I can’t deny that it’s been nice to get to know John better, too. Most nights of the week, I stay late, and he stays in his own office until the whole place clears out. Only when there’s nobody else in the building—per my request, since the last thing I want people thinking is that I’m just some bimbo who slept her way into a job—does he come and find me, usually working next to me at the bench until I’m satisfied my work is done for the evening.
Sometimes we do other things on the bench, after the work is finished. More reasons I don’t want any of our coworkers to know the exact nature of our relationship.
But I still haven’t taken the ring off. And neither has he, I’ve noticed.
It’s raised more than a few eyebrows around the office. But at least I haven’t seen any media leaks about it yet. We seem to have lucked out in terms of avoiding the paparazzi’s attention. Part of me knows it’s only a matter of time before someone sees us together or notices John’s ring finger and starts to ask questions.
But for the moment, I’m just trying to do what John suggested after that first night out together—our first date, kind of. You can let yourself enjoy this. And I’ve been trying to.
The sex, at least, has been off the fucking charts. He seems to know my body even better than I know it myself. He’s able to draw out my desire, taunt and tease me until I’m practically screaming to come, and when he finally gives me that release, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
Last night, for example, bent over the workbench where I’m working dutifully now… The memories are hot enough to make my face flush.
“Is it too hot in here?” Daniel calls across the room, making me blush again for an entirely different reason. “I can turn the air up.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” I mumble, and turn back to my work, trying my best to stay focused on it, and not on memories of how good it felt when John knelt at the edge of the table and ran his tongue up my inner thighs, one after the next, teasing, tasting, until his tongue finally reached my pussy lips, parted and explored them slowly, until I was gasping so loudly I’m surprised the night security guard didn’t hear.
Clearly focusing is not working well today.
My phone buzzes, and I glance at it, then startle out of my seat. It’s an unknown number, but the area code is Las Vegas.
I’ve been calling and leaving voicemails at the Vegas town hall for days, after my online research into how to annul a marriage proved worthless. Everything I read told me I’d need to go back there in person, which is out of the question, at least for now. I’m too busy trying to get this big project for Pitfire out the door—it’s the first one they’ve entrusted to me. The last thing I want to do this early on is look like a flake or ask for time off—especially if I’d be taking that time off because I accidentally eloped with the CEO.
But maybe there’s a way to have this marriage annulled by mail. It won’t hurt to call them back.
I excuse myself and step out into the stairwell, which I’ve already learned is soundproof through some seriously thorough research with John, late on Wednesday night, him pinning me against the wall. Once the door shuts after me, I dial back the number, holding my breath.
“Las Vegas town hall, Valerie speaking,” answers a prim voice on the other end, and my stomach plummets.
“Hi, this is Mrs. Walloway,” I say. “I left some voicemails—”
“About the annulment process, yes. It’s quite simple, ma’am, I understand not everyone can file in person. There’s a form on our website you can print out…”
I scramble in my pocket for a piece of scrap paper and a pen to jot down notes about what she’s saying. I write down the website address, the specific form, but then her voice makes me hesitate.
“You’ll just need to mail it in to us within the next two weeks, during the the grace period for a simplified annulment. After that, I’m afraid things will get a little bit more complicated.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Two weeks. My stomach flips again, much less settled than it was earlier today. Before I knew there was a ticking clock over my head. A timeline to decide…
What? There’s no decision to be made here, not really. We made a mistake, and we need to fix it.
But part of me isn’t so sure anymore. Part of me can’t stop thinking about how good it feels when we’re together. When John has his hands all over me, his mouth on my body, his cock inside me. My cheeks flush with heat, as the lady on the other end of the phone continues to explain the process. I’m only half listening.
The rest of me is wondering if I’m starting to lose my mind, or if this really is starting to sound like a possibility.
By the time I hang up the phone, I have to lean against the wall and take some deep breaths before I can go back into the workshop and pretending everything is normal.
My phone buzzes again, startling me so badly I almost drop it. But when I check the screen, I see it’s just Lea. Lunch?
I text her back right away. Yes please. What I really need now is to talk this over with a neutral party. A friend who was there and knows exactly how this situation got so wild in the first place. She’ll talk sense into me. She’ll explain that it’s been fun to enjoy my time with John, but that I can’t go and stay married, let alone to my boss, and potentially blow up my first job in the industry.
I need to get my priorities back in order, and my best friend is just the person to help me do that. Even if she can be a bad influence on nights out, when push comes to shove, Lea’s always practical where it really counts.
With a fresh distraction in my immediate future, I push my way back into the studio, intent on grabbing my things and heading straight to lunch. I don’t make it farther than my desk, though, before a familiar face appears beside it, wearing a bright, curious smile.
“Mara! Hadn’t seen you this morning. I was wondering if you were in yet.” Bianca grins and offers me a coffee.
Bianca has been great this week too. Almost as friendly and easygoing as Daniel. Not to mention, her habit of providing caffeine for all the staff, no matter the hour of the day, has certainly saved my sanity more than once when my energy is flagging.
