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“I need a wife, Allison. Someone who can help me combat my image and provide what people think is a sense of stability. In the past, the board of directors let my reputation slide. But now that I’m heading up the company, the chairmen are pressuring me to get my act together. They’re even threatening to fire me over it.” He paused for a beat. “There’s already enough uncertainty at work surrounding Will’s stolen identity and how long it’ll be before that gets resolved. The board can’t afford any issues with me.”
Allison could do no more than blink at him. Her mind had gone numb. “Are you suggesting that we marry?”
He nodded. “With the time constraints involved, we should do it as quickly as we can.”
Again, she blinked at him. Rand Gibson was as far from husband material as a man could get. Not only was he a social media sensation, with tons of female followers hanging on his every word and sharing his pictures, his photos were sometimes made into sexy memes, garnering him even more attention.
Allison didn’t follow him on social media because she didn’t want him or anyone else to know that she found him so interesting. But she’d been poking around on his pages for longer than she cared to admit.
He continued, “At first people will be speculating as to whether a country girl like you can keep a playboy like me in line. But we’ll make lots of public appearances and show them that you can.”
She had no idea what keeping a playboy in line was like. She was already paying the price for dallying with a con man, and now she was being propositioned by a drop-dead gorgeous, modern-day Don Juan. The idea of getting close to Rand scared her senseless. He was everything she should be trying to avoid. Hot and seductive, she thought, and oozing with wealth and charm. Just like Rich when she’d first gotten to know him.
“How long would this marriage last?” she asked.
“It takes about three months to get the immigration interview. I have a friend who works for the USCIS, so I can try to pull some strings and get it moved up. He can definitely get your security clearance done faster.”
She wasn’t surprised that someone as well-off and socially connected as Rand would know someone at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“We’ll have to work out a prenup that’s comfortable for both of us,” he said. “I don’t want things to get sticky later. But either way, after you get your green card and after I prove myself to the board, we can decide when we should split up. We’ll part amicably. Then after the divorce, we can go our separate ways and no one will be the wiser.”
“I’m not interested in a financial settlement, so a prenup wouldn’t be a problem.” Being dependent on Rand to replace what Rich had stolen wasn’t the answer to restoring her self-worth. She would rather make her own way, even if she struggled to do it.
“So what do you think of my idea?” he asked.
She tried not to frown. “Of marrying you? What you’re proposing is considered fraud. If immigration found out that we faked a marriage, there would be penalties involved. I suspect that your friend at the USCIS wouldn’t appreciate you dragging him into a situation like that, either.”
“I know, and that’s why we couldn’t tell anyone the truth, not even our friends or families. In order to make something like this work, we’d have to live the lie.” Rand’s expression turned dark. “The pressure the board of directors is putting on me isn’t just to clean up my act. There’s a company here in Royal that they expect me to bring in as a new client. And if I don’t secure that account, I’ll be ousted for sure. I’ve been trying to set up meetings with the other company, but their CEO hasn’t responded to my calls. From what I’ve been told, he has concerns about my reputation, too.”
“And you think having a wife will help?”
“It’s the only solution I can think of that will improve my image in a quick and noticeable way.” His expression grew even stormier. “You know what makes it worse? My father was always telling me that I was too much of a party animal to be taken seriously, that someday my behavior would come back to bite me in the butt. He criticized me every chance he got, even when I was a kid.”
Allison considered how much information Rand was sharing. Rich used to confide in her, too. But all of his confessions were lies. She hoped Rand wasn’t embellishing his tales to create a false sense of intimacy. Although she didn’t doubt that he needed a wife, just how far would he go to get one?
“Where is your father now?” she asked.
“He died last year, but I’ve been feeling the brunt of his words more than ever now. I swear I can just hear him saying, ‘I told you so,’ along with everyone else who’s convinced I’m not worthy of my job.”
She couldn’t hear anything but the frustration in his voice. “Are you sure that people will even believe that we’re a true couple?”
“Granted, we’ll be an unlikely match, but you know what they say about opposites attracting.” He winked at her. “Especially if we show everyone how desperate we are for each other.”
Allison’s thoughts scrambled. Was their desperate union supposed to include sharing the same bed? Was that part of the plan of them seeming like a genuinely married couple? Just thinking about it was sending her into a tailspin.
She wanted to remain in the States, to defy the odds, to get her green card. But could she marry Rand? A man she didn’t even know if she could trust?
Two (#u33928400-a4b6-5f8e-acd0-de7ac10b4a09)
“Are you interested?” Rand asked. “Will you consider marrying me?”
Allison fidgeted in her seat. A Texas heartthrob, a man she’d been crushing on, was offering to make her his wife and help her get the green card she so urgently wanted. To some women, this would be a no-brainer. But it wasn’t that simple. Not to her, anyway. And especially not if he tried to lure her into bed.
She said, “If I agree to do this, there isn’t going to be any intimacy. We can’t...”
He turned more fully toward her, one of his legs nearly bumping hers. “Sleep together?”
Her pulse jumped. “Yes.”
He roamed his gaze over her. “I didn’t think it would be an option.”
