Single Mom Wanted for Fake Marriage: A Billionaire Romance
Page 1
Single Mom Wanted For Fake Marriage
Aubrey Dark
Contents
About This Book
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Have some fun with a billionaire!
Bad For Me
Enjoy this free sample of Bad For Me
His Gift
Enjoy this free sample of His Gift
Mr. Black’s Proposal
Mine
His
Yours
License Notes
About This Book
“I need a wife.”
William Fawkes is desperate. With one month left before his father's inheritance gets split, the billionaire realizes that his brothers will end up with the majority of the company he's been running. Unless he finds someone to inherit the spousal shares...
“Marry me, or go to jail.”
Sierra's dad taught her how to be a thief: Get in and get out with more than you came with. But while cracking a safe, she gets caught red-handed by a gorgeous, half-dressed billionaire.
He has her pinned, literally and figuratively, when he offers her a deal: a fake marriage in exchange for his silence. It's an easy decision, and all she has to do is pretend to be a billionaire's wife for one year. How could it go wrong?
“I'm good at faking things.”
There's no way William could fall in love with a thief, especially not one with a two-year old maniac toddler. It's just pretend, after all. Right?
But sometimes pretending to love someone leads to something more. More than one delicious kiss. More than an unforgettable night. And when Sierra's ex comes back into the picture and threatens to ruin their arrangement, William has to decide whether he is willing to lose everything to keep the thief who's stolen his heart...
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Copyright
(For Fake Marriage)
By
Aubrey Dark
Copyright © 2017 Aubrey Dark
All rights reserved.
First Edition: February 2017
ISBN: TBD
Prologue
“Don’t try to escape,” he murmured into my ear. His breath was warm, tickling, and I shivered with pleasure.
I wouldn’t try to escape. Who knew what he’d do to me then? He had already tortured me past sanity with his tongue between my legs. Now, it was his thigh pressing against me, not quite hard enough, as his lips caught my earlobe and sucked. A lightning bolt of tension streaked through my body and I arched against him.
Pretend. This was all pretend. Only now we had stopped pretending, and I couldn’t ignore the insistent voice in my mind telling me that this was all I really wanted, all I really needed. Telling me that there was a chance I could make him mine, mine for good, mine for real.
His tongue was hot, and he licked my ear, then sucked again, as though promising something that I could not have. I was nearly panting with desire, my breath coming hard and fast. His hands moved down, skimming my shoulders and coming to a rest on my chest, where his fingers fondled my nipple. I felt it grow hard under the rolling pad of his thumb, and when he sucked the skin of my neck I moaned aloud.
“William.”
Chapter 1
“I need a wife.”
I eyed Shawna in the mirror as I adjusted my tie for the tenth time. Above her dark skin, her hair curled tightly against her head, so black it was almost blue in the light of the bathroom. The beaded collar of her sleeveless bronze cocktail dress cut across her collarbone. The sharp angles of her cheeks contrasted with her thick plum lips, which were now pursed disapprovingly at me.
“Did you hear me? I need a wife.”
“Don’t look at me, William. I already do everything else for you.” She didn’t even blink as she handed me a cufflink.
“You heard the board.” I tugged out the knot in my tie angrily and started over. “They’re going to give the company to my brothers.”
“They’re going to give voting rights to Dex and Sanders. That’s all it is.”
“That’s all? That’s everything! I’ve been here for a decade, Shawna. Do you know how long that is?”
“You’re the one who’s good at math,” Shawna said, a smile quirking her full lips. “But if I had to guess, I’d say that’s —oh, about ten years.”
I ignored her offering me a second cufflink. This damn tie was going to kill me.
I couldn’t let the board go through with the inheritance plan for my father’s company. He’d died ten years ago, and hadn’t I been the one to step in and take over the business? But now, Dex and Sanders would have the chance to ruin everything I’d worked so hard to build up.
“Happy birthday to me,” I spat at the mirror.
“It’s your brothers’ birthday, too,” Shawna said, a note of impatience in her tone. She was the only one allowed to be impatient with me. “But what’s this wife thing all about? Are you going to give up the business completely and settle down? Start being a family man?”
“Ha! You know me better than that.”
“Okay, you need a wife so you can let out some steam at home after a long day of battling your brothers’ business decisions? Shout at your wife, tell her to make you a sandwich, something like that?”
“Don’t be silly. That’s what I have you for.”
“Right.” Shawna’s smile curved coldly across her face. “What, then?”
“Well,” I said, letting my thoughts cohere, “my mother happened to mention that the voting rights would be split equally among all immediate heirs.”
