by Lori Ryan
As Kelly listened to her friend talk, she wished she could sometimes be as brash and brave as Jennie. Really, who had the guts to listen in on their boss’s conversations like that?
And from the sound of it, her boss would have to find someone fast to run to the altar with him if he was going to keep his company and get his aunt off his back. In fact, she was surprised Jennie hadn’t marched into the room and proposed to Jack right then and there—just for the fun of it.
Propose to Jack Sutton?
Kelly froze. Sure it was a crazy idea, but why not? If she married Jack Sutton for one year, he’d get to keep control of his shares and his job and his company would be secure. She’d get the money to go to Yale for three years. She and Jack would go their separate ways at the end of the year. Voila!
Kelly shook herself and tried to get rid of the crazy idea. But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like a good one. A reasonable idea. The kind of idea she could pull off if she took a page out of Jennie’s playbook for once. If she didn’t let her doubts hold her back.
“Is Mr. Sutton nice?” Kelly interrupted.
“What?” Jennie asked. “Oh, well, yeah, I guess he’s a nice boss. Scares the hell out of most people in the business world. If you cross him or try to cheat him in a deal, look out. I’ve heard people say he’s crushed companies who thought they could pull something over on him. But, he’s actually really good to the people that work for him. It surprised me at first. I always thought he would be a real ball breaker.”
Jennie leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. “He has a whole division that he calls his security division, and they do some cyber security and stuff, but they’re really mostly there to investigate any companies he’s going to invest in or anyone he’s negotiating with. They say he never goes into a deal blind. If you enter a deal with Jack Sutton or walk up to the negotiating table on the other side of him, he’ll already know what color underwear you have on that day.”
Kelly shifted and looked around. “Well…but I mean, is he a nice guy? Like, would you date him or would he be a total jerk to the woman he marries?”
“Noooo, he’s not bad,” Jennie said slowly, looking at Kelly as if trying to figure out what she was thinking. “He’s a really good guy. I guess I’d date him, not that he’d ask me. I mean he dates… Oh my God! What are you thinking?” She pointed a finger at Kelly. “Oh my God! Don’t answer that. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’ll marry him!”
“It could work.” Kelly blushed. “I go in there and ask for my tuition in exchange for a year of marriage. We head to the courthouse, then a neat and easy divorce a year from now.”
Growing up, she thought she’d marry for love. That when it happened to her, it would be forever. But she hadn’t met anyone who made her think of spending her whole life with them. And a fake marriage would be okay as long as it had an expiration date, and it was to a man she could trust—a good man. It wouldn’t stop her from finding the real thing someday, and it meant that she’d be able to get her law degree.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t know the man, but Jennie did. And wouldn’t she have heard rumors if he beat his girlfriends or something? The man was always in the public eye in New Haven. The press loved him. He couldn’t keep anything like that secret for very long.
“Besides,” she said as she continued to justify her plan, “I might as well. It’s not like I’m going to miss out on falling in love with someone else because I tie myself up with Jack Sutton for a year.”
“Kelly, don’t be silly. Of course you’ll fall in love someday. You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”
She waved off her friend’s words. “Maybe someday, but I’ve dated some really great guys. I mean really, really great. But I’ve never felt more than ‘like’ for any of them—even when they said they were in love with me. I really don’t think love is in the cards for me, and even if it is, what are the chances that during the year I take off from dating for a fake marriage, I’ll miss out on the one guy who I’m destined to fall in love with? I think the chance of that is slim. And, if it’s true love that’s meant to be, wouldn’t it somehow work out after my fake marriage?” Kelly knew how to push Jennie’s hopelessly romantic buttons to win the argument.
Jennie stared at her, shaking her head. Kelly could imagine what her friend was thinking.
Jennie was supposed to be the daredevil. Jennie was the one who took risks. She did stupid things. Things with the kind of consequences that could get you in real trouble.
Kelly was the levelheaded, calm, orderly one. The kind of person who most certainly would never do this.
Jennie appeared to be speechless as she stared back at her. And if Jennie was speechless, things had to be headed in the wrong direction.
Chapter 7
Kelly arrived at Jack Sutton’s office a few minutes before three o’clock as she and Jennie had planned. She had run home to print up the marriage license application from the New Haven Office of Vital Statistics website, shower, and dress in black wool slacks and a fitted ivory cashmere sweater.
She left her hair down drying it with a roller brush so it lay in soft waves on her shoulders and went with light makeup she hoped like hell looked classy. Jack Sutton was probably used to classy.
The butterflies in her stomach seemed like they were dancing some sort of coordinated Macarena dance or something. It wasn’t pretty.
When Jennie saw Kelly step off the elevator her jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you’re going through with this. By the time I got back to the office, I was sure you’d chicken out.”
Kelly squared her shoulders and stood up to her full height. Not that she was tall at five four, but it made her feel better. “I’m not going to second-guess myself on this. If I keep moving without stopping too long to think about it, I can go through with it, so get me in there.”
