The Billionaire’s Unexpected Wife

by Ali Parker

  “Hear me out,” he began slowly. He looked even better in the light of day, if that was possible. His strong jaw was outlined by the light streaming in through the giant window opposite the bed, and I tried not to pay too much attention to it.

  “Just tell me,” I prompted him. I didn’t know how much longer I could spend here before someone started asking questions about where the hell I had gone.

  “So, my nonna, uh, my grandmother, she’s been pressuring me to get married for a long time,” he explained. “And I run a company that’s not exactly—it’s the kind of place that suits a settled-down man, you know? That’s why my dad’s on his fourth wife.”

  He snorted with laughter, and I couldn’t help but smile in response.

  “And I’m your first?” I asked nervously. He nodded.

  “If we are indeed married, then you’re my first wife,” he replied. “And I think we could turn this into something good if we just stick it out for a while.”

  “What?” My eyebrows shot up, and he held his hand up to quiet me before he continued.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” he conceded. “I get that. But you said last night that you were raising money for something.”

  “A library,” I replied. My heart warmed as I imagined what it would look like when it was finished, how it would feel to be able to stand there and look around and know I had been the one to put this all together. I wasn’t sure how well I’d done the night before, but I could distantly remember giving away a few cards to people who appeared interested or at least were too polite to say they weren’t.

  “It would make my family extremely happy if I were to get married.” He looked me up and down again as though he was seeing me for the first time. “Especially to someone like you.”

  “You barely know me,” I reminded him. “How do you know your family would like me?”

  “Because as long as you look like that and agree to stay married to me, I’m pretty sure my nonna’s not going to give a damn if you drown puppies in your spare time,” he replied, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. There was something loose and excited about the way he spoke like he owned the place and wanted everyone to know it. Confidence oozed off him in waves, and I could see why the men of last night had been attracted to this guy, even if I was too nervous at what I was sure he was suggesting to appreciate it much at that moment.

  “And I could make it seriously worth your while,” he finished up. And that’s when my ears pricked up. I looked around this place again, reminding myself how gorgeous this suite was and how much damn money it had probably cost. This was a guy who could put his money where his mouth was when it came to cash, and frankly, I could use it.

  I thought of Jolene, who was probably at home wondering where the heck I was right now, and my stomach twisted. A few thousand dollars alone would make her life a hell of a lot easier. And I would have done anything to assure my sister’s life was a little less difficult.

  It had been so hard for both of us since Mom and Dad had passed away. Every time I thought of them, I still felt that twist deep in my stomach. A car accident had robbed both me and my sister of our family when she had been nothing more than a few years old. And, in the midst of the grief and working on my undergraduate degree, I’d had to move back home to step up and take care of my sister. Jolene had been born with severe physical disabilities that had required basically full-time care around the clock to keep her functioning, and when Mom and Dad had died, I’d been the only one who knew her well enough to step in and take care of my sister. I loved her, I did, and so I moved back home from the dorm rooms where I’d just been settling in and back into my old room to make sure she wasn’t left alone in the world. I hadn’t had any other choice. I’d had no money to pay for a career, and it wasn’t like my parents had left anything for us when they’d passed, just the house and the memory of them that I made sure to pass along to Jolene every chance I got. She was a good kid, sweet and funny and smarter than anyone gave her credit for, and my parents would have been proud of how she turned out.

  Me, on the other hand? Well, I was sure Mom alone would have chewed me out for getting myself in so much debt, but relying on student loans as I made my way through grad school was the only way I knew to keep my head above water. It was consistent cash and meant I could study at home and look after Jolene on the side. Eventually, when I finished up, I even had a job guaranteed for me at a local library, the one I had been raising money for the night before. A job meant I could pay for Jolene to stay in a care home during the day so she could meet new people and start earning a college degree as she’d always dreamed. But I also had a mountain of debt guaranteed as well. So, when he sat opposite me, eyeing me and offering to make this worth my while, I wasn’t sure I could turn him down in good conscience.

  “Let me get this straight.” I sat up, snapping into business mode despite the fact I was naked and handling a hangover. “You’re offering me a lump sum to stay married to you to keep your family happy?”

  “Yep,” he replied, and the words hung in the air between us as I considered my options. The thought of it made me a little sick, and if this guy had suggested this the night before I would have shot him down on the spot. But now that we were already married, now that I would have had to drag myself through a lengthy legal process just to call things off, things were different.

  I tried to quiet the questions in my head and just looked at him. Think of the money. Of the debts, the fact my car needed to be fixed, the little DIYs in the house that I needed to take care of. Money like the kind of money he had to have to stay in a place like this would change all of that. It would change my life and Jolene’s, and I wasn’t sure I could, in good faith, walk away from it.

