Bargaining with the Bride (5 page)

“You’re not?” He said lazily, and then flipped to the first page of his Nancy Drew journal. “I find your lack of faith disturbing. Regardless, I spent the afternoon devising these questions in order to ensure our believability as a couple. They’re designed to prepare us for a lifetime of knowing each other.”

“And you set us up for this lifetime of love in one afternoon?” Fat chance. Still, he looked so earnest. She didn’t have it in her to tell him no. “Well, shoot.” She held in her sigh as she spun her engagement ring around her finger, staring down at her cocktail as if willing it to be magically refilled.

“What was your reputation in college?” he asked.

“Studious.”

“What is your favorite meal?”

“Meatloaf,” she answered again.

“I refuse to believe that,” he said dryly.

“It’s true.”

“A likely story. Anyway, who is your celebrity crush?”

“Stephen Colbert.”

He paused for a moment, staring at her, “The fake newscaster?”

“I think smart is sexy,” she shrugged.

He scanned the paper, and then continued, “When is your birthday?”

“You don’t know my birthday?”

“I’m your boss, not your party planner.”

She answered on a sigh. “April 19th. And yours is February 6th. I know that. Because I care.”

He continued on for what felt like hours. All through dinner. Through three refills of her drink. On and on and on. The place was basically a ghost town by the time she’d hit the bottom of her fourth cocktail, her throat dry from answering all of his questions. And still he went on.

“How old are you?” He was as bright and bushy as when he’d started, but she swayed where she sat, ready to give out from the mental exhaustion of his inane inquisition.

“Rude,” she mumbled, sucking on her drink until it made an awful suckling noise.

“Just answer.”

“Twenty-six.” She yawned.

“What’s your favorite movie?”

“
Dirty Dancing
.” It took her a minute to realize what she’d said. In fact, she might not have realized it at all if his eyes hadn't lit up when he’d heard her answer.

“I knew it. Get your coat.” He tossed money on top of their check. He couldn’t be bothered to hide his smug grin.

“Well, it’s only
one
of my favorite movies. I have many,” she argued as she followed him out into the parking lot.

“Tell yourself whatever you like. In the end, we both will know that you’re a filthy liar. I won that contest.” He opened the door for her again, but she was too distracted by her mistake to notice.

“You did not. You lied too, I could tell.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited from him to climb into the car with her.

After he joined her, he turned and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, please. I was totally right about your favorite food being fillet mignon. You always do this thing where you clear your throat then get all alpha dog on somebody when you lie. I’ve seen you do it in meetings hundreds of times. You have a serious tell.”

“You have no proof.” Even as he said it, she could hear that alpha tone grating on the edge of his words.

She smirked. “I don’t need it. I have the victory in my heart.”

They sat in silence for a little while as Garret wound around the quiet country streets on the way back to Rachael’s house.

She reached for the radio, but everything looked so shiny and newfangled that she was worried she’d accidentally press a self-destruct button.

When they’d rounded the corner to her street, he cleared his throat and said, “You know, there are other questions we need to discuss—”

“You asked for a complete lineage of my family and for my complete medical history. What on earth could we
still
need to go over?”

He ignored her question and stared ahead at the road. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to rush into the unpleasantness, but I don’t really see any other way around it.”

“Unpleasantness?”

He parked his car in the middle of her driveway and unfastened his seatbelt, turning to look her full in the face, “We’ll have to know about each other. You know,
sexually
.”

“My family doesn’t do medieval bedding ceremonies. I think we’ll be okay.” She tried to brush the question off, but inside a knife twisted at his words. Knowing each other sexually equated to “unpleasantness” for him?

Sure, it might be a little weird, considering their relationship, but
unpleasant
seemed so…harsh. It certainly the worst thing they could be doing. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less “unpleasant” it seemed.

When he spoke again, she found herself focusing on his chiseled lips, suddenly hyper-aware of his every movement.

