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Employee. Wife was secondary. Which shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to remember.
The strand of hair across her temple settled into place, drawing his gaze again. He couldn’t take his mind off it, even as they navigated the courthouse maze to find the justice of the peace who performed marriages.
They stood in line waiting for their turn, an oddity in and of itself. Warren had never given much thought to what should constitute a proper wedding ceremony, especially since he’d started the week with zero expectations of ending it married. Not to mention the fact that his marriage had strict business connotations. But these other couples in line surely had more romantic reasons for tying the knot. In fact, they were probably all in love, as evidenced by their goo-goo eyes and the way they held hands as they waited. A courthouse seemed like an inauspicious start to a marriage that was supposed to be till death did them part.
He shrugged it off. Who was he to judge? It wasn’t like he knew the proper ingredients for a happy marriage, if such a thing even existed. Divorce rates would indicate otherwise. So maybe Warren and Tilda were the only couple in the Wake County courthouse today who had the right idea when it came to wedded bliss: no emotional component, a carefully worded prenuptial agreement, a date on the calendar for follow-ups with proper government agencies so the annulment could be filed and mutual agreement to part ways in the future. No surprises.
Tilda engaged him in a short conversation about the campaign she’d been working through. He fell into the rhythm of their work relationship easily, despite the weirdness of doing it while waiting for the justice’s inner chamber doors to open. They’d enter single and emerge married.
It wouldn’t change things between them. Would it?
All of these other couples surely had some expectations of things changing or they wouldn’t do it. They’d just stay an unmarried couple until the day they died, but instead, they’d done exactly what Warren and Tilda had. Applied for a marriage license and come down to the courthouse on an otherwise unremarkable Friday to enter into a legal contract that said they could file their taxes differently. Why? Because they’d fallen prey to some nebulous feeling they labeled love?
“Warren.”
He blinked. Tilda was watching him with a puzzled expression on her face, clearly because she’d asked him something that he’d completely ignored. God, what was wrong with him? “Sorry, I was distracted.”
Why couldn’t he just talk to Tilda about the project and stop thinking about marriage with a capital M, as if it was a bigger deal than it really was? Like he’d told his friends—business only. Nothing to see here.
Wedded bliss wasn’t a thing. And if it was, Warren Garinger didn’t deserve it. Marcus’s death was his fault and a lifetime of happiness with a woman wasn’t the proper atonement for his crimes.
Flying Squirrel was Warren’s focus, the only thing he could realistically manage. For a reason. A company didn’t have deep emotional scars. A company didn’t waste away while you looked on helplessly, unable to figure out how to stop the pain. A company didn’t choose to end its pain with an overdose after you thoughtlessly said, “Get over it, Marcus.”
That was the real reason Warren would never break the pact. It was his due punishment to be alone the rest of his life.
* * *
The county clerk gestured Tilda and Warren into the justice’s chamber. Her pulse fell off a cliff, skipping beats randomly as her stomach churned. The effort she’d made to talk shop with Warren, strictly to calm her nerves while they’d waited in the hall, had evaporated, if it had even done any good at all.
They were really doing this. What if they got caught in a green-card marriage? Was it like the movies, with instant deportation? She’d be forced back to Melbourne, and after Warren’s unceremonious threat to Craig and the firm she’d worked for over the last eight years, she had no illusions that a job waited for her. She’d be lucky to get a reference. Which mattered not at all if Bryan figured out she’d returned. Finding a job would be the least of her concerns.
Warren had stipulated several contingencies in their agreement that meant she’d be well compensated in the event the marriage didn’t resolve her residency issues. But that wasn’t the point. She didn’t want money; she wanted to feel safe and she wanted to do this project with Warren, in that order. This job gave her a sense of purpose that she’d never fully had before. When she’d worked on other projects, she’d never been the lead. The Flying Squirrel campaign was her baby, one hundred percent, especially now that she’d cut ties with Craig.