  Still, so many questions were racing through my mind. How long would we have to stay married for? What would happen when he was done with me? Did I have to meet his family in the process? Where exactly was he even from? What about sex?

  “Only if you play by the rules,” he replied playfully, and I didn’t realize those questions had been tumbling out of my mouth instead of just through my mind. I went bright red, pulling the covers around me.

  “How much are you offering?” I asked bluntly. No point talking about money if he couldn’t match my price. But then again, I had no idea what my price actually was for something like this.

  He leaned forward, and I saw the way his eyes flashed with excitement, as though he had come up with the greatest plan in the world and nothing I could say or do was going to change his mind.

  “How much do you need?” he asked. “Name your price, and I’ll match it. I can afford anything.”

  I opened my mouth, racking my brains for a number but found myself distracted by the way he was watching me. Like he had last night, like someone circling in on their prey. For some reason, that sent something sparking to life inside of me, something familiar from the night before. And I had a feeling this fake marriage thing was going to be a lot more interesting than I’d imagined.

  5

  I slipped my arm around her waist and guided her up the steps of the company jet, glancing around to make sure no one was watching or following us. If some of the tabloids caught wind of what was going on, they would get to break the news to my family before I did, and that would defeat the point of this whole scheme. She smiled at me gratefully as I opened the door for her, and the two of us stepped inside the jet together.

  “I’ve never been in a private plane before,” she confessed as she looked around, eyes wide while she took everything in.

  “Well, get used to it.” I cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of it these the next few months.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she murmured, mostly to herself. She looked down at the ring on her finger once more, the one that matched mine, and then back at me, a playful smile on her face.

  “You know, you’ll need to get me something a little more impressive if you really want to sell
this,” she remarked. I grinned.

  “You don’t think you’ve gotten enough money out of me already?” I shot back, and she held her hands up.

  “I thought you said I should name my price,” she reminded me, as she settled down into one of the luxurious leather seats next to the window.

  “I have my limits,” I replied, sitting down opposite her, and I found myself eyeing her as we began to head down the runway to get back to Connecticut. I couldn’t believe she lived so close to me. What were the chances? It would make all this a heck of a lot easier to organize, that was for sure.

  She closed her eyes as we angled up and into the air, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more. This was reckless, even for me, a stupid idea by any measure of that statement. I would set up a contract when I got home, as discreetly as I could, something quick and easy that lasted around a year, after which, the two of us could part company, and my nonna would just have to deal with me being a divorced man. I was pretty sure she was going to be mad she hadn’t been invited to the wedding, but if I could lean into the romance angle, she would accept it. I would just have to avoid the detail that the reason she hadn’t been there was that neither of us could remember actually marrying each other. When I’d checked at the nearest casino, I’d found a wedding certificate between the two of us confirming we had, indeed, decided to wed that night. I still couldn’t imagine what in the fuck had been going through my damn mind, but I was making the best of it now.

  That amount of money, though. She had been so specific when I’d asked her, so dead-certain on the price she wanted me to pay to keep her around for the next year. I knew there would be a story behind that amount, but I had no idea what it was. I watched her as she slept and tried to figure her out. Maybe she was a gambler? Maybe she wanted to buy a home or something? Maybe she was paying off debt? I had no idea, but I would have plenty of time to figure out precisely what she had going on in her life. She was going to be my wife, for fuck’s sake. Well, she already was, but soon she’d be stepping up to actually play the part, and that meant spending a lot of time together. I was interested in finding out her backstory, what led her to accepting an offer as batshit crazy as the one I’d posed to her.

  When I looked back at her, her eyes were open again, but she hadn’t said a word. I hoped to Christ she wasn’t having second thoughts about this idea. We hadn’t signed any contracts yet, and even if we had, if she didn’t want to play along, there wasn’t much I could do about that except whip the money out from underneath her. I was already committed to the idea, to the knowledge that it would please my grandmother and satisfy my father and probably give the stockholders a little more faith in me too. If I could convince her to stick this out, it would pay off in ways I was already mentally reaping the rewards to. I couldn’t handle it if she decided to back out now.

  “You all right?” I asked, and she glanced up at me as though I’d dragged her back from somewhere else entirely. She managed a tight smile, but I could see the tension written all over her face.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “Just tired. And a little hungover still.”

  “I can get them to bring us something to eat.” I looked around for one of the stewards, but she shook her head.

  “No, I’m fine.” She waved her hand. “I just need a little time, that’s all. This has been … this has all been a lot.”

  “You’re not having second thoughts?”

  “No,” she replied, but she didn’t sound certain. “I just want to get home and see my sister, that’s all.”

