Accidentally Married to the Billionaire (The Billionaire's Touch, #1) (9 page)
Read Accidentally Married to the Billionaire (The Billionaire's Touch, #1) Online
Authors: Sierra Rose
Tags: #billionaire, #billionaire romance, #contemporary fiction, #contemporary romance, #romance, #office romance
She brushed past him and crossed the living room.
“I’ll meet you back here at four,” he said with a smile, trying to lighten things up. “We have a flight to catch, darling.”
She grinned. “Right, sweetie pie.”
He chuckled as she left.
Marj’s cell phone rang. She glanced down and saw it was her neighbor, Maria.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You don’t remember? You called me last night drunk as a skunk. You said you found the man of your dreams. Then you just hung up. I was really worried you drank too much.”
“I did drink too much. But I’m fine. Thanks for checking up.”
“I’m so happy to hear that you’re okay. So you found a man?”
“You’d be so proud of me, Maria. I found him
offline
.”
“I knew you could find love the old fashion way. So who is he?”
“My boss.”
“What?!”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t date your boss,” Maria said. “You gotta break up with him right now.”
“You mean divorce him...”
“You married your boss?”
“He’s not just my boss, but the CEO of Power Regions, Ltd.”
“Honey, are you telling me you married the CEO of your company?”
“Go look on Facebook, the pics will speak for themselves. Oh, wait. I took them down. Never mind.”
“Did you go to the Candlelight Chapel where Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, and Sir Michael Caine got married?”
“It’s all a blur, really. A hazy recollection.”
“I guess ‘What happens in Vegas
doesn’t
stay in Vegas.’”
“Not when you obtain a marriage license.”
“If you got married while drunk, it’s not valid.”
“Being drunk doesn’t make me ‘not married.’”
“Maybe it’s all legal. But it’s definitely grounds for an annulment. Las Vegas is the reason why annulments were put into effect anyway. You can get married and divorced before you leave.”
“Ha ha.” Marj rubbed her pounding head. “It’s all a little overwhelming right now. The whole thing felt insane.”
“Maybe my advice about finding a guy offline
wasn’t
the way to go. Maybe you should get back on Blender.”
“Tinder.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I like it. It’s disturbingly addicting.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, uh...”
“You signed up?!”
“Hey, don’t turn this around on me.”
“You so signed up!”
“Yesterday, I went on a coffee date with a man named Earl who is widowed. He even drives and was nice enough to pick me up and... Enough of me, back to you, Marj.”
“You said to meet a guy the old fashion way,” Marj said. “And I did. I even got married first. Now how honorable is that?”
“Meeting a guy the old fashion way is talking to somebody you have a connection with, and then going for coffee. Not a drunken night of love in the Vegas bars and casinos, then running off to a little Vegas chapel and getting hitched.”
“I know. I came to the City of Sin to drink and gamble. I didn’t expect to accidently marry a billionaire.”
“And now what?”
“I stay married...for now.”
“Was the marriage consummated?”
“Very much so.”
“You got married on a whim?”
“He needed me.”
“For what? A Green card?”
“Brandon is a US citizen.”
“Do you love him?” she asked.
“That’s a very complex question. And it’s one I really don’t want to get into at the moment.”
“It’s an easy one, if you ask me. Yes or No.”
“I gotta go. I really need to think about this, okay.”
“Okay. But call me if you want to talk.”
“I will. And thanks for caring.”
Biting her lip, Marj said goodbye and hung up. She knew she was in for a long lecture when she got back. She wanted to tell Maria the truth, but she knew that wasn’t an option. She’d sworn she wouldn’t tell anyone.
When Marj was in the Town Car, she tried to question Rafael but determined that he couldn’t hear her. It must have something to do with the partition, she decided. When they arrived at the Forum shops, he offered to come along and carry her bags, but she politely declined. He programed his number into her phone so she could summon him to pick up her packages and tell him where to meet her. This, she decided, did not suck.
The mall was crowded, the surroundings opulent Roman frescos and moldings—a surreal juxtaposition of modern consumerism and past artistry. She dodged in and out of shops with smart designer labels, restless and almost unwilling to try anything on. It felt like she was pretending to be someone else, someone who could afford fancy things and have a place to wear them. Someone, for instance, who was buying an outfit just to step off of a plane in.