That went a long way toward getting her pulse under control. She had this. The wedding ceremony wasn’t a big deal. A formality. Warren wasn’t flipping out. He shot her a small smile that she returned because the last thing she wanted was for him to clue in that she wasn’t handling this as professionally as she’d like.
But then, marrying her boss hadn’t really been in the job description. Maybe she was allowed to have minor cracks in the hard outer shell she’d built around herself with severe hairstyles and monochrome suits that hung on her figure like potato sacks.
She just had to make sure any potential cracks didn’t reveal things underneath that she wasn’t ready to share, like the fact that she hated monochrome suits. The lacy red underwear and bra set she’d chosen in honor of her wedding day was for her and her only.
The ceremony began and she somehow managed not to flinch as Warren took her hand with a solemnity she hadn’t expected. Fortunately, the exchange of words was short. Simple. She relaxed. Until the justice said, “You may kiss the bride.”
At which point her pulse jackhammered back up into the red. They weren’t really going to do that part, were they? But Warren was already leaning toward her, his fingers firm against hers, and she automatically turned her face to accept his lips.
The brush of them came far too fast. Sensation sparked across her mouth and she flinched like she always did when something happened near her face that she wasn’t expecting. Not because the feeling of his lips was unwelcome. Kissing Warren was nothing like kissing Bryan. Or any other man, for that matter, not that she had a lot of experiences to compare it to. He wasn’t demanding or obtrusive. Just...nice. Gentle. And then gone.
That brief burst of heat faded. Good. It was over. Back to normal. But she couldn’t look at Warren as they left the courthouse.
She’d walked over from the Flying Squirrel building on Blount Street, but Warren insisted on taking her back via his limo, citing a need to go over some notes for the meeting with Wheatner and Ross. He said goodbye to his friends and then she and Warren were swallowed by leather and luxury as they settled into his limo.
“So,” Warren said brightly. “That went well.”
“Yes. Quite well.”
God, everything was weird. This was supposed to be where they relaxed back into the dynamic they’d had from day one, where it was all business—the way they both liked it. But as she turned to him, a little desperate to find that easiness, her knee grazed his. The awareness of their proximity shot through her and she couldn’t stop staring at his mouth as a wholly inappropriate lick of desire flamed through her core.
Where had that come from?
Well, she knew where. Warren had kissed her. So what? It shouldn’t be such a big deal. She shouldn’t be making it a big deal. But the part she couldn’t figure out was why? There was no law that said they’d be any less married if they skipped the kiss. Had he done it strictly for show or because he’d been curious what it would be like?
She’d had absolutely zero curiosity. None. Not an iota. Or, at least, none that she’d admit to, and now that it was out there, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d kiss like behind closed doors.
Ugh. She had to get back into her professional head space already.
“Um, so the senior partners themselves are attending the meeting today,” she threw out, mortified to note her voice had taken on a husky quality. “We should press them on the social media presence they’ve presented. I don’t like the ratio of ad placements between the various platforms.”
Warren didn’t seem to notice her vocal quirks and nodded. “I was thinking that, as well. Tell me what you’d do instead.”
Tilda reeled off the changes she’d prepared and then memorized last night at midnight after she’d given up on sleep. The familiarity of talking numbers with the man who was now her legally wedded husband somehow soothed her to the point where her tone evened out.
Until she realized Warren’s gaze had strayed to the side of her face. She faltered. “What?”
“Oh, nothing.” His gaze snapped back to dead center. And then drifted again. “It’s just that you have this loose strand of hair—here, let me.”
Her hand flew up defensively at the same moment he reached out to brush her cheek and their hands collided. Oh, God. She’d batted his hand away from her face. Now he’d know she was a freak about people touching her.
Everything shifted back into awkward again as they said “Sorry” simultaneously, and there was no way she could ignore how her skin tingled where he’d touched her. The errant strand of hair he’d made her so very aware of lay across the spot, sensitizing it.
“I’ll fix it when we get back to the office,” she murmured, at a loss for why her stupid hair had generated such interest that he couldn’t keep his focus where it belonged—on her stats.
