Black Tie Optional (Wild Wedding Series Book 1)

by Ann Marie Walker

  Now that one she could deny.

  “That’s annoyance you see. Believe me, Cole will be thrilled when this farce of a marriage ends.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Cole said from the doorway. His skin shone with a thin sheen of sweat, and his hair had the look of being freshly fucked. It was a style Cole sported most days, but on this one at least, the description had been well earned. And despite the conversation she’d just had where she’d tried to act indifferent, at the moment what Olivia wanted more than anything was to drag her husband up the stairs and climb him like a tree.

  “Olivia?” he asked. Shit. Had she said any of that out loud? She glanced at her mother who thankfully wasn’t wearing the shocked expression of a woman who’d just heard her daughter expressing her all-consuming lust.

  “Um, yeah, my mom was just telling me you’d gone for a run.”

  Her mother glanced back and forth between them. “I was asking Olivia if you two wanted to stay for lunch? I could whip up some tofu burritos.”

  “There are a few things at the office that need my attention before Monday morning.” The CEO was back. He was cold and distant and entirely unlike the man who had shared her bed. “I cut my run short intending to ask Olivia if she minded heading home this morning.”

  “Sure,” Olivia said. “I’ll grab a quick shower and pack up.” She kept her smile firmly in place but underneath that well-crafted exterior, Olivia’s heart sank. Their suspended reality was coming to an end even sooner than she had imagined and what was worse, Cole seemed anxious to cut it as short as possible. It was just as well. She must have been crazy to think last night had meant anything. Realizing it sooner rather than later was a blessing, not a curse. They needed to get back to the city where lines weren’t blurred, and roles were clearly defined. She was Olivia Ramsey, activist and staunch opponent of assholes like Coleman Grant III. She’d been a fool to forget that, even for one night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cole left the radio off so as not to wake Olivia. She’d passed out about ten minutes after they hit the open highway and had been sound asleep ever since. Normally he preferred listening to music as he drove. Not that Bertha’s “Best of the 80s” mix-tape necessarily qualified as music. But he needed time to think, and that was much easier to do with the object of his internal debate sleeping beside him as opposed to talking his ear off about whatever random thought happened to pass through her mind.

  Cole rubbed the back of his neck. He’d actually managed to relax during his time on the Ramsey farm, but the closer they got to Chicago, the more he felt himself tense. By the time the hazy outline of the city appeared on the horizon, he felt like there was a goddamn vice around his head.

  He needed to think the situation through rationally. That was how he approached his business dealings, and up until now at least, it was how he approached his personal dealings as well. Of course, all that logic had gone out the window last night. What the fuck had he been thinking? It was the question that had haunted him since he’d woken up that morning, and no matter how many miles he put on the road, whether running or driving, the answer remained the same: He hadn’t thought, he’d just felt. For the first time in his adult life Cole had dropped his guard down and let someone in. Now what the hell was he going to do about it?

  His original plan had been a marriage in name only, terms Olivia had wholeheartedly agreed to before storming out of his Vegas hotel suite. Just thinking about those original parameters had him nearly laughing out loud. Though their intentions may have been admirable—or maybe they were due to nothing more than pride—they were unrealistic. He and Olivia might not have had much in common, but their chemistry was off the charts. Suppressing it was a battle they were doomed to fail.

  Enter Plan B: Enemies with Benefits. At the time, it had seemed like a perfectly acceptable solution, one backed up by the mind-blowing sex they’d had the night she’d moved in. But everything had changed over the past two days. They’d gotten to know each other in a way he’d never expected. Olivia was no longer just the annoying yet unbelievably sexy woman who pestered him during his morning coffee run. Nor was she the woman he’d married yet went to great lengths to avoid. Somehow they’d forged a connection, not just physically, but emotionally.

  So now what?

  Their arrangement had taken a definite turn, but to where he wasn’t sure. Admittedly Cole wasn’t an expert when it came to relationships, but even he knew theirs was unconventional. Most couples didn’t start out married and then work backward from there.

  His fingers stroked the stubble on his jaw. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe they needed to start over from the beginning. He could ask Olivia out on a date. But fuck if he knew the protocol for dating a woman who was already his wife.

  His wife.

  The title still sounded so foreign. Especially when the woman in question was about as far from anything he’d ever envisioned. She was a slob, a vegetarian, and for fuck’s sake, a goddamn Democrat. She made him absolutely crazy with her whacko theories. And when she got on her soap box with one of those impassioned speeches of hers, he had to fight the urge to run screaming from the room. But she also made him laugh more than he had in years. And her passion for life was contagious. Through Olivia’s eyes the world seemed less cut throat and more compassionate. She made him want to be a better man. Hell, she made him want to get a dog.

  He glanced across the car to where Olivia was leaning against the passenger side window. Her face was barely visible, but even partly hidden behind a mane of blond curls, it was still the most beautiful face Cole had ever seen. They lived in the same house, but up until that weekend he’d never had the chance to really look at her, at least not the way a lover should. Until then he’d never taken the time to notice the gold specks in her hazel eyes, or the small freckle she had just below her left ear, or the way her nose crinkled when she found something hysterically funny. Over the past two days he’d cataloged every detail, and yet he still wanted more. Hell, he was half tempted to pull over just to watch her sleep. But knowing his luck, she’d wake up and he’d have looked more like a creeper than a man who was finally discovering what he’d been too stupid to notice before.