“People aren’t shy,” he said. “We’ll have to touch. We’ll have to act like we’re used to touch
ing
. You can’t cringe away from me every time I reach for you.” He rested a hand on her forearm and the last thing she wanted to do was flinch away. His skin was hot, and rough, and gentle.

Could he feel the way gooseflesh rose when he’d touched her? Could he tell the way her heart already sped up in her chest?

Garret leaned back in his seat, staring up through the sunroof for a moment before turning to her again. He was handsome, really. Much more handsome than she’d noticed before. And there was something else. His smile was sort of crooked. Not even in that practiced way that some guys had. It was genuine, and oh-so-charming.

But most of all, it was
hot
.

She blinked up at him, knowing that he was surprised that she hadn’t shrunk from his touch. Then again, maybe it was time someone tested the great scientist’s hypotheses.

Maybe that will show him how unpleasant I can be.

She shook the thought away, grateful she hadn’t said it aloud. Somehow, she didn’t think that would have come out right. Still, he did deserve a little baiting, and she was right here…

“Well, why don’t we just try it, then? Just to get a head start. I should warn you, though. I prefer to run before I walk,” she said.

“Are you propositioning me?” He looked surprised, but not horrified. That was something at least.

“No, don’t be stupid. I meant we could try
kissing
.” She was just drunk enough for her mind to feel like it was the greatest idea she’d had all night long. And his mouth did look full. And warm. And very kissable.

I’ll show him unpleasant.

She shook her head. There had to be a way of getting that idea to make sense…

“Okay. Sure.” He shrugged, his tone matter-of-fact as ever. Her heartbeat jumped to an alarming pace as he leaned closer and closer, his lips only inches from her own. She could feel the heat of him; smell the spicy muskiness of his cologne.

She closed her eyes, but just as their noses brushed together and they tilted in opposite directions to connect their mouths, her elbow triggered a button and opened the secret compartment between them in the center console.

“Maybe we should try inside,” she stepped from the car before he could help her, but he still held the door to her house open for her as she crossed the threshold. It was awkward and kind of exciting having him there. He was a fake husband and already he was more real than her real fiancé had been. Go freaking figure.

She sat on the sofa and patted the space beside her, inviting him to join her.

He sat down politely, and then turned to face her.

“So, I guess we just…” She started, but his hand had already cupped her jawline, and she noticed what a deep, rich blue his eyes were as his face grew closer to her by the minute, his lips finally coming to rest upon her own.

The current of his kiss, of his touch, was like a lightning bolt, traveling down her throat, coiling around her spine, and coursing between her thighs. Maybe he thought she’d back away, but the velvet of his lips was hardly something she planned on escaping any time soon.

Instead, she pulled in his warm bottom lip, flicking her tongue over the space of his skin before deepening the kiss further, pushing into his mouth to taste him. God, where did he learn to kiss like this? Moreover, how did her intense, determined boss ever find the time to hone this kind of skill?

She inched closer, draw in equal measures by the mystery and the touch and she wondered for the first time if she should be the one getting to know him better instead of the other way around.

It was so good. Too good to stop. The best kiss of her entire life.

And then it was over.

His eyes opened, and her heart sunk as she felt his lips pulling away from hers, the taste of his sweet, minty breath still on her mouth.

But then there was another surge of electricity as his lips parted against hers again, harder and more demandingly than he had before. The power of his kiss had her falling backward, onto her back as he continued to deepen the kiss, greeting her tongue with his own as they swirled around each other, the hard muscles of his body pinning her down. His chest pressed against hers, and the sound of their hearts melded together like primal drums.

His fingers abandoned her jawline to weave between her locks, tugging gently on her curls until her bun was completely unraveled. But then, just as she fully surrendered herself to the kiss, it was all over.

He pulled away, pushed to standing, and then strode quietly toward the door.

“I have to go,” he said calmly, “I’m sorry.”

