One
Jonas Kim would typically describe himself as humble, but even he was impressed with the plan he’d conceived to outwit the smartest man he knew—his grandfather. Instead of marrying Sun, the nice woman from a prominent Korean family, a bride Grandfather had picked out, Jonas had proposed to Viviana Dawson. She was nice, too, but also his friend and, more importantly, someone he could trust not to contest the annulment when it came time to file it.
Not only was Viv amazing for agreeing to this ridiculous idea, she made excellent cupcakes. It was a win all the way around. Though he could have done without the bachelor party. So not his thing.
At least no strippers had shown up. Yet.
He and his two best buddies had flown to Vegas this morning and though Jonas had never been to the city of sin before, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t take much to have naked women draped all over the suite. He could think of little he’d like less. Except for marrying Sun. That he would hate, and not only because she’d been selected on his behalf. Sun was a disaster waiting to happen that would happen to someone else because Jonas was marrying Viv tomorrow in what would go down as the greatest favor one friend had ever done for another.
“Sure you wanna do this?” Warren asked as he popped open the bottle of champagne.
Also a bachelor party staple that Jonas could have done without, but his friends would just laugh and make jokes about how Jonas needed to loosen up, despite being well aware that he had been raised in an ultraconservative family. Grandfather had a lot of traditional ideas about how a CEO should act, and Jonas hadn’t landed that job, not yet. Besides, there was nothing wrong with having a sense of propriety.
“Which part?” Jonas shot back. “The bachelor party or inviting you morons along?”
Hendrix, the other moron, grinned and took his glass of champagne from Warren. “You can’t get married without a bachelor party. That would be sad.”
“It’s not a real wedding. Therefore, one would assume that the traditions don’t really have to be observed.”
Warren shook his head. “It is a real wedding. You’re going to marry this woman simply to get out of having a different bride. Hence my question. Are you sure this is the only way? I don’t get why you can’t just tell your grandfather thanks but no thanks. Don’t let him push you around.”
They’d literally been having the exact same argument for two weeks. Grandfather still held the reins of the Kim empire closely to his chest. In Korea. If Jonas had any hope of Grandfather passing those reins to him so he could move the entire operation to North Carolina, he had to watch his step. Marrying a Korean woman from a powerful family would only solidify Jonas’s ties to a country that he did not consider his home.
“I respect my elders,” Jonas reminded Warren mildly. “And I also respect that Sun’s grandfather and my grandfather are lifelong friends. I can’t expose her or it might disrupt everything.”
Sun had been thrilled with the idea of marrying Jonas; she had a secret—and highly unsuitable—lover she didn’t want anyone to find out about and she’d pounced on the idea of a husband to mask her affair. Meanwhile, their grandfathers were cackling over their proposed business merger once the two families were united in marriage.
Jonas wanted no part of any of that. Better to solve the problem on his own terms. If he was already married, no one could expect him to honor his grandfather’s agreement. And once the merger had gone through, he and Viv could annul their marriage and go on with Jonas’s integrity intact.
It was brilliant. Viv was the most awesome person on the planet for saving his butt from being burned in this deal. Tomorrow, they’d say some words, sign a piece of paper and poof. No more problems.
“Can you guys just be happy that you got a trip to Vegas out of this and shut up?” Jonas asked, and clinked glasses with the two men he’d bonded with freshman year at Duke University.
Jonas Kim, Hendrix Harris and Warren Garinger had become instant friends when they’d been assigned to the same project group along with Marcus Powell. The four teenagers had raised a lot of hell together—most of which Jonas had watched from the sidelines—and propped each other up through everything the college experience could throw at them. Until Marcus had fallen head over heels for a cheerleader who didn’t return his love. The aftermath of that still affected the surviving three members of their quartet to this day.
“Can’t. You said no strippers,” Hendrix grumbled, and downed his champagne in one practiced swallow. “Really don’t see the point of a bachelor party in Las Vegas if you’re not going to take full advantage of what’s readily available.”
Jonas rolled his eyes. “Like you don’t have a wide array of women back in Raleigh who would get naked for you on demand.”
“Yeah, but I’ve already seen them,” he argued with a wink. “There are thousands of women whose breasts I’ve yet to ogle and I’ve been on my best behavior at home. What happens in Vegas doesn’t affect my mom’s campaign, right?”
Hendrix’s mom was running for governor of North Carolina and had made him swear on a stack of Bibles that he would not do anything to jeopardize her chances. For Hendrix, that meant a complete overhaul of his social life, and he was feeling the pinch. So far, his uncanny ability to get photographed with scantily clad women hadn’t surfaced, but he’d just begun his vow of chastity, so there was plenty of opportunity to cause a scandal if he really put his mind to it.
“Maybe we could focus on the matter at hand?” Warren suggested, and ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair as he plopped down on the love seat near the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the Sky Suite they’d booked at the Aria. The dizzying lights of Vegas spread out in a panoramic view sixty stories below.
“Which is?”
Warren pointed his glass at Jonas. “You’re getting married. Despite the pact.”
The pact.
After the cheerleader had thoroughly eviscerated Marcus, he’d faded further and further away until eventually, he’d opted to end his pain permanently. In the aftermath of his death, the three friends had sworn to never let love destroy them as it had Marcus. The reminder sobered them all.
“Hey, man. The pact is sacred,” Jonas said with a scowl. “But we never vowed to remain single the rest of our lives. Just that we’d never let a woman take us down like that. Love is the problem, not marriage.”
Once a year, the three of them dropped whatever they were doing and spent the evening honoring the memory of their late friend. It was part homage, part reiteration of the pact. The profoundly painful incident had affected them in different ways, but no one would argue that Warren had taken his roommate’s suicide harder than anyone save Marcus’s mother.
That was the only reason Jonas gave him a pass for the insult. Jonas had followed the pact to the letter, which was easier than he’d ever let on. First of all, a promise meant something to him.
Second, Jonas never got near a woman he could envision falling in love with. That kind of loss of control...the concept made his skin crawl. Jonas had too much to lose to let a woman destroy everything he’d worked for.
Warren didn’t look convinced. “Marriage is the gateway, my friend. You can’t put a ring on a woman’s finger and expect that she won’t start dreaming of romantic garbage.”