by Ames, Ilsa
“Yeah, you. I need to get married, I’m a single guy, you’re a single woman, and it would only be for a couple of years…”
Terribly. Like, fucking train-wreck terribly. I could see it in the way she tried to hide more nervous laughter. She took a quick sip of her wine, her eyes a sparkly display of her not so hidden confusion and leaned back against the red leather of the booth.
“You want me to marry you so that you can inherit your father’s money? He was a sadist, then, this father of yours, wasn’t he?”
“Just a bit.” Then I realized she’d meant the remark about herself and frowned, shaking my head. “No. Not that marrying you would be torture, just that he thinks he can prove to me that I’m no better than him at this married life and family game.”
June choked out a laugh, looking away. “Well, you must be desperate for that money if you’d ask me to marry you.” She glanced over me, something between self-deprecation and humor-as-armor in her eyes. There was something else there, something I didn’t quite understand, a message.
I’m not the one for you, maybe that look said. Or did it say, I want to be the one for you? Something… there was something there and it was a message meant only for me. I felt an odd sensation, in my brain and in my body, when she looked at me like that. I had no idea what it was, and I’d never felt it when I looked at someone before, but it was kind of like when I looked at a motorcycle that I wanted. A need? Desire?
I’ve felt those before, but this was different.
“Tiago?” She called my name and the spell was broken. “Did you really just ask me to marry you?”
I nodded, and she raked her teeth over her bottom lip.
“Why me?”
2
June
I waited for his answer as I tried not to laugh at the huge joke fate had decided to throw at me. I’d sat here and all but dared fate to give me something to be excited about. Not ten minutes later, I had my crush in front of me with a marriage proposal on his lips. Yeah, this was a joke. This was a crappy reality show, and I was about to be the butt of a joke or an internet meme or something.
“So, where are the cameras?” I asked and looked around the small bar. He looked confused, is brow furrowing.
“I’m not playing, June. I’m serious. Here, look.” He pulled out his phone, swiped through screens, and then turned it to me to show me a picture of a beautiful little girl. She looked pale, thin, as if she were ill. The oxygen mask covering part of her smiling face kind of gave that away too.
“What’s wrong with her?” I stared at the picture with a heart that felt as if it had been crushed. She looked so pitiful.
“She needs a heart transplant,” he growled quietly. “And soon. She’s on the wait list, but there haven’t been any matches. Plus, it’s not like her parents could afford it if one came through anyway. There’s a treatment that might help, and this doctor in Canada has given them some hope. They just need the money to take her there.”
His jaw tensed. “Trust me, that’s the only reason I’d take that bastard’s—” he frowned, looking away without another word.
“Who is she?” I’d picked up on the fact that he’d said her parents. His face changed when he looked at that picture. Some of the swagger left him, and a sweet expression took over, an expression of love.
“My goddaughter. My best friend’s daughter. She’s four now, and she’s been ill since she was born. I’d do anything to make sure they don’t lose her.” His voice went tight.
This display, his proposal, it wasn’t an act just to get me to marry him so he could collect some money. I’d been watching Tiago for a long time, and I’d never seen him out of line, or treat a customer badly. He didn’t screw over his clients, and most of the time he bent over backwards to take care of us. Looking at him now, I knew this really was about that beautiful little girl.
I eyed him, this gorgeous heartthrob of a man I’d been mooning over for months, feeling a tremble of heat tease through me. “So, all I have to do is marry you? That’s it?”
Okay, so, getting fake married hadn’t ever really made it onto my bucket list. But, c’mon. This was a win-win. Marry the hot bartender I’d been daydreaming and fantasizing about, and also score a win for a dying little girl? I’d have to be heartless to say no. Or just plain crazy.
I laughed nervously, shaking my head. “I mean, yeah, if that’s all it takes, sure?”
He cleared his throat, his jaw tightening. “Yeah, uh, sort of.” He brought a hand up, raking his nails over his dark stubbled jaw.
“There’s actually something else too.” He glanced around unsteadily, stroking his chin. And I could practically see the wheels turning inside of his head.
“Tiago, what—”
“So, there’s this whole list of conditions I have to meet. One of them is to get married.”
“Alright, and the rest?” I’d heard of weird wills before. I’d had a roommate once whose grandmother left her a beach house in Florida, provided my roommate took her grandmother’s ashes to Siberia.
…I mean, we already had fake marriage on the list. How weird could this possibly—
“You have to have a baby within the first two years.”
Bomb. Dropped.
I stared at him, blinking, trying to find the joke or spot his hidden smile. But, the more I looked, and the more he looked right back at me unflinching, the more the truth started to sink in.
This wasn’t a joke. He was totally serious.
Except, he didn’t know one small, tiny little detail when it came to me. Specifically, when it came to me and having babies. Or, more specifically, when it came to me and having sex.
Small, tiny, insignificant details like that fact that I never had.
Ever.
I, June Smith, twenty-four-year-old director of her own nonprofit, was a virgin.