  “Oh, you live with your sister?” I tried to make conversation, grabbing on what I could. She nodded.

  “I have for years,” she replied, turning her gaze out the window. I couldn’t read the expression on her face, didn’t know her well enough yet. It was unnerving. Usually, I was good at getting a read on people no matter how long I’d known them, but there was something impenetrable about her that threw me off no matter how hard I tried.

  “And you’ve lived in Connecticut the whole time?” I pressed. I felt as though I was interviewing someone for a job, which in a way, I supposed I was.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she replied. It was more than tiredness plaguing her at that moment. It looked like something else entirely, like she was literally struggling to keep her body upright. A deep-seated exhaustion came off her in waves. I paused for a moment, waiting for her to ask me something, but she stayed quiet, returning her gaze to the window as we broke cloud cover and the sunlight beamed through the glass. Well, that would just give me some time to think. My mind was already thrumming at the thought of everything this marriage could do for me.

  How long had my family been getting on me to get married? Longer than I could remember. And things had taken a major uptick as soon as I had stepped up to take over the business. They thought it would look better to our investors and everyone involved with us if I could project this image of a settled-down family man, someone who could prove he was consistent and reliable and trustworthy. It had gotten to the point now that every time I flew over to Greece to see my grandparents, my grandmother would have zeroed in on some other helpless young girl she was sure would make a perfect wife for me. The woman would be dragged along to some family gathering while pretty much every one of my relatives spent the entire evening trying to push us together, and I would have to politely explain at the end of the night that I wasn’t looking for a relationship like that. And it would play out over and over again as though they were just waiting to find the right woman and thought that as soon as they did, things would click into place, and I would suddenly fall head over heels and be the husband and father they all wanted me to be.

  But it just wasn’t in my blood. Not yet. I had seen my father go through so many wives, I didn’t put any stock in marriage as an institution anymore, and every guy I worked with in the industry was married with kids and yet spent most of his time complaining about them or trying to find the time to sneak away from them and get up to something less than familial. I didn’t want that. Sure, staying single and playing the field might have been unconventional at my age, but at least it was honest, and I wasn’t hurting anyone in the process.

  I cast my eye back over to Amaya, testing her name out in my head. It suited her, with a flow to it like water over a parched tongue. She had closed her eyes again, and I felt this swell of relief looking at her, knowing she was going to be all it took to get my family off my back for a while. Those contracts would need to be iron-clad and top-secret, but I knew I could pull them up and make them work. A whole year married to a woman I barely knew. It was going to be interesting, no doubt about that.

  I would move her in with me as soon as I could. That was going to be fun. I couldn’t remember precisely what we’d gotten up to the night before, but judging by the state of the room and the marks I kept finding on my body—a love bite on my neck, nail marks on my back—I would assume it was pretty fucking special. I was looking forward to making new memories with her in that regard.

  Well, I had told her that sex was up to her, and I certainly wasn’t going to push anything past what she was comfortable with. But if she’d found me attractive enough to duck out of that party and spend the whole night having crazy sex with me, that had to imply there was something about me she liked. I was pretty sure that with having her around all the time, I would be able to figure out precisely what that was. The thought of seducing her, of unpicking that uptight worldview of hers just the way I had last night, was enough to put a smile on my face. We were married, after all, and what was more natural than a husband and wife sharing intimacy like that?

  I turned to look out the window, at the sky whipping by outside. I was already starting to feel better, the hangover dropping away as my brain kicked into high gear, and a plan began to take shape inside my head. I liked nothing more than having a project to focus on, and this would be one of the most ambitious I’d ever taken on in my life. I needed to be on my game in a way I
never had been before to make sure not a hint of the truth slipped out around my family. And to think, I could go visit them without having to worry about getting set up against my will or finding myself backed into a conversation about when I was going to settle down. It was done already. I was married. I was looking down the barrel of a whole year without their probing questions, and I had to admit, it felt good.

  When we landed, her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at me nervously.

  “What now?” she asked as she stretched. I knew there would be a car waiting for us outside, and I was ready to take her wherever she needed to go.

  “Come on, give me your address, and we’ll drive over there.” I got to my feet and offered her a hand. She took it and stood up, and suddenly, we were only an inch or two away from each other. I looked down at her mouth but restrained myself from leaning in to kiss her. For now, at least.

  6

  As the car pulled into the spot outside my condo, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. What the hell was this guy going to make of my tiny little place?

  Jolene was staying at the home, had been for the couple of days I was out of town, so at least I wouldn’t have to explain her presence there to him, which was a relief. Still, this guy had more money than anyone I’d ever met before in my life. He was going to think I lived in a hovel compared to whatever palace he stayed in.