  The car slowed as they merged onto the exit ramp, and Olivia stirred. Her eyes fluttered open and when she saw Cole, she smiled as though there was no one in the world she would rather see. He knew she wasn’t completely awake, making the unguarded moment all the more meaningful.

  As she became more alert, her expression turned almost shy. Her hand went to her mouth, then to her hair. Cole wanted to tease her a bit—to tell her not to worry, she hadn’t drooled in her sleep, but that he couldn’t hear Bertha’s mix-tape over the sound of her snoring so he’d just turned it off. But for some reason, the instinct to argue and antagonize Olivia had been replaced with something else, something he was still trying to sort out in his head. Either way, he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road.

  “Have I been asleep long?” She stretched and looked out the window, realizing the answer to her question before Cole had time to reply. “Whoa, I guess so,” she said when she saw the skyline looming above them.

  “All that fresh air this weekend must have worn you out.” Cole smirked. Or maybe it was the fact that they’d hardly slept the night before.

  Olivia’s face flushed and all at once Cole knew she was thinking the same thing. “Must have.”

  They drove in silence for a few blocks while Cole debated the best way to ask his wife out on a date. Fucking hell, he wasn’t even this nervous in prep school. Maybe he could just casually mention ordering Chinese food later? After all, they did live in the same house. Would it be so strange to dine at the same table?

  He was about to suggest just that when Olivia spoke up. “Mind if we swing by my apartment so I can get a few more things?”

  “Sure.”

  Cole turned left at the next intersection and thanks to a few well-timed lights, was in front of Olivia’s South L
oop apartment building in no time.

  She reached for the door handle but paused when she realized the car was still running. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Sure, if you want me to. Or I could just stay here. Either way.” Jesus, maybe he really was back in prep school. No, scratch that, even fifteen-year-old Cole had better moves than these.

  Olivia smiled as she got out of the car. “C’mon, it will be good for you to see how the other half lives.” She waited for him on the sidewalk. Cole noted that there wasn’t a doorman or even a front desk clerk. Not the safest conditions for a single woman coming home late at night. He made a mental note to speak to her about an upgrade in accommodations when the time came for her to move out of the penthouse.

  His steps faltered as he came through the brass frame door.

  “You okay?” Olivia asked.

  “Um, yeah.” He glanced down at the worn rug as if something had tripped him, but in reality, it was his own thoughts that had caused him to stumble. Because while Cole might have been interested in pursuing more than a friendship with his wife, when the terms of their union expired he still had every intention of going through with the divorce. He just hadn’t taken the time to think about what that would mean in terms of their living arrangements.

  Cole leaned heavily against the side of the elevator. The rickety box creaked and shifted from his weight. This place was looking more and more like a train wreck all the time. And so was his situation. He ran through the highlight reel: marry Olivia, fuck her, fight with her, fuck her again—albeit slowly and all night—then date her, divorce her, move her out, and then maybe, if things were still going well after a couple months, ask her to move back in. Yup, that was totally normal.

  He was so fucked.

  “It’s this one,” Olivia said, stopping in front of a door painted to look like a gay pride flag. “Previous owner,” she said. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Groovy.”

  Olivia laughed as she turned the key in the lock. No second deadbolt? Cole made another mental note.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said. “This will only take a few minutes.” With that, she disappeared down the three-foot hallway and into what he presumed was her bedroom. Cole could only imagine how that room was decorated, because the living room looked like it had been furnished at a flea market. Not that Cole had ever been to such an unfortunate event, but he’d been forced to watch some bargain hunters show on a date once. The girl was at least blowing him at the time, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

  “There might be an Orchard Ale in the fridge,” Olivia called out. He heard her soft laugh. “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding the kitchen.”

  Not likely, he thought, since the kitchen and living room were essentially the same. A small laminated counter separated the two areas but other than that it was all one room.

  “Thanks. I’m fine.” Did he really strike her as the type of guy who would drink something called Orchard Ale? Then again, he had no idea what Olivia’s drink of choice was either aside from frozen piña coladas and tequila body shots. He added one more item to the mental list of things they still needed to learn about each other, as well as a reminder to pick up a bottle of tequila on the way home.

  One of the framed photos cluttering the bookshelf caught Cole’s eye, and he leaned in for a better look. It had been taken in college, at a fraternity party from the looks of it. Olivia’s hair was shorter, but her smile was the same. There were six other people in the picture, but Cole’s intent lie only with one: the sandy-haired pretty boy with his arms wrapped tightly around Olivia’s waist. Doctor Dipshit, no doubt.

  He straightened when he heard Olivia coming back into the room, feigning interest in a glass statue of a penguin. As she passed by, he noticed she’d changed into a pair of black yoga pants. Cole didn’t think anything could affect him more than those Bonnaroo jeans, but the sight of Olivia in form-hugging Spandex would have been enough to make a lesser man come in his pants. The off-the-shoulder T-shirt wasn’t helping matters either.