I’d spent my youth avoiding men that wanted to take advantage of me, the men my mother was usually too high to pay attention to after she got stoned with them. When my father was the one home, it was the same thing, only dad would sometimes kick them out before he passed out. Not to protect me, he didn’t care enough to notice me most of the time, but because they might steal his drugs.
After, when I left the city and moved for college, I’d been too busy with work and school to spend time on social activities.
And then? Well, after that, it just became this thing. And the longer I went on with still being a virgin, the more I shied away from men, and more I’d just decided it was my fate in life to never actually get laid.
And now, the hottest man I knew was asking me to marry him, and to have a child with him.
My jaw dropped.
“A baby? Within two years? Hang on, I thought the marriage thing was only for a year or so?”
I felt like I was in free-fall, my thoughts all over the place as my brain tried to grasp on to what I was hearing.
“Do I get to keep it? The baby, that is?”
The second I said it, I cringed, looking away.
Really asking the right questions here, lady.
What the hell was I even thinking? What the hell was he even thinking asking it?
Tiago swore, shaking his head.
“This was a mistake,” he growled, his jaw clenching as he looked away from me. “Look, forget it. Forget I brought this up, okay? I’ll try and hold a fundraiser or something for Layla, instead.” He turned as if to walk away, but my hand shot out before I could stop it, grabbing his arm.
“No, wait.” I swallowed. “How…”
I was about to ask how long it would be before he got the money, but I was trying to figure out how to phrase it when he opened his mouth.
“You’d get a portion of it a week after we officially got married. Around two-hundred-and-fifty grand, I think was the number the lawyer said. I’d get a quarter of the rest of it. Enough to buy a few thousand kids that treatment.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean how much would I get, I was going t
o ask how long—”
My jaw dropped.
“Wait, how much?!”
“Two-hundred-and-fifty grand.”
My heart flip-flopped. My nonprofit organization, my very own that I founded and ran on my own, could seriously use that kind of money. I mean it always could, but right then, it would be a lifeline. I’d received a notice a week ago that one of our main funders was pulling out of the program due to some policy changes with their own organization.
Two-hundred-and-fifty grand would go a long way to replace what we were about to lose, and then some.
“Yeah,” Tiago slid back into the booth across from me. “And I’d definitely make sure you were taken care of if we… you know. With a kid and all that. There’d also be a prenuptial agreement and stuff like that, but you’ll never have to work again, if you don’t want to. That’s what I’m offering for Layla’s life.” He spread his hands on the table and I knew he’d laid down all of his cards.
I had a million questions, but one look into those gorgeous dark eyes and I knew he didn’t want those.
Tiago didn’t want questions. He wanted an answer.
I didn’t think. For once, even if it was completely insane—even if I could see this playing out a hundred different terrible ways, I just let my heart answer instead of my head.
“Yes.”
I said quietly and didn’t look up to see his reaction. I didn’t want to know if there was a cringe there. The poor guy had to marry me to save his friend’s daughter, his godchild. That was sad, but a fact of life now.
…I was sure he’d have much preferred the blonde earlier anyways.
“Wait, say that again?” He asked, as if he was terrified he hadn’t heard right.
I swallowed before I dragged my eyes up to his. I nodded.
“I said yes. For Layla, for my nonprofit, yes. I’ll marry you, Tiago.” I felt my cheeks flush with heat. Yeah, the hot guy I’d been fantasizing about for months had actually just asked me to marry him.
And I’d actually said yes.
Another thought slid into my brain, and I blushed even deeper.
This revolves around us having a baby.
I bit my lip, daring to look up at him again. “Um, with the whole baby thing… does that mean we, uh…”
I cringed, the blush burning hotly in my cheeks.
Tiago grinned, flashing those perfect white teeth at me that send my heart skittering.
“Oh, no.”
The way he said it so fast felt like something stabbing into my chest, but I pushed that away.
“There’s always IVF or something, June,” he chuckled, leaning back in the booth and shaking his head as he stroked his scruffy, chiseled jaw. “Don’t worry, June. It’s not like you have to have sex with me or anything,” he grinned, those piercing eyes lancing through me as I shifted under his gaze.
Yeah, gee, right ’cause that would suck. Not.
Tiago’s eyes flashed for a second, and I gasped, my crazy brain suddenly wondering if I’d literally just said my thoughts out loud. Or maybe he was a mind-reader. Either way, he looked at me like he’d just heard what I’d been thinking.
Heard it and liked it.
Or, I was just crazy. That was always an option. I looked down at my hands, now clenched together on the table.
“So, when do we have to do this?” I blushed. “The married part,” I blurted out.
Tiago shrugged, shoving his fingers through his dark hair. “Is tomorrow too soon? I can give you a week, if you want, but I’d rather not wait. The will says it has to be a real wedding, with pictures and all of that, so maybe we should make it a week. We can have everything in the back here at the bar. There’s actually nice yard space out there set up for stuff like that, I just haven’t started to advertise it yet.”
He went on with the plans, and I just stared at him, not even quite believing what was happening. I’d have to pretend to be his wife, for the next two years. I’d have to have a baby for him, and pretend I loved him.