“Including spouses?”
“Including spouses. If only you’d had the sense to get married, she told me. She was joking, of course. The thing is, I would have gotten married if I’d known! But she never told me!” I turned away from the mirror toward Shawna. Her dark brown eyes sparkled, her eyelashes frosted with gold.
“Sounds like she wants you to settle down.”
“She doesn’t guilt trip Sanders or Dexter about getting married.”
“That might be because the girls they date aren’t exactly marriage material.” Shawna grinned as I tugged off my uneven tie and started over yet again. “What was that last one Sanders brought home?”
“Right, the vegan girl who didn’t know that you made cake with eggs.” I rolled my eyes. “The look she gave us when she realized she was murdering chickens with every cupcake.”
“Poor girl.”
“Well, I’m not going to marry anyone like that
,” I huffed. “I’d like to find someone with a modicum of common sense in her head.”
“But do you really need a wife?” Shawna asked. “Sanders and Dex have always supported the way you run the business. It’s not like they know anything about the company.”
“Tell that to Sanders. He’s got this mad idea that selling our Middle East branches would be a good idea. And he’s convinced Dex that with his military connections, they can engineer a sale to one of the local banks in Dubai.”
“You don’t agree?”
I let out a hiss of air between my teeth and flung my tie down in frustration.
“Sanders just wants to sell so that he can spend the money on cars and ski equipment.”
“And Dexter?”
“Honestly? I think Dexter wants to feel useful for once. He’s been gone for so long, and with his problem…”
“Right.” Shawna tilted her chin down. None of us ever mentioned Dex’s PTSD in front of him, and it had gotten to the point where we bit our tongues even in private. It wasn’t something to be spoken about anymore. It was just Dex’s problem. Dex was stuck in his room during our weekly family dinner? Dex’s problem. Mom had to go bail him out of jail for getting into yet another fistfight? Dex’s problem.
“If they decide to vote against me together, they’ll be able to do whatever they want. I won’t be running the firm anymore.”
“Maybe you’ll have enough free time to find a wife, then.”
“That’s not funny.”
“What do you want me to do?” Shawna asked.
“Marry me?” I arched a single pleading eyebrow. Shawna arched one of her own, the one that said No way in hell.
“Damien, you are barking up the wrong skirt.”
“Is it because you’re black?” I asked jokingly, turning toward her as she took my tie and began to knot it for me. “Shawna, it's the twenty-first century. Nobody cares about that anymore.”
“Funny. Very funny.”
“Why won’t you marry me?”
I was only half-kidding. It was a month before the inheritance voting rights would be split, and I didn’t know any woman who would agree to a fake marriage. Hell, I didn’t know many women, period.
Shawna sighed.
“For one: I’m your employee. For two: I don’t like men. For three: even if I did like men, I wouldn’t like you.”
“Ouch. Don’t pull any punches, Shawna. Tell me what you really think.”
“I think you could do better for a fake wife than your lesbian personal assistant.”
I frowned as the realization sunk in.
“Wait, you’re a lesbian?”
Shawna put her hands on her hips. I could sense the disapproval radiating off of her.
“Really, William?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“You never asked! Also, everyone in the company already knows. Also, there’s this little thing called employee nondiscrimination… maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Very funny. How does everyone already know and I don’t?”
“Because you lack the slightest bit of social intelligence,” Shawna said, smoothing down my tie as she insulted me with a smile. “Anyway, that’s why I’m not going to marry you.”
“You wouldn’t have to… we wouldn’t have to… do anything.” I stumbled over the words. I’d never been very good at propositioning women. But I had to find a wife somehow, someone I could trust to keep a secret. And Shawna was someone I could trust.
“My God. Do you really not have any other prospects?” she asked.
“There aren’t a lot of women in investment banking,” I grumbled.
“Right. Because of course you would have to find your wife in a bank. There’s no way you could, oh, I don’t know, go outside? Like, ever?” Shawna stepped back to the bathroom window and flipped up the blinds. “Oh, no! The sunlight! It burns! It burns!”
“I don’t have time to wander around trying to find an eligible female to marry.”
“I’ve tried to set you up. Multiple times.”
I snapped one cufflink through the sleeve’s buttonhole.
“I don’t remember that.”
“Do you remember when I first started working for you? Before I became convinced that you were an asexual vampire? Those first few weeks, I set you up with at least a dozen lunch dates with eligible females.”
“And? What happened?”
“You canceled all of them.” She crossed her arms.
