tells me without any need for words exactly what he’s thinking. Exactly how much he wants to grab me and strip me down right here and now.

“Mara,” he says, and just that, just my name on his lips, is enough to melt a sweet spot between my thighs, get me wet and hungry and wanting.

I shut the door behind me, before he even needs to ask.

He doesn’t wait for more of a response. He crosses his office in two strides and catches me around the waist, pinning me against the door with an audible thud before his hands wrap around my neck, cupping my chin and drawing me up into a deep, slow, hard kiss.

When we break apart, it’s all I can do to stay on my feet and breathing. But I manage, with only the faintest hitch in my breath, and it makes me proud to know I can withstand this kind of temptation and torture in the middle of the workday.

“Was that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I ask with an arched eyebrow, suppressing a smile.

John’s gaze sharpens. “I want you to come away with me this weekend.”

I tilt my head. “Where?”

“Not far. Just a little ways outside of town.”

My stomach flips. Does he want to take me on a trip? Some kind of vacation? I press my lips together, uncertain, but he anticipates my next question.

“It won’t interfere with any of your work, I promise.”

We have the same priorities, John and me. I appreciate it more than I expected to. “Okay,” I say, not even sure what I’ve just agreed to. But just that one word lights up his face so much that I know I can’t take it back, even if I find out he’s dragging me to some kind of horrible and boring event.

Although it’s hard to imagine any event being horrible or boring if I’m on John’s arm… Or able to sneak away with John for some private time together. Even the dullest classical concert would be incredible if I could distract myself by sliding into his lap in the darkened concert hall, or feel his hands run up my thighs and slip under my skirt…

As if he’s reading my mind, John catches my me again and pins me against the door, his lips finding mine a second time. I part my lips beneath his, let his tongue slip in, exploring my mouth, claiming me. At the same time, his hands roam further down, gripping my waist, pulling me against him so tightly that I can feel him starting to harden against me, his cock pressed right against my belly, so thick I can feel him even through the fabric of both our pants.

“We can’t,” I whisper when we break apart. “Not here.”

“I know.” His eyes flash, and there’s more in them than just desire and excitement. Something I can’t put my finger on…. “After this weekend,” he murmurs, “everything will change.”

My stomach flips again, though I don’t even know what he means. Are we going to annul this after all? Are we going back to Vegas to fix our mistakes? Or is it something else?

“John…” I don’t know what I want to ask. Where are we really going this weekend? That seems like a question he’ll refuse to answer. Or maybe just What’s on your mind?

Before I can put words to it, though, he silences me again with another kiss, hard and fast, before he almost pushes me away from him, my body tilting back into the door with the force of it.

“Go,” he says. “Get back to work. We need to work overtime if we want to take the whole weekend off.”

I frown, confused by the sudden shift. But I listen to him anyway, backing away slowly, waiting until he’s back at his desk, arms crossed on top of it, before I risk opening the office door again, running a hand through my hair at the same time and hoping it’s not mussed from our kiss, from his hands running through my hair and cupping my body against him.

All I want to do is slam the office door shut and lock it behind me. Slide under his desk of his and go down on him, tracing my tongue along the length of his hard cock over and over, sucking him into my mouth until he gives in and tells me what’s going on. Until he tells me where he’s taking me this weekend and why the idea of it has him so keyed up—acting so hot one second and cold the next.

But I can’t do that. Not here. Not while everyone else we work with is still in the office, and while I have Lea’s warning fresh in my mind—plus that memory of John’s ex with all her things flung ever

ywhere, leaving in a car… I need to be clearing my head of him, not clouding it further.

So I open the office door and slip out without another word, closing it tightly behind me.

I don’t make it more than a few steps from the entrance before I spot Bianca across the office floor. Her eyes catch mine—was she staring? Watching the office, listening to us in there? My stomach clenches all over again, for a different reason this time.

But then she flashes a sweet smile and turns back to her own desk, and I shake my head. I’m just being paranoid. Imagining things. That’s all this is.

The only people in this office thinking constantly about John and me are the two of us. So I smile back and retreat to the workroom, shoulders squared, head up. Whatever’s going on between us, maybe this weekend will bring more clarity.

And if not? Well, then I’ll still have enough time to make the annulment deadline afterward. I try to ignore the heavy knot in my gut at the thought of that. It’s for the best, I tell myself. Lea is right.

I need to be practical about this.

9

John

Today is the day. I stare at myself in the rearview mirror of my car, waiting. I haven’t hit send on the text to let Mara know that I’m parked outside. I needed a minute to myself. A minute to wrap my head around what I’m about to do.

If I do this… if I take her with me today… Everything will change. And who knows how she’ll feel by the end of this, or what she’ll decide to do.

But it has to happen. I need to do this.

So why do I still feel so guilty about it?

Because this is the wrong way to do this, whispers a little voice at the back of my mind. A voice I ignore, as I hit send on the text I’ve already written. I’m outside, Mara. I didn’t tell her anything about this weekend—I didn’t want to scare her off, or worse, make her feel sorry for me. But I did let her know to pack for warm weather, and the moment she steps out of the lobby of her apartment building, I see that she’s done just that.