A Marriage of Convenience

Copyright © 2012
by Blushing Books® and
Vicki Blue

All rights reserved.  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Blue, Vicki

Marriage of Convenience, A

eBook ISBN:
978-1-60968-729-8

Cover Design: by ABCD Graphics

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This book is intended for adults only.  Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.  Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

Jillian Foley looked down at the bouquet in her lap. The irises were already beginning to wilt in the late summer heat. They could use some water, she thought. She could use some water, too. At her feet, Sabrina stirred in her baby carrier. Jillian rocked the carrier with her toe and the baby settled and fell back to sleep. Jillian felt envy over the infant’s oblivion to the world around her.

She wished she could shut out the world so easily. She wished she could just go to sleep and shut out the surroundings. The hall of the courthouse was stuffy. The clerk they’d seen upon arrival said the air conditioning was broken. Austin’s mother had instantly started complaining.

“You should have that sort of thing fixed right away,” she chided. “The comfort of your visitors should be paramount, especially since our taxes pay your salary.”

Jillian knew what the clerk was thinking. No one asked you to come here, lady. Jillian wished the clerk would just say it so she could respond, “Believe me, if I could be anywhere else but here I would.”

Austin came and sat back down beside her.

“There’s two more couples ahead of us and then we’re up,” he said. We’re up. Jillian thought that was a pretty fitting comment from a guy who used to play minor league ball. She wondered if he also felt he was about to step up to the plate and hit one big strike.

“Your flowers are on the floor!” Martha Bellaford stomped over and snatched the bouquet up. “I paid for these, young lady. You could be more grateful!” At Jillian’s feet the baby began to fidget and whimper.

“Did I wake my grandbaby? Did I? Did I?” The older woman cooed the words at the baby as she knelt and pinched the baby’s cheeks. Sabrina began to bawl. Jillian wanted to scream. Now the baby would cry through the entire wedding. She leaned over, undid the harness around the infant’s tiny chest and picked her up. Sabrina could cry for both of them.

“Give her to me. I’ll take her,” Austin’s mother demanded.

“No.” Jillian said resolutely and shot the woman a look that she hoped would remove any doubt about how much she despised her.

“Austin….” Martha said, pointing to Jillian as if she expected her son to snatch the child from her arms and hand it over. But this time, he came through for Jillian.

“Don’t push it, Mom,” he said. “This is hard enough on her as it is, OK?”

It was the first time that Austin had acknowledged what Jillian wondered he even realized, that she did not want to marry him. That she was only doing this because she and Sabrina was about to be kicked out of her small apartment after she’d lost her job waiting tables and the Burrito Barn. Her next student loan fund wouldn’t be available for another two months. She was scared. When Austin had come to her and told her that his mother had found out that he’d fathered a child and was about to strip him of his inheritance if he didn’t marry the mother, she’d felt stunned and trapped.

“It was a one night stand,” she’d said when he showed up on her doorstep. She still wondered how he’d found her; did he even know her last name? Later she’d learn that he’d tracked her down through Toby, the manager of the O’Kelly’s where she’d been working the night Austin came in with some of his friends.

“I know,” he said, and explained that this was a business arrangement. Nothing would be expected but to keep up the pretense of a marriage for a year or so, long enough to appease his mother who claimed he’d ‘disgraced’ her by fathering a child out of wedlock.

“Why should I marry you?” she’d asked hotly. “Not that I care, but you haven’t been here for the pregnancy, the delivery, anything! I’ve done everything, paid for everything..”

“Look, I didn’t know until just recently. One of the guys who was with me that night…you two have a common acquaintance that’s a friend of one of your more talkative girlfriends. She told him you were pregnant by a one night stand and the baby was born in February. She said it was by a guy named Austin. I was going to come around and help. I just wanted to do it in a way that mama wouldn’t find out….”

His voice faded. He looked embarrassed. He looked up, looked around

“Hey,” he said. “You need this, too. I saw the eviction notice on your door, Jillian. Let me be in your life and Sabrina’s. I want to be. We’ll stay together for a year. I’ll make sure you’re compensated. After that….”

“Foley-Bellaford?” Jillian startled as their names were called. Sabrina was fretting and sucking on her little fist.

“What a beautiful baby,” the clerk said as they walked into the makeshift wedding chapel of the courthouse. “How old is she?”

“Two months,” Jillian said.

“Well congratulations,” the clerk said. She turned to Austin. “Are you the proud papa?”

“Yes,” Austin said, and smiled at Sabrina. When he’d first met his daughter, he’d seemed almost afraid of her. But now that he’d satisfied himself that she would not break he picked her up on his own and Jillian often found him just marveling at her while she slept.

