The Marriage Sacrifice

“Why?” Dom asked.

“Excuse me?”

Dom stared down at the paper in his hand. “You’re so invested in this. Your company is the best in the country, if not the world. You could pick anyone to run it. Why me?”

“You’re close, Dom. You know that.”

“My father won’t tell me why you picked me. We’re your rival company.”

“But we’re also friends. You need to stop reading too much into the semantics of this, and just do as you’re told.” Johnson pointed at the paper. “Make my daughter fall in love with you, get down the aisle, and you will not be hurting for the cash I know you need for the Booker deal.”

Dom stared at Johnson.

The Booker deal was one of the biggest contracts they’d been handed in years. It was the chance to market and distribute for the main beauty supplier, which could be worth billions. He’d had to fend off plenty of offers to make his contract the best. The only problem was when he’d been negotiating a worldwide distribution, Duke’s hadn’t been on the verge of collapse. If he could keep the company afloat for the roll out, he wouldn’t need the merger with Boyle. If Johnson knew about it, there was a risk of Booker going elsewhere, and he couldn’t afford that. There was no way they would survive.

“How do you know about that?”

“Dom, you’re a good businessman. Your father has taught you well, but you need to know that every single one of your competitors always knows something. You always have to stay one step ahead. Remember what I told you. I’ll leave the Booker deal alone if you get my daughter down the aisle by the end of the month.”

“End of the month, that’s two weeks away.” He needed the Booker deal.

“I know. I thought you were a man with a sweet tongue, who could charm the pants off any woman. Let’s see you at work.” Johnson left without another word.

As he stared down at the paperwork, a ball of rage began to unfurl in his stomach. He slammed his hand across the desk, throwing his computer to the floor. He picked up a vase and launched it across the room, watching it smash.

“It can’t be that bad,” Alice said, stepping into the room.

Dom collapsed back into his chair, still holding the fucking piece of paper. “It’s worse. I’ve got to make a girl fall in love with me in less than two weeks, as otherwise all of this is gone.”

“Have you ever thought about telling her the truth?” Alice asked.

“No. I’m not going to do that. She doesn’t care about all of this. She won’t care.”

“But—”

“Alice, stop, okay. I’ll fix this. I will.” He wasn’t going to screw this up. Sage was like any other woman, and he was going to prove to her that he was the man for her.

Chapter Two

Sage slid her hand across the fresh soil, relishing the coolness against the hot summer air. She wasn’t the kind of person who loved summer. Most of the time she was a winter and fall kind of girl, the cooler weather giving her more inspiration and helping her to stay home and write more. The summer heat always had her outdoors, helping others, and not being at her desk for long periods of time. After getting up at four in the morning, she’d been glued to her computer until the words no longer flowed, and then it was off to the retirement home to volunteer. She always worked in between her volunteering jobs. It helped that she could focus for hours at a time without any breaks.

Brushing her hair off her face, she sat back, looking at the newly planted flower garden.

“It looks good. You seem to be a woman of many talents,” Dom said.

She turned to look at her fiancé, surprised to see him with his hands in his pockets, staring at her.

“Thanks.”

“You’re a hard woman to pin down.”

“And why exactly would you like to pin me down?” she asked, thinking of a lot of others things they could be doing if he was to pin her down.

Dom was … more than capable of holding her down any day. No! She couldn’t think of those thoughts or what Dom was capable of in bed. She didn’t want to be another woman in a long line of them who thought about Dom that way. He wasn’t the kind of man she wanted to be with.

She didn’t want or need any man.

“Well, pinning you down has a lot of possibilities.” He winked and moved forward. “I wanted us to hang out. Maybe have some lunch together today.”

“Hang out?”

“Yeah. This wedding thing is happening, and you can hate me all you want, but I don’t see why we can’t at least be friends.”

“The fact you don’t even understand why we can’t be friends is one of the reasons why we can’t do the normal stuff engaged couples do.”