  “That’s Marvin.” She plopped a backpack on the kitchen counter. “My parents gave him to me when I was in college, after the summer I spent working on the Penguin Conservation Project.”

  Cole nodded and placed Marvin back on the shelf. His summers had been spent working on Wall Street with a few weekends of debauchery in the Hamptons. Not quite the same.

  “Is that all you’re taking?” he asked.

  Olivia shrugged. “I can come back after work tomorrow.”

  “I was thinking maybe you should pack a full-size suitcase. Or boxes even?”

  She frowned. “Why would I do that?”

  Jesus, for such an intelligent woman, there were times when Olivia could be annoyingly obtuse. “So you could bring more of your stuff over.”

  Olivia stared at him with a blank expression. Fuck. Either she was still half asleep, or she wasn’t at all interested. He needed to dial it back and see if she connected the dots.

  Cole shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “You know, for appearances. I’m not sure if my grandmother is having us watched but if she is, our living arrangements would look more legit if you weren’t running back and forth for fresh clothes every couple of days.”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  And he was right. Even if they were just roommates pretending to be lovers, it would make sense for her to bring more of her belongings over to his place. That wasn’t what this was about, but Olivia wasn’t putting two and two together. Not that he was making it easy with his vague references. Then again, maybe she knew exactly what he meant and was simply playing dumb to spare his feelings. Yeah, right, like she’d ever held back on a single thought or emotion in her entire life. Still, there was only one way to find out. He had to stop making it all about appearances.

  He took a deep breath and tried again. “And if the guest room is cramped there’s plenty of room in the master. I could clear out a few shelves in the closet, maybe empty a drawer.”

  Olivia’s hands stilled. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

  Cole made an awkward sound that was half snort and half laugh. “You already live with me.”

  “You know what I mean.” Her gaze and her voice softened. It wasn’t much but it was the opening he’d been waiting for.

  Cole ran a hand back through his hair. Man the fuck up, Grant. Tell her that you want to give this a real shot.

  But before he had the chance, there was a knock at the door.

  “Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

  “No.” Olivia frowned. “Most of my friends know I’m not living here at the moment.” The expression on her face changed from one of confusion to clarity. “Must be the super,” she said. “He’s a sweet old guy, and he likes to check on people when he hasn’t seen them around much.”

  She swung the door open without bothering to look through the peephole and froze. Standing in the hallway was none other than Dr. Do-Good himself.

  Fuck me, Cole thought. As if his life wasn’t complicated enough.

  “Derek,” Olivia said. From the look on her face you’d have thought he’d returned from the dead, not whatever Third World country he’d graced with his mad skills.

  Wonder boy met her shocked expression with a sheepish smile. “Hey, Livvy.”

  Oh sure, he gets to call her Livvy. Cole took a moment to size up the competition. Derek was a bit shorter than him, with a slim build and light brown hair. His eyes were green and crinkled at the corners when he smiled, which right now was all the damn time. Jesus, did he have to look so freaking happy to see her? The urge to wipe the stupid grin off Derek’s face had Cole’s hands clenching at his sides.

  “When did you get back in town?” Olivia asked. To Cole’s immense satisfaction, the unexpected reunion didn’t seem to be having the same effect on her. Her expression wasn’t one Cole would necessarily describe as happy. In fact, if anything she looked a little annoyed.

>   Derek readjusted the backpack that was hanging off one shoulder. “Flew in late last night,” he said.

  Didn’t waste any time, did he? Guess that would explain his unfortunate wardrobe. Derek was wearing cargo shorts, a pair of Converse, and a plaid shirt over the top of a faded green tee. The guy looked like an Urban Outfitters reject. A knot formed in the pit of Cole’s gut. Derek Hunt was a humanitarian hipster. In other words, Olivia’s perfect man.

  “How long will you be here?” she asked.

  Excellent question. With any luck the S.O.B was just on a stopover.

  “Indefinitely.”

  Not the answer Cole was hoping for.

  Olivia’s eyes grew wide. “You’re back to stay?”

  “My contract with Doctors Without Borders ended, and one of the hospitals here offered to fully fund my research, so . . .”

  “The cancer study?”

  Derek nodded. “All of it.”

  He had to be fucking kidding. Cole cleared his throat. “Wasn’t the Meredith Vanderholden Grant Pediatric Cancer Institute by any chance, was it?” Damn that was a mouthful.

  Derek’s eyebrows shot up. “Actually, it was.” He cocked his head to one side. “Are you familiar with the program?”

  A muscle in Cole’s jaw ticked. “You could say that.”

  “From what I hear their new facility is going to be state of the art. And Mrs. Grant has pretty much let me design my entire program and staffing. She’s quite a lady.”

  She was quite something, all right, but lady wasn’t the word that came to mind.

  “Meredith Grant is his grandmother,” Olivia mumbled. She looked positively numb.

  “Wow, small world.” Derek grinned like the fool that he was. Not that it was his fault really. Poor bastard was just riding the high of his new position, oblivious to the fact that he was merely a pawn in a very calculated game.