Jennie raised an eyebrow and Kelly knew she’d owe her friend big time. The scene about to play out would essentially put Jennie’s job on the line. By getting Kelly in there, she’d be revealing she had spied on Jack. She had a week left in the temporary placement. With this move, she would most likely lose not only this placement, but any chance of getting a new placement through the temp agency as well.
So yeah, Kelly was going to owe her and then some. But Jennie had told her she was okay with that and Kelly believed her. Jennie got bored staying in one job for too long. She’d bounce back.
“Well, you may be off your rocker, but at least you look good. Jack’s Aunt Mabry and his cousin Chad are already in the office. They’ve only been in there for a minute, though,” said Jennie.
“Here goes nothing.” She took a deep breath and waited for Jennie to announce her.
With a huge grin on her face, Jennie pushed the intercom button on her phone and calmly spoke into the speaker. “Sir, your fiancée has arrived. Shall I show her in?”
Jack sat in his office with his aunt and cousin and wondered how the hell to explain that there was no fiancée. Andrew had sent a text at two o’clock saying he hadn’t found out anything more, but he was working on something. He just didn’t say what, so Jack had no idea if he should stall or just come clean.
He had actually been desperate enough to start calling some of the women he’d dated in the last year or so. He wasn’t exactly a ruthless player, although the tabloids tried to make it look like he was. Sure, he got around, had a few dates a month and slept with some of them, but those women all seemed shallow and fake to Jack.
Two of them didn’t answer the phone, one was gushing about her new husband and another had moved to London when she was offered a modeling deal with a European agency. That was as far as he got in his little black book before his aunt arrived—twenty minutes early. It seemed Chad had been with Mabry this morning because they arrived together and now they both sat, mother and son, looking expectantly at him.
“We’re here to meet Jack’s fiancée,” a smug-l
ooking Mabry announced to Chad. Jack watched a bemused expression come over his cousin’s face.
Chad had to be wondering what the hell was going on. He and Jack were close. They were more like brothers than cousins, so if he were getting married, Chad would have been the first to know.
I’m never gonna’ hear the end of this from him.
So there they sat, waiting for an introduction to a fiancée that Jack had never mentioned; a fiancée Chad had never set eyes on.
Jack leaned forward in his chair, took a deep breath and prepared to tell his aunt there was no fiancée.
Or maybe he should see if he could get Chad out of the room first so he didn’t have to have this confrontation in front of his cousin.
Just then his secretary’s voice cut in, and he could swear he heard her say his fiancée was here.
Jack’s experience in business had taught him to school his expressions and hide his thoughts from those around him, and though he wanted to whip around and grab the phone, he didn’t. He quickly hid all emotion from his face as he listened to his secretary.
“Sir, did you hear me? Mr. Sutton? Your fiancée has arrived. Shall I show her in?” Jennie spoke again.
Andrew. Andrew must have sent him a fiancée. How in the hell had Andrew found him a fiancée? Really, how does one go about that, Jack thought.
Oh hell. He scrubbed his hand over his face as a possibility hit him. What if Andrew sent him a prostitute?
Jack stood and went to his desk, hitting the button on his phone to engage the intercom. “Uh, yes, send her in, please.” Jack forced the words out as his mind raced through the possible scenarios.
Jennie opened the door to his office and stepped aside and a dark-haired woman swept into the room as if she owned the place. She glided over to him, brushed a light kiss on his cheek, and casually handed him a stack of papers.
The soft scent of some kind of flower threw him off his game.
“Hello, sweetheart,” the stranger said to Jack before turning to his aunt and Chad. “You must be Jack’s Aunt Mabry and his cousin. He’s told me so much about you. I’m Kelly Bradley.”
She took the hand of a very stunned looking Aunt Mabry and pumped it before she turned to Chad, whose amusement had turned to confused surprise. Kelly shook his hand as well.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Chad said, but it came out more as a question than a statement. “I don’t know where Jack’s been hiding you,” Chad said with a huge grin on his face.
Jack was too busy trying to figure out who had just walked into his office…and what she was doing, to respond to Chad’s dig. This Kelly person had walked in as though she belonged there. As though she and Jack had the kind of intimate, close relationship that lets a woman waltz into a private family meeting and announce herself rather than wait to be invited and introduced.
Whoever she was, she was beautiful. Her hair was a deep chestnut color, and it fell down her back in loose waves over the soft ivory cashmere of her sweater. She had incredible, bright blue eyes and a light complexion with a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her snug sweater showed off a soft, curvy figure that begged to be held.
Wherever Andrew had found her, he had done well. She was exquisite.
Jack tore his eyes off her and skimmed the papers in his hand while she stood chatting with his aunt and cousin as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
The papers appeared to be an application for a marriage license for the State of Connecticut. There was a yellow sticky note on the top page that said: One year of marriage for $154,000.
He quickly tucked the note in his pocket as his mind flew over possibilities.
Andrew had found him a wife for $154,000.
What the hell?
Had Andrew hired a woman from a call girl service? Asked some girl off the street?
As he did in all of his deals, Jack quickly scanned all potential scenarios in his head. He assessed and evaluated the merits or drawbacks of each. Obviously, if she were a call girl, the drawbacks were significant.