“Don’t fix it,” he said instantly. “I like it.”
Not what she’d expected him to say.
Heat prickled over her face and not all of it was in her cheeks. Unlike what would have been a becoming blush on anyone else, her whole face got red when she was embarrassed. Like now.
He liked her hair.
It was the most personal comment he’d ever made and she turned it over in her mind, examining it from all angles.
“Oh,” Warren continued. “I forgot that Jonas and Hendrix asked if we could join them for dinner. To celebrate. It’ll be low-key, just them and their wives. Is that okay?”
She nodded, though she’d rather have said no. But refusing would have felt petty when clearly he meant they were supposed to be celebrating their wedding. Social events were a part of the deal, whether she wanted to avoid opportunities for more weirdness or not.
Get a grip, she scolded herself. The weirdness was all on her. Warren wasn’t Bryan and she had to stop cringing as if her new husband was going to morph into someone completely different after lulling her into a false sense of security. Not all men did that.
She hoped.
For the remainder of the afternoon, she forced a smile and slayed the meeting with Wheatner and Ross, earning approving nods from Warren, which shouldn’t have meant as much as it did. He’d always approved of her work. That’s why she was still in the US and not on a plane at this moment, as she’d fully expected to be when she walked into his office on Wednesday to explain the issue with her visa.
Now she was married, complete with a gold ring on her finger that contained nine emerald-cut diamonds sunk into the band. It was exactly the right ring for her, low-key, not at all flashy. How had Warren known what she would like? Luck? She would have been fine with a plain band from a vending machine. This one had weight. She curled her hand into a fist but she could still feel it on her finger.
Warren herded her back into his car at the end of the day to take her to the restaurant where his friends were waiting for them. He’d made it very clear that they wouldn’t have to do any sort of acting like a lovey-dovey couple in public, but she still had a fair amount of trepidation about whether she’d get along with his friends’ wives. She knew how things among men worked, and she didn’t want to fail this important test of fitting into his world for however long she would be required to do so.
“Is it okay to go straight there?” Warren asked politely as they settled into his car for the second time that day. “If you want to go home first to freshen up, that’s fine.”
“No, thank you.” What would she do, shellac the errant lock of hair to her head that Warren had already said not to fix? Not a chance. And she didn’t own any suits that weren’t dove gray or brown, nor would she ever change into something like jeans and a T-shirt to meet his friends, so she was as ready as she ever would be. “I appreciate the offer.”
He dove into a very long summary of the day’s progress, which was fairly typical of how they usually parted for the night. But today they weren’t parting. Would it ever not be weird to realize they were a couple now?
At the restaurant on Glenwood Avenue, Warren’s friends had already arrived, crowding into a round booth with a table in the center that was probably meant for six people but seemed quite cozy given that she’d only met Jonas Kim and Hendrix Harris for the first time earlier today.
The two women at the table slid out from the booth to meet her. Tilda shook the hand of Rosalind Harris, Hendrix’s wife, a gorgeous dark-haired woman who could have come straight from a catwalk in Paris. Her friendly smile put Tilda at ease, a rare feat that she appreciated. Viv Kim, Jonas’s wife, immediately pulled Tilda into a hug, her bubbly personality matching her name perfectly.
“I’m thrilled to meet you,” Viv said and nodded at Rosalind. “We’ve heard absolutely nothing about you, and when our husbands keep their mouths shut about something, we’re instantly curious.”
Rosalind scooted a little closer and plunked her martini glass down on the table.
“Tell us everything,” Rosalind insisted, leaning in with the scent of something expensive and vaguely sensual wafting from her. “How long do you think you’ll have to be married before your immigration issues will be resolved? Are you going to stay in the country even after you annul the marriage?”
“Um...” Tilda’s butt hit the table as she backed up, and she briefly considered sliding under it. Warren had apparently told his friends the truth about their marriage, so obviously she could trust them, but still. These were things better left out of polite conversation. You could never be too careful.