“You didn’t?” This was the most uncomfortable conversation she’d ever had. And the way he was checking her out with those wild green eyes was only making it worse. “I assumed that maybe you would...”
“I would what? Try to seduce you? I’m used to having affairs, so, yeah, it crossed my mind. But you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever been with. You just seem so—” he brought his hand to her face, skimming his knuckles along her cheek “—innocent, somehow.”
My goodness, my Guinness. For someone who wasn’t supposed to be seducing her, he was doing a dandy job of it now. She couldn’t think clearly, with the way he was touching her.
She forced herself to say, “You shouldn’t be doing that.”
He lowered his hand. “I shouldn’t?”
“No.” She didn’t want her attraction to him distorting her common sense. “I still need to decide if I’m going to marry you.”
“Well, are you?”
“It scares me, doing something so fraudulent.” Trusting him scared her, too. But was she making too much of that? He wasn’t a sociopath like Rich. He was just a man who needed to reform his image. His womanizing image, she reminded herself. He wasn’t exactly an angel.
She didn’t know what to do. If she married him for her green card, she would be committing a crime. If she didn’t, she would be dragging her sorry arse back to Kenmare.
“I’d rather have an answer sooner than later,” he said, “but you can sleep on it, if you think that’ll help.”
“It won’t.” She didn’t want to think about sleeping on anything—or with anyone, for that matter.
“Then what’s your decision?”
She considered her choices. Stay and regain her confidence? Or retreat and return to Ireland? Given her plight thus far, marrying him was beginning to seem like her only option. And at this point, she would rather take her chances with Rand than go home, lost and bleating, like the poor little lamb she kept comparing herself to.
She squeezed her eyes closed. A second later, she reopened them, just to say that she’d gone into this with her eyes wide-open. “I’ll do it.”
“You will?” He doubled-checked. “For sure?”
“Yes.” She was going to take the plunge and become his newly minted bride, fulfilling her dream of living in the States, of working toward her independent future, of being her own woman. Starting now, she thought. Determined to show him that she wasn’t a pushover, she reiterated, “I meant what I said before. The no-sex clause still applies.”
“I understand. But we’re still going to have to be affectionate with each other. We can’t behave like strangers out there.”
“Don’t worry...” She paused, giving herself a moment to breathe a little deeper. “I’ll play my part to the best of my ability.” She would do what she had to do, short of tumbling into bed with him.
He smiled a bit too sexily. “At least there’s no denying that we have chemistry.”
In lieu of a response, she fought the warm, slippery feeling that came over her. But who wouldn’t be magnetically drawn to Rand? Forbidden as he was, she could only imagine what climbing under the covers with him would be like. Hot and thrilling nights, she surmised, where she could let her inner sex kitten out.
Oh, sure. As if she actually had one of those. Even with as deeply as she’d fallen for Rich and his fake persona, she’d been a bit too restrained in his bed. She’d never thoroughly let loose with anyone, and this wasn’t the time to start. She was absolutely, positively not sleeping with Rand.
“Allison?”
She started at the sound of his voice. “Yes?”
“We need to come up with a cover story about how we fell in love so quickly. But I have an idea about that.”
“You do?” She cleared the erotic thoughts from her mind. “What is it?”
He waited until a passerby was out of earshot before he replied, “I thought we could say that we’ve been seeing each other behind closed doors. That I approached you privately after Will’s funeral and we started to get to know each other then. With everything that’s been going on this past month, I’ve been trying to keep a low profile and stay out of the limelight, so it’s actually the perfect time for me to say that I’ve been in a secret relationship.”
“That should work.” Clearly Rand had a gift for storytelling. So did Allison, of course. Fiction was her forte. “But for the people who know that Will is still alive and that Rich swindled me, we’ll have to tell a more detailed tale. We can still use the secret-dating ruse, but we’ll also have to say that you helped me overcome the pain of what he did to me. Only that I didn’t want to tell anyone that we were together for fear that they would judge me.”
“That sounds believable to me. I can more or less say the same thing, but in reverse. I was worried that if people knew we got together so quickly, they might accuse me of taking advantage of you. But now that we’re bursting at the seams and eager to marry before you’re forced to leave the country, we can’t keep it a secret any longer.”
She marveled at their savvy. “I’m impressed with how easily we came up with an explanation.” Within no time, they’d concocted a believable romantic backstory. “You want to hear something funny? When I was a teenager going to school dances and meeting local boys, I had daydreams about stealing away from Ireland and marrying an American man. I’ve been consumed with your country since I was a girl. I used to write poems to my fantasy husband, spilling my heart out to him.”
He touched her hand, ever so lightly. “Maybe you can incorporate that into the green card interview. The more we reveal about ourselves, the more authenticity it will lend to our case.”
Suddenly she was getting nervous again, overwhelmed that she’d actually agreed to marry him. “You don’t think it will make me sound foolish?”
“No. Not at all. And I’m glad that you’re already sharing personal information about yourself with me. We’re both going to have to do a lot of that. We’ll need to know each other from the inside out before we meet with Immigration and tackle that interview.”