“Thank you.” I accept the coffee, my second of the day, and raise it toward her in a toast. “But yeah, got here early as usual.”
“You were here so late last night too, though, weren’t you?” she asks.
“No rest for the wicked,” I joke, taking a sip of the coffee. Two creamers, just the way I like it. Bianca’s got a good head on her shoulders. She notices a lot more than people give her credit for, I’ve realized. It wouldn’t surprise me if she works her way up the corporate ladder quickly. I’m surprised she went in for a secretarial job at all, considering she seems more the business major and marketing type.
Then again, she is always talking about how much she admires John, and how much she wants to learn from him. She keeps calling him a genius, too. Often enough that I worry his ego might grow out of control if he listens to her for too long.
“What time did you finally get home?” Bianca looks worried, concerned about my sleep schedule—or lack thereof—maybe.
I blush again, remembering what I was distracted by most of the second half of the evening. “Oh, I don’t know, eleven maybe?”
“John stayed late too, didn’t he?” She cocks her head, looking so innocently curious that it just makes my flush even more obvious.
I force my smile to remain steady, and clench my hands a little harder around the hot coffee cup. “I guess so,” I reply, my smile turning forced. “Excuse me for the moment, though, Bianca. I was just about to head out for lunch.”
“Oh!” Her eyes shift to my hand. My left hand, I notice. Then they dart away again. “Are you meeting someone? Your husband?”
“Just a friend,” I answer, and this time I really do manage to extract myself, grabbing my purse from the desk and bringing the coffee with me as I beeline toward the exit.
That was
close. Too close. The hairs on the back of my neck are still standing on end, my stomach churning with worry. Does she suspect something? Has she noticed that both John and I have been staying late every night this week?
Moreover, would she tell anyone else, if she did notice?
I force myself to forget about it for now. There’s nothing I can do in the meantime. And who knows, maybe this will all be a moot point soon anyway.
That’s what I need to decide now, after all.
I spend most of the drive to the restaurant going through the two competing scenarios. In one, John and I annul this marriage and continue as coworkers. And I spend every day for the next however long I’m at this company trying to forget about how it felt to be with him. Trying to forget the mind-blowing orgasms, or how hot it is to hear him call me his wife as we fuck. Trying not to think about the searing hot glances he shoots my way when nobody else is looking, glances that promise just how many filthy things he’s doing to me in his head.
Forget undressing me with his eyes. John full on fucks me with his.
And then there’s all our late-night talks over the work bench about our career goals, the plans we have for our futures. We’re surprisingly in sync, on so many things…
Stop it, I tell myself as I pull up to the restaurant. You can’t do this for real.
But my mind won’t stop playing over the other scenario. In that second one, John and I stay married. We tell people, we stop hiding and slinking around in dark corners of restaurants with discrete owners. The whole world finds out that I’m married to one of the richest, most eligible bachelors out there…
And I get to keep him. I get to keep both my job and this man. Maybe my coworkers judge me for it; maybe Daniel and Bianca won’t treat me the same way anymore, but is that a good enough reason to give up on something that could be real? Just because people might not understand or approve?
I’m torn up all over again as I stride into the restaurant and pick out Lea along the back wall, already eating an appetizer. That girl could eat most men twice her size under the table. I join her with a hug and steal one of her croquettes. “I finally heard back from Vegas,” I say by way of greeting.
“And?” Lea’s eyebrows shoot upward. I’ve kept her filled in on my progress with the annulment so far—or rather, the lack thereof until today. But I haven’t told her everything.
I haven’t kept her posted on what’s been happening between John and me, exactly.
“I can annul it, but I’d need to do it within the next two weeks in order to do it the easy way.”
“Okay. Easy way sounds good.” She picks up another croquette and bites in with enthusiasm. “Why do you look so upset, then?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering how much to tell her. But she’s my best friend. And besides, I don’t think John would be upset if I said something about us. Far from it—he wants to declare I’m his to the entire world, as he keeps saying. It’s taken all my powers of persuasion to keep him from revealing this marriage publicly just yet.
So in the end, I cave. “John and I have been hooking up,” I tell her. Then I shake my head. “No, not hooking up; not even fucking. Well… sometimes fucking.” She laughs, and my face heats up. “I just… I think maybe it could be something real. I actually like him.”
“Mara.” She fixes me with a narrowed glare. “You know I love a good wild fling as much as the next girl. And I fully approved of you letting loose for once in Vegas. But you cannot marry a guy you barely know. Not yet, anyway! If this becomes a relationship, cool, but date him and think about it for a while, y’know?”
“No, you’re right. I know. I just… He’s really into this. He wants me to be his wife.”
Her eyebrows shoot upward. “Okay, first of all, congrats on snagging the world’s most eligible bachelor so quickly. But secondly, this is still pretty worrying, don’t you think?” She tilts her head. “I mean, what’s his motivation? He never seemed like the type to be all traditional about marriage and commitment before… Although, he did have that failed engagement,” she muses.
I frown. “He had a what?”