“I’m the grandmother.” Martha Bellaford’s nasal tone disrupted the pleasant memory she was trying to have.

“Any more guests coming?” the clerk asked. Jillian knew what was implied. The clerk was curious as to whether any of her family might be attending her wedding.

“No,” Jillian said. She’d been on her own since thirteen. If her parents didn’t care she was now a mother, it logically followed that they wouldn’t care that she’d become a wife.

The ceremony began. A portly female judge with a kind face and a shock of unruly white hair read the vows. “Do you, Austin Wentworth Bellaford take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love, honor and cherish her through sickness and in health, through times of happiness and travail, until death do you part?

He did. Jillian could feel his eyes on her but she could not meet them. She was still clutching the baby, and glanced up at him as he said, “I do.”

“Do you, Jillian Rose Foley, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor, and cherish him through sickness and in health, through times of happiness and travail, until death do you part?”

Jillian crossed her fingers under the hem of Sabrina’s gown. She may have made some mistakes in her life, but she was not entirely comfortable promising to spend the rest of her life with someone when they both knew it was a temporary arrangement.

“I do,” she said, looking not at Austin but at Sabrina. She was doing this for her child, after all. Her heart felt heavy. The things we do for our kids, she thought.

They were pronounced man and wife.

“You may kiss the bride,” the clerk said. Austin leaned in. Jillian had not kissed him since they’d had sex that one night. Both had been tipsy. He’d waited for her to get off work. They’d gone out. It had just been for a drink, or so she’d thought. But she’d felt an attraction to him. She still felt it. She let him kiss her on the lips.

Martha stepped up and interrupted the kiss. “I’ll take the baby now,” she said, her arms outstretched. She had a calculating, satisfied expression on her face that made Jillian nervous.

“She’s fine with me,” she informed the older woman.

Her new mother-in-law scowled.   “You need to sign the certificate, dear,” she said tightly, forcing a smile.

“Her father can hold her while I do,” Jillian said. She handed the baby to Austin. He took her, more confident now than he’d been when she’d first placed the baby in his arms just a few weeks earlier.

“It’s OK, mom,” he said. “I need to get used to this anyway.”

“Yes, you’d better get used to it. You’re not going to be a part-time father, Austin. You’re a fulltime father, and your child’s well-being must always come first.” Martha Bellaford said, but she was looking at Jillian as she said it. Jillian didn’t respond. She walked away.

“Try not to let her get to you,” Austin said.

“It might be easier if she didn’t try to act like my child is her child,” Jillian said.

“Our child,” Austin corrected. “But she’ll get the message.”

“Do you promise?” Jillian looked directly at him now. “I’m not stupid, Austin. I know part of the reason your mother forced you to marry me is because she wants to get her hooks in Sabrina. But I’ll fight you both to the death before I let her take her.”

Austin looked taken aback. “Look, Jillian,” he said quietly. “If those are her intentions, she’s not shared them with me.” He glanced at his mother, who was across the room talking on her cell phone. She was frowning and glancing in their direction. “My mother is very controlling. I told you that. But we’re married now and that means you and Sabrina come first.”

“Until it’s over, right?” she said.

“We’re always going to be linked through the baby,” he said. “You know that. And I told you when I…proposed…that I wasn’t going to force you to stay with me. But my family name is important to Mom, especially since my father passed. I know it’s antiquated, but she still has old-fashioned notions about honor and responsibility and I do, too. If I’d know, Jillian, I’d have offered to help with the baby. That’s my job as a man.”

“You seem as much a mama’s boy as a man,” she said bitterly, and then sighed, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry, Austin,” she said. “That wasn’t fair. You were honest with me about this and you’re right. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend to care.”

The baby started to fret. He jiggled her awkwardly, but she stopped. Austin looked at Jillian, his face serious. “You think I’m pretending?”

She gave a sad smile. “Come on. We spent one night together and have been back in touch for a couple of months. I’m not deluding myself, Austin. After a lifetime of being abandoned, I’ve learned not to let myself get too trusting,” she said. “No one’s going to take care of us in this world. A person has to take care of themselves.”

“That’s kind of sad,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s true.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s because you’ve never had to want for anything.”  Jillian reached down and picked up the diaper bag. “Can we go?”

“Sure,” he replied. They headed for the door, but were intercepted by Martha Bellaford, who was again eyeing the baby.

“Would you like me to take the baby for the night so you two can have your first night as husband and wife together?”

“No,” Jillian said. “A shotgun wedding calls for a rapid fire honeymoon, Mrs. Bellaford. We both have to work Monday, so I think we’re going to spend the weekend fixing up the apartment.”