Salvation came in the form of her husband, who scowled at the two women, clearly having overheard despite his involvement in his own conversation with Jonas and Hendrix. “We didn’t agree to dinner so you could gang up on my wife.”
For some reason, that brought a smile she couldn’t quite contain. In one short sentence, Warren had turned them into a unit. They were together, an integrated front. She was his new wife just as much as he was her new husband, and it apparently came with benefits she hadn’t anticipated. But liked. Very much.
Rosalind scowled back, clearly not cowed in the least. “You have to know that we’re curious.”
“Darling.” Hendrix held out his hand to his wife. “Your curiosity is one of my favorite qualities. Come over here and be curious about the advantages of a round booth when you’re sitting next to your husband.”
An intense smile that held a wealth of meaning bloomed on Rosalind’s face. She clasped his outstretched hand, allowing him to draw her into the booth and over to his side, where he slung an arm around her. He murmured something in her ear and she laughed, snuggling against him with such ease that Tilda got a lump in her throat while watching them. They were so clearly in love, so obviously the kind of lovers that trusted each other implicitly.
The white-hot spurt of emotion in her chest was nothing but pure jealousy. Naming it didn’t make it any more acceptable or understandable. Where had that come from? Longing for that kind of intimacy with a man had gotten her into trouble with Bryan, leading her into dangerous water before she fully realized she’d left the shore behind. Tilda swallowed as she tore her gaze from the two.
“Don’t mind them,” Warren said with a note of disgust in his voice. “They embarrass the rest of us, too. They have no boundaries in polite company.”
“That’s so not true,” Hendrix countered with a smirk, scarcely lifting his gaze from his wife’s luminous face. “We’ve turned over a new leaf. No more public nakedness.”
That broke some of the tension, and Jonas slid into the booth with his wife, which left Warren and Tilda. He sat next to Hendrix, leaving Tilda at the edge. Which suited her fantastically. She liked nothing less than being trapped, and luck of the draw meant she wouldn’t have to be.
Across from her, Viv settled in close to her husband. Viv and Jonas might not have sensual vibes shooting from them the way the other couple did, but it was clear they were newly married and still in the throes of the honeymoon phase.
Happiness in marriage wasn’t a goal of Tilda’s. Burying herself in her job was. That was all she could handle at the moment, all she would allow herself to hope for. Intimacy wasn’t on the table in her marriage, by design, and that was a good thing. After all, she couldn’t trust herself any more than she could trust a man.
Warren had left a solid foot of space between his thigh and Tilda’s. Appropriately so. He would never slide his arm around her and nestle her close, turning his head to murmur something wickedly naughty or achingly sweet into her ear.
And it shouldn’t have taken the rest of the evening for her to convince herself she didn’t want that.
Three (#uec5d5d29-710c-54ea-8c8c-6e8202d01643)
The moving company Warren had hired arrived at his house with Tilda’s things around midafternoon on Saturday, meager as they were. She’d apparently not brought very much with her from Australia, just a few paperback books with well-worn covers, several boxes of clothes and shoes, and a set of china teacups.
He was curious about both the teacups and the books. But asking felt like a line they shouldn’t cross. Too personal or something. If she wanted to explain, she would. Didn’t stop him from thinking it was a strange state of things that he didn’t feel comfortable getting personal with his wife.
The lack of boxes meant she didn’t need any help unpacking and he had no good reason to be skulking about in his bedroom as she settled into her room on the other side of the connecting door in his bathroom. He couldn’t find a thing to occupy his attention, an unusual phenomenon when he normally spent Saturdays touring the Flying Squirrel warehouses with Thomas.
But his brother was on vacation with his wife—somewhere without cell phone reception, apparently, as he’d not answered his phone in several days. That was unfathomable. Who wanted to be someplace without cell phone reception?
If Warren had been occupied with work—like he should have been—then he wouldn’t have heard Tilda rustling around in the bathroom. Nor would he have wandered through the door to appease his sudden interest in what she was doing. She glanced up sharply as he joined her in the cavernous room.