Lea rolls her eyes. “Girl, did you not even google the mega-famous guy you’re wedded to?” She reaches for her phone, and a few taps later, I’m staring at an article about John Walloway’s “disastrous almost-marriage.” It’s dated months before we met, but still, it makes something clench in my gut, uncertainty settling in.
Am I just a rebound for him?
I stare at the girl in the grainy photo who’s throwing a suitcase full of clothes into the trunk of her car, a trail of clothing behind her leading back into the front of an expensive-looking apartment complex. I bite my lower lip. He never mentioned anything about her.
Then again, neither of us really mentioned anything about our pasts. We were too focused on the present—and in my case on the looming future ahead of us. A future we need to annul before it becomes permanent, and far too real.
“You’re right,” I murmur. “I’ll get the annulment.” But deep down, part of me wonders if I actually want it. After all, why does my chest hurt so much just saying those words? And why does it make my head throb, to think about leaving him?
I push the questions away, along with the remaining salad on my lunch plate. My appetite is long gone. “What about you, how are you doing?” I ask Lea, mostly for the distraction. But my head is pounding so much it’s hard to even pay attention to her answers.
What am I doing? I just keep asking myself, over and over again.
* * *
Back in the office, Daniel catches me staring into space beside the drill machine, my gaze focused on the wall and not on the stack of wood I should be cutting, dremmeling and preparing for assembly. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, with a smirk that makes me wonder how much he’s guessed about my moodiness lately.
But that’s just my paranoia talking. Nobody knows anything. Not about John and me, anyway. Maybe Daniel thinks I’m pining over my mystery husband—a husband I had to lie about because I couldn’t get that damn ring off my finger. Now, it’s loosened a little, but I still haven’t removed it.
I have to wonder what that says about my current mental state.
I tell myself it’s just because people at work would start asking too many questions if I suddenly removed the ring now. But deep down, I’m not sure. Deep down, I wonder if there’s a subconscious reason I keep this on. Or if maybe it’s just for the flash of desire I spot in John’s eyes every time he sees me, checks for the ring, and finds it still on my finger.
Part of me doesn’t want to let him go this easily, despite this mess.
So I force a smile at Daniel and I lie. “Just tired,” I say. “Long night last night.”
“You were here late, weren’t you?”
Man, does everyone in this company keep obsessive track of one another’s schedules? Still, I shrug and nod, because it’s true. I was here late. And most of the time I spent working.
A little bit of it I spent doing other things, but hey…
Daniel claps me on the shoulder, squeezing just once, but enough to reassure me that he doesn’t suspect anything. “Take it easy,” he says. “You don’t want to burn out after your first week here, after all, right?”
“You’re right,” I tell him, forcing a smile.
“Mara?” Bianca’s voice catches me off-guard. I turn and find her leaning against the doorway of the shop, arms crossed. “Mr. Walloway sent for you. He wants to talk in his office.”
“Oh, of course,” I reply, trying to defuse the sudden bright red flush that creeps over my cheeks, the pulse of desire that flares through my veins at the thought of what John might want in his office. Of what he might want to do to me right now.
It’s work, I tell myself. And it’s the middle of the day. He probably just wants normal, work-related things.
“I’ll be right there,” I add, because Bianca is squinting at me, in what I hope I’m just imagining seems
like a suspicious way. She flashes me a smile, and nods, reassuring me that any suspicion is just in my imagination.
You really do need to get more sleep, Mara, I tell myself as I wave a quick goodbye to Daniel and hand over responsibility for the drill machine to him temporarily. You’re making yourself crazy.
But when I reach the John’s office and tap tentatively on the doorframe, I’m reminded that it’s not me who’s making me crazy. Not entirely.
It’s him.
He’s dressed, as usual, in a perfectly fitted suit. He has the top button undone, and the casual glance he flashes in my direction when I enter the office quickly shifts into a heated one, his gaze catching fire as it sweeps over my body, lingering on my chest, my hips, my legs, in a way that tells me without any need for words exactly what he’s thinking. Exactly how much he wants to grab me and strip me down right here and now.
“Mara,” he says, and just that, just my name on his lips, is enough to melt a sweet spot between my thighs, get me wet and hungry and wanting.
I shut the door behind me, before he even needs to ask.
He doesn’t wait for more of a response. He crosses his office in two strides and catches me around the waist, pinning me against the door with an audible thud before his hands wrap around my neck, cupping my chin and drawing me up into a deep, slow, hard kiss.
When we break apart, it’s all I can do to stay on my feet and breathing. But I manage, with only the faintest hitch in my breath, and it makes me proud to know I can withstand this kind of temptation and torture in the middle of the workday.
“Was that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I ask with an arched eyebrow, suppressing a smile.
John’s gaze sharpens. “I want you to come away with me this weekend.”
I tilt my head. “Where?”
“Not far. Just a little ways outside of town.”
My stomach flips. Does he want to take me on a trip? Some kind of vacation? I press my lips together, uncertain, but he anticipates my next question.
“It won’t interfere with any of your work, I promise.”
Overnight Wife Page 8