“Garret?” She panted, and he turned, his face a half in shadow. His lips were red where she’d nibbled on them, and she was suddenly overcome by the urge to cross the room and pull him back toward the sofa.

Before she could act on her instincts, he said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Then, he swung the door shut behind him without another word, and she listened to his car drive away into the night.

G
arret sped
the whole way home.

He thought he'd laid his plans out so well, accounted for every variable and constant. But this...

This was much more than he'd bargained for. He thought kissing her would be like any other kiss; warm and interesting, but fine. Nothing life-changing. Pleasant.

He had been dead wrong.

The second he touched her lips, pure electricity coursed through his body. Like lightning in a bottle. It had been nearly impossible to break away from her. The instant her pale, supple skin was flush with his own? The way her breasts crushed against his chest? He was lost to her.

Which, if he was honest with himself, was as perplexing as it was intriguing. He’d been in countless relationships, but could never recall feeling this way before. Then again, no woman had ever sighed against his lips the way Rachael did. No one had felt as good as Rachael did in his arms…

It was possible, likely even, that this was a huge breakthrough in his research. After all, there was a reason people said there was no such thing as platonic friendship between men and women. True, he’d noticed Rachael before tonight, whenever her skirts clung to her thighs or her blouse hugged her in just the right way. But tonight? It was like she’d been a different person all together.

Out of her business attire, her soft blond curls cascaded around her face and whenever he looked at them he imagined wrapping one of those ringlets around his finger. Or weaving his hands between the locks and tugging gently…

He rolled down the window, welcoming a blast of chilled evening air. Maybe this was a breakthrough, but somehow it felt a lot more like a serious, gaping flaw in his logic. Even worse, he was beginning to wonder if this entire bet had been one colossal mistake.

He pulled into his driveway, locked the car, and then plodded into his town house. When he opened the door, he heard a dull thud and the tinkling of glass as the door connected with something that had been left in its path. He flicked on the light and found a brown moving box labeled “fragile” sitting in the foyer.

Damn movers.

He tapped out a message to Deanna, instructing her of the best time to pick up the rest of her things, then circled into the bedroom. As far as he could tell, she’d gotten everything else. Of course, the one thing he’d hoped she’d take with her, she’d left behind.

On top of the polished oak dresser sat the letter she’d written two days before. Since then, he hadn’t seen her, but he’d probably read her note more times than he’d spoken with her in the last month. Slowly, he re-opened the letter and reads the words over again.

Garret,

I know that leaving a message with your secretary is probably a better way of getting in touch with you than this, but I couldn’t bear to say the words out loud. I have to go and I think you know that. I can’t live like this—not knowing if you’ll come home or getting messages from your personal assistant that she found you asleep at your desk again. Nobody could live like this.

You deserve to be loved, but I deserve that too. I wish you the best, truly.

Sincerely,

Deanna

He stared around the room. Yes, every last remnant of her was gone. Time to start fresh yet again. He glanced at the note, then crinkled it into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner of the room.

After stripping off his clothes and changing into sweats, he lay on his bed, cell phone in hand, thinking. Someday someone would understand how much the company meant to him. What the research would do for humanity. Wasn’t that more important than one relationship in the grand scheme of things? Maybe if they’d had his research sooner, his parents might have…

He pushed the childish thought away and tossed his phone in the air. Deanna was gone and the best thing to do was to focus on the present. He had to do something about Rachael. Had to make a decision about how to proceed. Had to look into this, study it…fix it. Fix the way his heart practically beat out of his chest when he thought about that kiss.

One thing is for certain. I’m not going to get anywhere just laying here.

He shoved up from his bed and paced the house, careful not to wake his sleeping pug, and collected every employee manual from his file cabinets and every ounce of research he had on his project. There had to be some guidance in there. Some small nugget of how to proceed with Rachael.

But there was exactly nothing. Nothing at all. He had never been one for deterring office romance so long as both parties behaved responsibly, and while there were some bylaws for office involvement, they only pertained to break-ups.