He was woefully uninformed, and that wasn’t a position he was used to being in.
What the hell should he do? He had no idea who this woman was, but he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to continue to head up the company his father had built. The company Jack had expanded and come to love. Now, he stood stiffly in his office as his head reeled from the sudden proposition in front of him…
Reason kicked in; he had to trust that Andrew wouldn’t have sent a hooker or someone he didn’t know. Could Andrew have found a willing friend of his? Or maybe an ex-girlfriend? How much would that suck? To marry one of his best friend’s exes and pay her to do it on top of that?
Jack hadn’t felt so off balance in his life. He suddenly realized that his supposed fiancée was talking to him.
“Jack? Honey, I need to know if you can make it to the courthouse to apply for the marriage license tomorrow? We both have to be there to get it. Does that work for you?” Kelly asked, indicating the papers in his hand.
“Uh, yes. Yeah, that works for me.” Jack spit the words out through the haze in his head and turned to smile at his aunt and cousin. No matter what Chad’s relationship with Bryan Barton was, it looked as if Jack had just committed himself to a year of marriage with a stranger.
Chapter 8
Kelly swallowed hard as she heard Mr. Sutton’s answer to her ‘proposal.’ A tight ball of nerves had been growing in her stomach since she walked in the room, and she felt that tension spreading through her entire being.
Chad excused himself to return to his office with a look on his face that promised his cousin would be grilled for details later. Kelly watched Mr. Sutton out of the corner of her eye as she continued to talk to his aunt.
She had seen Jack Sutton on occasion coming in and out of the building when she’d met Jennie for lunch so she knew he was handsome. But, close up, handsome didn’t even begin to describe the man.
Jack was tall, about six feet three inches. He had dark brown hair that curled up at the edge of his collar. His eyes were a rich, deep brown, almost mahogany, and his face had chiseled features with a strong jaw. There wasn’t a damn thing about the man that didn’t sizzle.
He wore a suit, but even in that Kelly could see his body was hard and fit under it—his tall, lean form toned and strong. His intense gaze made her breath go ragged. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be alone in the room with him if he had this kind of effect on her with his aunt and cousin with them.
Jack sat on the edge of his desk, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. He watched her quietly while she finished chatting with his aunt.
Kelly wrapped things up and ushered Mabry out the door by four o’clock as she made excuses about her fiancé needing to get back to work. She closed the door behind his aunt and turned to Mr. Sutton. That’s when Kelly felt the ground fall out from under her and her world tilt on its axis.
As she faced Jack Sutton she found herself feeling shaken and uneasy. She looked up at him and realized that, in essence, she had just waltzed into his office and proposed.
“I can’t believe I did that.” She began to pace frantically. She wrapped her arms around her waist and circled the room.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She might hyperventilate. She slid down onto the couch that sat along the longest wall in Jack’s office and tried to breathe, but ended up taking in huge gulps of air that felt as if they might choke her.
For the first time since she came up with her harebrained scheme to get her hands on enough money to attend Yale Law School, the reality of what she had done hit her like a ton of bricks. She’d just proposed to one of the country’s most eligible bachelors.
And he’d said yes.
Chapter 9
Jack studied Kelly Bradley as she began to fall apart in his office. She had been so cool and collected two minutes ago—so totally in control of the situation. Now he watched h
er crumble as if all the steel she seemed to have running through her veins moments ago was suddenly drained, leaving her frightened and panicked.
He smiled wryly and suddenly felt back in control.
I guess it’s my turn to be the calm, cool, collected one.
The killer instincts he always felt when he walked into the boardroom or sat down at the negotiating table came back in full force. He crossed to the beautiful woman and took both of her hands in his.
“You did great. You had them completely fooled and you did great. I don’t know how Andrew found you on such short notice, but you were fantastic.” Jack started to rub her back in slow, soothing circles, hoping to calm her down so they could discuss the details of their newly made arrangement.
“Andrew didn’t give me a heads up about this, so you’re going to need to calm down and fill me in.” He continued to rub her back and he could hear her breathing begin to slow down and become more regular. Jack felt her body relax as her breathing returned to normal. “See,” he said, “that wasn’t so bad.”
Kelly nodded and gave him a weak smile. She took several more deep breaths. Jack watched as her expression moved from panicked to resolved. And then she was grinning, and she was gorgeous.
“Ha! I did it. I knew I could,” she said out loud.
Great, she’s got multiple personalities or she’s bipolar or something. Jack watched as Kelly’s emotions swung back and forth.
Then her eyes went round and she sat up straighter. “Wait,” she said, “who’s Andrew?”
Chapter 10
Poker face or not, Jack needed to put some space between them when Kelly asked who Andrew was. Where the hell had this woman come from?
He stood up and took a few steps back and schooled his expression once again. Staying calm despite her revelation that Andrew hadn’t set this up wasn’t easy but he needed to find out what the hell was going on. If she didn’t know who Andrew was, how did she come to be here, and who had he agreed to marry?