She tried on a red beaded cocktail dress just for fun, but found it too heavy. Instead, she gravitated toward jeans, beautifully cut dark wash ones that looked trouserish but cool. She tried a pair on impulse, admired her toned thighs and backside in the mirror, and bought them, not even wincing at the three digit price tag—even throwing in the blouse, the rugged cropped military jacket and scarf that went with them on the mannequin display. It was the kind of dressed down chic she always admired in magazines—a sort of edgier Kate Middleton, a Jennifer Lawrence on a coffee run with big sunglasses and that effortless oh-gorgeous-just-happens sort of ensemble.
Marj texted the shop to Rafael so he could retrieve the bags and moved on in search of something more polished, dressier for the plane debarkation. Prowling through the smartest shops, she found alluring jeweltone separates, statement pieces, but nothing that said understated elegance.
In a swank department store, she rode the escalator to the Better Dressing section and found an entire display of what she needed. Monochromatic looks in structured shapes with touchably soft fabrics that practically announced their expensive provenance. A beautiful cashmere and silk wrap sweater that looked like it belonged on a ballerina. A pair of matching trousers in deep plum wool. Nude pumps, a camel leather and gold statement cuff, tiny tortoiseshell hoop earrings with gold accents, a buttery leather camel colored clutch purse with a distinctive designer emblem on the outside. She surveyed her reflection with satisfaction. Then she ordered the car and stood at the entrance with her bags.
Glancing at her phone, she saw that she had some texts and that it was now five o’clock. She’d lost track of the time. Annoyed with herself, and even more annoyed that she felt obligated to make excuses to some stranger who was now her husband, she texted Brandon to tell him that she was running late.
In the back of the car, she slipped the lid off the box containing her sweater and shamelessly petted it. There was something about a silk and cashmere blend, which she’d never felt before today, that was so light and luxuriant. She couldn’t wait to wear it. Marj tried not to think about the matrimonial strings tied to that purple sweater.
B
randon Cates had promised his new bride that he’d speak to the lawyers about their options. He knew damn well what their options were: stay married or give Lena the business with a giant, red bow on top. Still, he kept his word and made the inquiry.
“Thank goodness you pulled it out of the fire!” his lead attorney, Brock, exclaimed, “I thought we were fucked after they got the last appeal thrown out. How’d you manage to get a bride in one night?”
“A gentleman never gives details, Brock,” Brandon said, “but the lady’s having second thoughts in the light of day and wanted me to ask you what our options are for divorce and annulment.”
“Seriously? You have your ‘get out of disinheritance free’ card and you’re going to give her an annulment? Is she that nuts? Crazier than Lena?”
“No, not crazier than Lena. Just—reluctant. I’m not going to keep her hostage.”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting you do your best to be persuasive. I’ve seen you schmooze at dinners and get people I thought would give you the finger to end up signing on the dotted line. So turn that charisma on this girl and she won’t know what hit her. Crank it up to Extinction Level Event. This is not negotiable. You lose this girl, you lose the entire estate.”
“Well, don’t bother sugar coating it on my account, Brock. I’m a big boy, and I can handle the truth,” he said sarcastically.
“Joke all you want, Brandon, but this marriage has to last, and it has to look as real as it gets,” his lawyer said and hung up.
He knew this already, truly he did. He just wasn’t sure how to break it to Marj, who he liked. She was bold and quirky and gorgeous. A little on the hysterical side, perhaps, but waking up married wasn’t a usual situation so he could make allowances for her seeming a little highly strung. She was going to freak out when he told her that it wasn’t practical for them to separate and that he needed her cooperation. That sounded so much like he was taking a hostage...you won’t get hurt as long as you cooperate...he shook his head. He needed a better tactic. Maybe Brock was right and winning her over was as simple and devious as winning her heart.
So he had set to work, ticking off items from the list in his phone, to plan her perfect evening. Brandon had arranged for an intimate rooftop dinner by candlelight, a few romantic extras to entice her. He’d checked her social media to get a bead on what sort of music she liked and made sure the soundtrack of their evening was perfectly in line with her preferences. It wasn’t spying. It wasn’t manipulation. He was just personalizing their romantic evening. It was bespoke romance...only for the very discriminating bride and groom, in his opinion.