Knowing himself, he never thought there would be a need for rules involving entanglements with upper management. Maybe his brother, Brooks, might have needed them, but he was hardly ever in a relationship long enough to bother with bylaws. He would already have been broken up by the time he finished reading the paragraph.

Brooks...

He had to talk to someone about his predicament, and sadly he could only think of one option. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket before thumbing through the numbers. The co-owner of his company might have a few things to add, and though he wasn't keen on telling his brother the situation on the whole, he might have a few words of wisdom.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed the little "talk" button and held the phone to his ear.

The line clicked to life after the second ring, but rather than his brother's gruff tone, a breathy female voice greeted him. "Mr. Adams' phone."

"Could I speak with Brooks, please?"

"May I ask whose calling?" She replied in a practiced voice, though she was clearly restraining a serious case of the giggles. And that's when he recognized the voice. Of course. Brooks’ secretary.

He heard the rumble of his brother's voice from the background and this time the woman did laugh. Well, at least that told him as much as he needed to know about the intra-company dating policy.

"Garret," Brooks answered, a trill of female laughter still sounding softly behind him. “How are you?” There was a click and then whooshing of wind and cars passing on the street.

"Am I catching you at a bad time?"

Brooks sighed. "No, this is perfect. She's been here all week and I can't figure out a way to ask her to leave. She rearranged my furniture, man."

"Too bad." Normally he might have laughed at his brother’s complete indignation, but he was too caught up. If they could just get to the point—

"Hey, I've seen you freak out about much worse. Remember the girl? Carla or something? Who flipped at the company party?” Brooks said.

"Cindy. And she was only mad because it was her birthday," he winced. That was bad, but not the worst. The worst was when she'd left after shredding all of his lab reports, screaming about his work habits at the top of her lungs. "But, as much as I love dredging up my romantic failures, that's not why I called."

At least not entirely...

"Oh? Shoot." Brooks said.

How to go about asking the question? Brooks couldn't say a word about intra-office dating, but it definitely wasn't something he felt like discussing with his sibling. Hell, he still hadn’t told him that Deanna had left. So he stuck to the semi-almost-kind-of version of the truth.

"I'm having trouble with an experiment and I need a secondary opinion," he said.

There was momentary silence, and then Brooks said, "I'm flattered you'd ask, but I think you and I both know you're barking up the wrong tree there. I'm just the pretty face to put on your ingenious science."

"Just hear me out, okay? Say, hypothetically, you had a result that you didn't expect. As if you'd accounted for all possible results, and then there was a new complication. What would you do?"

"Aren't you supposed to, I don't know, revise your hypothesis or something?" He could hear the confusion in Brooks’ voice, but Garret nodded all the same.

"Or terminate the experiment," Garret said.

“I thought that was only if it became self-aware.”

“You watch too many movies,” Garret said.

"Okay, well,” the whooshing of cars filled the line again, and then Brooks asked, “How important are the results to you? Can you get them another way?"

Garret thought on that for a long moment. The "results" were important to him. More important than he'd realized before. And if it was a choice between revising his hypothesis and getting rid of the project all together...

"Thanks for your help, man. I owe you," Garret said, his mind whirring at a million miles an hour.

"That doesn't really—" Brooks started, but Garret cut him off.

"Hey, I have to go. I really appreciate the advice."

"Yes, as always, I'm sure I've been a fountain of wisdom," Brooks said goodbye, confusion still coating every word, but Garret didn't have time to explain himself. He could only act. After all, there was so much to do and so little time...

It was all so clear to him now. He was going about everything so incorrectly, focusing on his feelings rather than the final result. Rachael was his friend and she needed him, but he needed her too. This was an experiment, an effort to gain results and improve the company.

With anything else, this was the stage where he would completely immerse himself in his work. He’d set limitations for his involvement, but in order for the business to succeed, he couldn’t give up now. On the contrary, now was the time to press the boards.