Immediately, she took up all the space and then tried to occupy his, too, sliding under his skin with her presence. He’d been in a small room with her before, lots of times. But not at his house, a stone’s throw from the shower where he’d indulged in many, many fantasies starring the woman he’d married.
The problem wasn’t the married part. It was the kiss part. He probably shouldn’t have done that.
Or, more to the point, he should have done it right. Then he wouldn’t be thinking about what it would be like to kiss Tilda properly. He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. That short, utilitarian peck yesterday had been ill-advised, obviously. But the officiant had said to kiss the bride. Warren hadn’t seen any reason not to. It was a custom. He wouldn’t have felt married without it, a twist that he hadn’t anticipated. So he went with it.
But it hadn’t been worth the price of admission if he was going to be constantly on edge around Tilda now. Constantly thinking about whether it would change their working dynamic if he kissed her as thoroughly as he suddenly burned to.
He cleared his throat. “Settling in all right?”
She nodded. “You have a lovely home.”
Which she never would have seen, even one time, if they hadn’t gotten married. “It’s yours, too, for now. I have to admit, I was a little surprised you picked the adjoining bedroom. It would have been okay to take the one on the first floor.”
But she was already shaking her head. There were no loose strands in her hairstyle today. He’d somehow expected that she’d adopt a more casual look on a Saturday, but Tilda had shown up in yet another dove-gray suit that looked practical and professional. But it also generated a fair amount of nosy interest in her habits. Even he wore jeans and T-shirts on Saturday, despite the assurance that he would put in an eight-hour day in the pursuit of all things Flying Squirrel before the sun set. Did she ever relax enough to enjoy a day off?
Well, that didn’t matter. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t take days off, either. Why would having a woman in his house change his ninety-hour workweek? And certainly finding himself in possession of a wife didn’t mean they should take a day off together like he’d been half imagining.
“I know you said the staff is very discreet,” she said and nodded to the open door behind her that gave him only a glimpse of the room beyond. “But taking this bedroom seemed like less of a problem. Less obvious that we’re not, um...sleeping together.”
Well, now, that was an interesting blush spreading over Tilda’s cheeks, and he didn’t miss the opportunity to enjoy it. He crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the nondescript marble vanity, which suddenly seemed a lot more remarkable now that it had several feminine accoutrements strewn across it.
“Yes, that was why I suggested it,” he drawled.
But now he was thinking of the reasons it was less obvious they weren’t sleeping together—because of the accessibility factor. This was an older home, designed in the style of a hundred years ago when women had their own chambers but understood the expectations of producing heirs. These women needed discreet ways to travel between their bedrooms and their husbands’, and vice versa, without disturbing staff members.
He’d never even so much as imagined a woman using that adjoining chamber. And now he couldn’t unimagine how easy it would be to steal into Tilda’s bed in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t be wearing a suit, that was for sure. What did she wear to bed? In all of his fantasies, she was naked.
And that was absolutely not the right image to slam into his mind during a conversation with his in-name-only wife while stuck in a netherworld between two beds that were not going to see any action of the sensual variety. A man with his imagination should be putting it to better use dreaming up new ways to sell energy drinks, not undressing his buttoned-up employee with his eyes.
“Did you want to go over the project plan?” she asked, very carefully not looking at him as she pulled open an empty drawer to place her hairbrush inside.
“In a little while. After you’re settled. And only if you want to. I don’t expect you to work weekends just because we’re together.”
The drawer slammed shut, the sound echoing from the mostly bare walls, and she flinched. “Sorry, I’m not used to your house yet. Even the drawer mechanisms are higher end than what I’m accustomed to. Takes hardly any force at all to close.”
He eyed her, not liking the way the vibe between them had gotten more stilted. They’d been easy with each other for so long. He yearned to get that back.
“No problem. I don’t expect you to automatically know how everything in the house operates. You take some time to get acclimated and we’ll have dinner together later. In fact, no work for you today. I insist.”