“Oh.” I snapped on the other cufflink. “Right.”
“Do you want me to try and find you a date?”
“I don’t need a date, Shawna. I need a wife.”
“I can find you a wife. A straight one, even. But it’ll take longer than a month.”
“I only have a month, so get looking. And if you can find one, I’d prefer a wife with a child.”
“A child?”
“The board said the inheritance would be split equally between all immediate heirs, right? Wouldn’t that include a grandchild?”
I smiled at Shawna’s reflection in the mirror, her mouth in a surprised O.
“You’re more evil than I thought, William Fawkes.”
“I’m not evil. I’m conniving. For the greater good.”
“Your brothers will figure out what you’re doing.”
“That’s why I have to make it look good. Of course they’ll suspect something. But unless they have proof, the board will have to vote to give me at least half of the shares.”
“Well, this isn’t the hardest assignment you’ve ever given me. You won’t have too much trouble convincing a single mom to pretend to be your wife for... how long?”
“Until the end of the year, when the company shares divest.”
“The trouble is finding one who won’t open her mouth afterward. Or if Sanders decides to bribe her with more than I offer. If a woman can be bought by me, she can be bought by my brothers.”
“Hmm. That does make things a bit harder. You could always, you know…”
“What?”
Shawna waved one slender hand in the air.
“You could not tell her. Sweep some poor girl off her feet and divorce her after the year’s end. She doesn’t have to know it’s not for real.”
I clamped my lips together. A wave of revulsion swept through me at the thought of deceiving someone into falling in love with me. My mother had spent the past few decades hoping for love from my father and getting nothing in return. Sanders had gone through dozens and dozens of pretty girls who showed up on his doorstep, despondent when he didn’t call them back. And Dexter couldn’t stay with a girlfriend for longer than it took his problem to rear its ugly head.
Fawkes men couldn’t stop themselves from hurting women, it seemed. And I didn’t want to drag an innocent woman into that kind of mess. After a second’s pause, I shook my head.
“I don’t want to do that.”
“It would be easier.”
“The easy way isn’t always the best way. I want a clean deal. No feelings involved. Just business.”
“Right.” Shawna cocked her head. “You’ll marry a lesbian if you have to, but marrying someone who likes you? That’s going too far.”
“We have one month for me to marry a suitable candidate,” I continued, ignoring her sarcasm. “Which means we need to find someone soon. Preferably this week.”
A low whistle escaped Shawna’s lips.
“This week? You might be right. It might be easier to find you a lesbian to marry.”
“The cocktail party is a good place to start looking. Sanders usually invites lots of girls.”
“As long as she’s not an escort. I know the kind of girl your brother likes to invite to his parties.”
“I think I can tell the difference.”
Shawna was silent, her lip twitching with a suppressed smirk.
“No playing around,” I ordered. “This is serious. If I don’t find a woman to marry, you’ll be w
alking down the aisle with me a month from now.”
Her eyes darkened with sudden gravity.
“Don’t worry, William. I will not let that happen.”
“Should I be insulted that you’re so deadset against marrying me?”
Her laughter was deep and throaty and her gold jewelry glittered as she threw her head back gaily.
“I hope you’re not offended. You’re more handsome than your brothers—”
“—we’re triplets, Shawna—”
“—and the most intelligent. And charming, too, if you would ever open up to people and stop being such a standoffish jerk.”
“How could any woman resist a standoffish jerk?” I grinned as Shawna brushed a piece of lint from my jacket shoulder and shook her head in disapproval.
“If I see a suitable woman at Sanders’ party tonight, I will chat her up for you,” she said. “But…”
“But what?”
My eyes flickered up to the face in the mirror, her teeth so white against her slightly parted lips. She leaned toward me, her voice a seductive whisper.
“If the lady’s not interested in you, Mr. William Fawkes, don’t be surprised if I take her home for myself.”
With a wink at my fading grin, she turned and led the way out.
Chapter 2
The only reason I got caught that night was because I was distracted as hell. But I couldn't be mad at the person distracting me.
“She’s being really fussy.” Teresa’s bubbly voice sounded a little more irritable than normal over the phone. “I think she’s teething.”
“Tell her to stop it.”
“Stop teething?”
“She already has way too many teeth.”
“You’re a great mom, you know that?”
I gathered my hair back into a tight bun at the base of my skull and bit down on the inside of my lip as I scanned all the things scattered across my bedcover. Gun, lock pick kit, wire cutters, wig, one thigh strap…
Where the hell was my second thigh strap?