Fully embrace the biosphere.

He just had to do it before Rachael had the chance to refuse.

He stalked into his living room and roused his snoring pug.

"Tesla," He said, and the dog stared up at him lazily. "Get your ball. We're going on an adventure."

B
arking
.

Unmistakably, it was the sound of barking. She sat bolt upright in her bed, breath coming in shallow bursts. How the hell had a dog gotten into her house? How big could it be? How ferocious?

Why couldn’t it have been a robber or some sort of crazed salesperson? Anything, anything other than a dog. She slowed her breathing and tried to find her phone. The barking was distant, at least. That would give her some time, even if she felt like she was in the part of the horror movie where everyone in the audience is screaming for the hero not to walk through that door.

Grappling through the sheets, she felt for the cool, glass square that was her smartphone. With a sigh of relief, she pressed the power button, only to be greeted by…nothing. At all. A black screen stared back at her as she pressed the button over and over again, hoping for a miraculously different result.

Nothing.

She couldn't call animal control, or any of her neighbors. Her charger was in the living room, but who knew if she'd be alive by the time she got there if Cujo was on the prowl.

Then again, what choice did she have? She eased into the hall, looking before she went as though she were crossing the street. All clear.

The stairs creaked as she tip toed down them, but the barking didn't get closer or louder. A tiny triumph. That was something.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, she took a quick survey of her surroundings. The barking was coming from the far room, the room where Lance used to pretend to be dying. Now that she was in the living room, there was a good bit of space to work with.

The phone cord was so close, glowing on her bay window sill like the golden monkey in the temple of doom. She darted for it, her salvation.

When it was finally in her hands, she could have cried from relief.

That was, until she saw that she was only holding half the cord. The other half was still connected to the wall, frayed where the wire had been chewed through.

Then she felt like crying for an entirely different reason.

Well, at least it had been a good life. There was nothing left to do but take a deep breath and meet the reaper now. So long, farewell,
alvederzane
, good-bye.

She inhaled once, then again, trying her hardest not to hyperventilate, and with a resignation only akin to the end of epic movies, she started striding cautiously toward her kitchen, marching into the forbidden forest to face Voldemort.

A rush of air swept past her bare leg as her foot crossed the threshold, and she stepped back, but it was too late. A booming male voice shouted, "Tesla, no!"

Tiny talons clawed at her legs, hopping up and landing on her calves. She inched away, but the pug chased her, apparently thinking she was luring him into a game. Her voice caught in her throat and she looked around for the male voice, only to find Garret standing in front of her stove, pan in hand, watching as the pug chased her.

She edged into the kitchen and leapt onto a kitchen chair to avoid the scratching. She batted the beast away with her foot, but it continued to pursue her, shrieking its barks between ragged, congested-sounding breaths.

"Sorry, I've got him," Garret slid open the glass doors leading to her meager back yard and the little wrinkly-faced, snub-nosed monster trotted out to loose his havoc upon nature. It was only when she heard the light thud of the door sliding closed that she finally released a measured breath.

She glanced from Garret to her stool and then back again. What was the best way to rectify the sheer humiliation of this? Try to get him to play “the floor is lava?” That would probably be easier than try to explain why she was a grown woman with a mortal fear of a pint-sized pug.

Then again, maybe she wasn’t the one with the explaining to do. Why the hell was Garret here? With his dog? On a Saturday morning, no less. In her house. With no warning.

She crossed one leg over the other, all too aware of how scant her pajamas were. In a few minutes, she’d make an excuse to go upstairs and change out of her boy shorts and tank top, but for right now she had a few mysteries to unravel.

For example, her stuff seemed to have gained new friends overnight. Foreign spatulas and knife sets rested on her counter tops. There was an apron slung over the pantry door. Like more than one person lived there. Come to think of it, hadn't she spied a TV in her living room?