Or for the hair-tearingly desperate.
He’d even looked at her Pinterest boards. Good lord, women took those things seriously. She had about eleven thousand things pinned, mostly clothes and shirtless men—-at least her interests leaned toward him and his lifestyle—he was a man willing to remove his shirt and buy her clothes. He knew it was more complicated than that, but he flicked through her Dream Guy board for ideas of what he should wear. It was humiliating really, but he had to package himself for the utmost appeal. Marj was in marketing, so she’d appreciate the effort even if she didn’t (hopefully) realize he’d stalked her Dream Guy board in a most undignified manner. Too many pictures of that cowboy bastard Scott Eastwood, Brandon thought.
She had several photos of men in tuxedos with the ties undone, the shirts unbuttoned. He put on a tuxedo, but when he unbuttoned the shirt in front of the mirror he looked too much like he was auditioning for Chippendales travel crew, so he buttoned himself back up and went traditional. After all, what woman could resist a man in a tuxedo with chilled champagne and her favorite foods and music? One who was dead set on a quick divorce, he reckoned grimly.
When he got the text from Rafael that they were on their way, he grimaced. He’d been waiting. Brandon Cates was not a man who waited. He had answered some emails and gone over his schedule for the coming days, checked the headlines and made his displeasure known about the delay on his personal jet, which now would not arrive before midday tomorrow. There had been a mechanical anomaly when the pilot did his inspection and a minor repair had to be done. That left him with either the delay or a commercial flight, the latter of which was intolerable. So he would wait, seemingly, both for his plane and his woman. It was humbling.
Brandon was surprised to get a text message from Marj to apologize for running late. She didn’t make any excuses, only said that she’d be later than planned and she was sorry. He respected that, the fact that she didn’t fall into the trap of whining about crowds or traffic or how it couldn’t possibly be her own fault she was late. She just owned it. He liked that—liked it and several other things about her. Things it was best not to dwell on when he had an inheritance to secure. She was already a loose cannon, an accomplice who was the lynchpin of his entire strategy but whose cooperation was by no means guaranteed. Heaping messy complications of attraction and affection atop an already wobbly tower was unwise.
She burst through the door to the suite. He was beginning to see that Marj didn’t merely enter a room, not ever. She exploded into it, talking a mile a minute about the absurdities that she’d witnessed, making acerbic remarks about the people she’d had to deal with.
“There was a woman in front of me at the department store who was wearing fur. Real fur from a dead mammal. In Las Vegas where it is freaking two hundred and fifty degrees out. Like she had to advertise the fact she was so rich that she’s above petty considerations like climate or animal cruelty,” Marj groaned.
Rafael trailed after her with a few carrier bags, fewer than Brandon had expected, frankly. He had told her the night before that she needed a wardrobe. Four bags was not a wardrobe. This suggested a recalcitrance about using his money, about considering it their money. He took it as a warning sign, filed it away but didn’t mention it.
“Did you have any luck?”
“Yes. How about your meeting? You’re all dressed up. I hope you didn’t wait around for me before you left. I don’t want to make you late,” she said solicitously.
“That’s good of you but my date is here now so I’m finished waiting,” he said warmly, trying out a little smolder on her.
Not taking the bait, Marj actually looked back over her shoulder as if she expected to find some supermodel lounging in the doorway Rafael had just vacated—some hot date who had arrived in the past four seconds.
“You mean me?” she asked dubiously.
“Who else would I mean?” he dialed his smolder up a notch since this one was deliberately being difficult.
“I didn’t realize we had plans. I mean, I knew we were going to discuss our options regarding separation, but I expected a more informal, room service kind of situation here. I bought a plain outfit, not a ball gown,” she said, obviously trying to make light of it but seeming discomfited instead.
Brandon knew it was up to him to put her at ease. He rose from his chair, which he realized belatedly he should have done as soon as she entered the room—he’d been to good schools for goodness sake, and he had been taught manners there. He strode smoothly to her side and took her hand and kissed it.