I looked down, heat teasing through me. Well, I wouldn’t have to pretend the love part. As much as it made me feel like this dorky blushing school girl even thinking it, he’d won my heart the first time I’d seen him drive a drunk bar-patron home himself rather than let them drive. He’d stolen it for forever when he jumped over the bar to stop some drunk asshole who’d decided to hit his wife, kicking the shit out of the guy and calling an ambulance for the wife. She’d hit her head when she fell against the brick edging of the bar and Tiago had insisted she be checked out, at his own expense.
I didn’t know Tiago had grown up as a rich kid, I would never have guessed it. Besides being a rough-around-the-edges bartender and bar owner, he just didn’t seem like one. He was kind, generous, and never acted superior to anyone. I used to think rich kids always acted like prissy little brats that were better than everyone else. But then, here was Tiago.
My life was anything but the American dream that so many longed for in other places of the world. My parents had been in and out of jail, one in while the other was out, often with both in at the same time. I’d grown up with a single parent, sometimes with neither one.
Those had been dark days, and nights. The nights were hard, especially when whichever parent was out of jail would wake me up, so we could haul ass in the middle of the night to get away from the landlord without paying the rent. We’d move to new towns, cities, and a few times to new states. On the few occasions when both parents were in prison at the same time, I’d crash at a friend’s house or with whatever family member would take me in until one of them got out.
Life was a constant state of chaos for me, and I promised myself I’d never have to live through that again. One of my teachers in my senior year of high school took me under her wing and helped me to get into the state university to study child development and nonprofit organization. I’d been able to get student loans, grants, and a few scholarships that aided me through those four years. It was the first time in my life that I’d had stability. I’d taken a full-time job, so I could afford permanent housing near the school, and still managed to maintain my GPA. In short, I’d worked my ass off.
After that, I’d worked hard to save the money to open my own nonprofit organization, and it was still going strong three years later.
I thought about all of this as Tiago made the plans, he even went so far as to pull out a pen and wrote plans on a napkin. I had agreed to do this as a whim, and now, my life was about to change in a major way. With two-hundred-fifty thousand dollars my nonprofit would be set for a few years, at least, or I’d be able to expand it and help other children. There was so much I could do with that.
On top of that, I’d get to help a little girl out. I knew this was crazy, and that tomorrow Tiago might call me and tell me it was all a joke, or a mistake and he’d asked someone else. But from the way he scribbled on that napkin, I was certain he was serious about it.
He was literally going to marry a stranger to save his godchild, and let me just say, my ovaries were on the verge of exploding.
I wasn’t so sure about the baby part. The vagueness around what would happen to that child was throwing me. I mean, what if part of the deal was that I had to walk away from my own baby?
I couldn’t ever, not after my childhood. I wanted my child to have stability, love, and enough to eat, even if he or she came from a situation as nuts as this whole fake marriage thing.
My parents had never cared about me enough to stay out of prison, I wouldn’t force a child of my own to live life like that. I’d have to talk to him about that more later, for now, it was enough to know I’d get the chance to help little Layla.
“So, we’re agreed then? We’ll have the wedding here? Where do you want to go on the honeymoon? Do you have a passport?” He looked up at me, and those gorgeous eyes of his made my heart stop and then start suddenly. How was that even possible from a simple direct gaze?
“What?” I asked blankly, I knew a response
was expected, but I’d forgotten what he’d asked me already. He’d distracted me with those eyes of his.
“The honeymoon, we have to have one, with pictures of us doing things together to give to the estate lawyer. Where do you want to go? If you don’t have a passport, we can go to Las Vegas or Florida. Hawaii maybe?”
His lips parted in one of his crooked, roguish grins, and my heart started banging at ninety miles an hour in my chest.
Or I might die from those smiles before I even get to the part where I can kiss the groom…
“Um, Hawaii? Isn’t that where women usually want to go?” I wasn’t actually so great at that whole “being a girl” thing. I’d learned to protect and provide for myself when I was young, rather than to style my hair and do makeup, and hadn’t even really picked up the habit once I’d managed to stabilize my life.
I didn’t look at magazines and dream about my future, I looked at program pamphlets, literature on child development and best practices, and financial statements. I never considered marriage to be an option in my future, it just wasn’t something I normally thought about. Adventure, yes, I thought about that. But marriage and children? That just hadn’t been on my radar.
Now it was offered to me on a silver platter and I had no idea what to do.
“Yeah, Hawaii sounds good,” he mused, stroking that perfect jaw again. God, he was being so casual about this. I mean the guy had just asked me to marry him
“Yeah, we can do Hawaii. I’ll have a friend of mine arrange that, she’s good at travel plans and stuff like that. Let’s see, what else is there to do?” He tapped his pen against his full bottom lip and I envied that pen. I wanted to be that pen.
Do I have any batteries at home? Did I even have vibrator that worked still? I’d gone through a period where my body craved sexual release, but over time work and exhaustion replaced those needs. I often went to sleep with the television on or with a book in my hands, if I had time to get that far. Most of the time, I fell into bed exhausted. I didn’t have enough staff to do every job, and that meant I did far more than one person’s job. Exhaustion was my middle name.