She anxiously admitted, “The most challenging part for me will be lying to my family, calling and telling them that I met the man of my dreams. But the truth would be worse. They would never approve of a ploy like this.”
“My brother is going to be my biggest obstacle. It’s going to take a miracle for him to believe I’ve given up my bachelor ways and am capable of being a loyal husband.”
“I remember seeing him at Will’s funeral.” Although Rand and his brother didn’t look that much alike, they had the same mesmerizing mouth and sculpted jaw, coming from the same handsome genes. “His name is Trey, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s him. Aside from our maternal grandmother, he’s the only family I have left. Our mother died a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry.” He seemed genuinely hurt that his ma was gone. She noticed the pain in his eyes. Had she misjudged him earlier when she suspected he’d been embellishing his confessions?
“How many immediate family members do you have?” he asked.
She concentrated on his question. “I’ve got my parents, one set of grandparents and a brother who owns a media company that’s headquartered in London. He divides his time between England and Ireland. Farming will always be in his blood. The Cartwrights have been in Kenmare for six generations.”
“Is your father a traditional man?”
“Yes, he is. Angus is his name, and he adores me like no other. He fusses over Ma, too. As much as I hate to say this, he’s going to be disappointed if you don’t call him and ask for my hand in marriage. But I would never expect you to actually do it.”
“Maybe I should, if it’ll make things easier.”
She nearly gaped at him. “Really, you’d appease my da?”
He glanced at a giant oak towering nearby. “I’d rather appease him than have him think that you’re marrying a guy who doesn’t respect his values.”
“That’s a good point.” She followed his line of sight to the tree, becoming aware of the tangled shoots creeping up its massive trunk. “He and Ma have specific ideas about marriage. They have opinions about everything. I love them dearly, of course, but sometimes they still treat me like a child. Ma is especially good at meddling.”
“My family rarely sticks their nose in my business. My dad did, but I wouldn’t call what he did meddling. With him, it was more like bullying.”
She felt badly for what he’d endured. Her parents wouldn’t dream of bullying her. Everything they did was out of tenderness and care.
“Does your father Skype?” he asked. “Maybe I can video chat with him to ask for his blessing to marry you.”
“Yes, he uses Skype. Ma does, too. So she will probably nose in on your talk with him and want to meet you, too. But before you contact them, I’ll have to call them and pave the way. They’re going to be stunned by my hasty marriage plans.”
“We’re going to shock everyone.” He paused, seeming reflective for a moment. “Do you still have the poems you wrote to your fantasy husband? Did you keep them?”
“No.” She was feeling reflective, too. “But sometimes I wish I would have. I’ve always been a fanciful girl. Too fanciful, I suppose.”
He searched her gaze, as if he was looking for something in her character that he’d missed, something he hadn’t seen before. Then, in a near whisper, he said, “I think we should kiss.”
She started. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Kiss.” He repeated, his tone a little huskier, a little more seductive. “We’re going to have to get used to kissing. We’ll be expected to do it at the wedding, at the very least.”
He was right. But with the penetrating look he was giving her, she was getting downright dizzy. She even gripped the underside of the bench, latching on to it with all her might. “You want to do it right now?”
He moved closer. “Now is as good a time as any.”
She filled her lungs with as much oxygen as she could get, preparing herself, trying to stay calm. He leaned into her, and her heart boomeranged to her throat, before it zoomed back to her chest.
Staying calm wasn’t possible.
As soon as his lips touched hers, she closed her eyes and asked the heavens to protect her. He invoked a carnal yearning in her, a spell he obviously knew how to cast.
He was good at this.
So very good.
An expert in every way.
The tip of his tongue teased hers, and she moaned like the sinner, the soon-to-be fake bride she’d agreed to become.
He cupped the back of her head and drew her even closer. He played with her hair, splaying his big masculine fingers through it, and she imagined making down and dirty love with him. The sex she refused to have.
Allison knew she was in for a rocky awakening, being tied to this wickedly delicious man. She tightened her hold on the bench. Only now she was using it to stop herself from putting her hands where they didn’t belong. If one little kiss could affect her this way, she was going to have to fight to keep from mauling him—every desperate day that she was his wife.
* * *
Rand wanted to push his tongue deeper into her mouth, to nibble, to bite, gobble Allison right up, but he was holding back, trying to keep their arrangement in perspective. She tasted wholesomely, sensuously sweet, like honey straight from the jar. In his hungry mind, it could’ve been oozing down their bodies in warm, sticky rivulets.
Before his zipper turned tight and he got unbearably hard, he opened his eyes and eased away from her. It was going to be hell restraining his libido around her. But she’d implemented that no-sex clause, and he had no choice except to abide by it. Rand needed a wife to clean up his image and try to save his job, but he knew better than to take advantage of Allison. He probably could’ve gotten one of his high-society lovers to agree to marry him, but he’d chosen Allison instead. And not just because he assumed that she might want a green card. Her sweet nature was part of it, too. He thought that marrying a good girl would help his cause.
Her eyes fluttered open, and he stared at her. Even with the way she’d moaned, with the soft murmurs she’d made, she still struck him as innocent. One tantalizing lip-lock wasn’t going to change his opinion of her.
