Not the Marrying Kind (6 page)

And just like that, she gave him the opportunity to outline his plan.

“Anything?”

“Within reason.” Her eyebrow raised an infinitesimal millimeter.

“You’re in luck, because I have another business proposition for you.”

“What is it?” Curiosity lit her eyes.

He took a step closer, instantly enveloped in her tempting floral fragrance, enjoying the faintest flicker of inquisitiveness in her eyes. “Simple.”

He snagged a strand of her hair, wound it around his finger, and tugged gently.

“Marry me.”

Chapter Six

Divorce Diva Daily recommends:

Playlist: “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera

Movie:
Better Off Dead

Cocktail: Knockout Punch

“You’re out of your freaking mind.” Poppy placed her palms on Beck’s chest and shoved, hard.

Considering the wall-to-wall muscle flexing imperceptibly beneath designer cotton, it was no surprise he didn’t budge.

“Just hear me out—”

“No.” She tried to back away but he had her cornered, railing at her back, lunatic at her front. “I’ll scream.”

He laughed. “Go ahead. I’m sure the gamblers fifty-four stories below will rush to your aid.”

She swore.

He laughed harder. “It’s the perfect business arrangement. I need a wife. You need money to save your sister’s business, correct?”

“I don’t need money that desperately,” she muttered, wishing he’d get the hell out of her way.

He was too close, too intimidating, too
everything,
and she couldn’t breathe.

In the seconds it took to process his outlandish proposal, a small part of her wondered what it would entail.

“A significant amount of money could make your problems go away.”

She glared at his throat in response, annoyed when the sliver of bronzed skin visible between his lapels made her wonder if he was that tanned all over.

“How much do you need to get Party Hard into the black?”

Damn him for his persistence. Against her better judgment he’d piqued her interest. Hearing those words in the same sentence—
Party Hard, into the black
—sounded pretty damned good.

What if she could not only save Sara’s business, but set her up so she wouldn’t have to rush back to work? What if Sara could take her time recovering in the knowledge she had enough money to cover overheads, costs, and then some? She knew Sara worried about the business, even if she said she didn’t. Her sis had always been an overachiever, setting a good example to make up for the emotional shortfalls of their parents. Failure didn’t sit well with Sara, never had, and the fact her marriage had
failed
had been the catalyst for an underlying chemical imbalance they’d never known about.

“How much?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars.” She threw it out there as a taunt, wanting to shock him as much as he’d shocked her with his bizarre proposal.

“Done.”

“What?” Dread slithered down her spine.

He reached out and gripped her upper arms, and she was too shell-shocked to pull away. “Let me make this simple for you. Investors are angsty because of an incident that tarnished my company’s reputation recently. I need their backing for a major deal and they won’t give it because they see me as some lecherous playboy heading a den of iniquity.”

His grip eased but she didn’t move away, the sincerity in his tone getting through to her like nothing else could. Wouldn’t hurt to hear him out before she told him where he could stick his crazy offer.

“Being married to an intelligent, beautiful suburban woman will give me the respectability I need to nail this deal.” He splayed his fingers, the brush of his fingertips through the silk of her shirt setting off a static buzz. “And you get to save your sister’s business single-handedly. Win-win.”

Speechless, she shook her head.

“My deal gets done. Then we go our separate ways.”

Damn him for making it sound so logical, so easy, while she still reeled. Hotshot guys were used to wielding power and money to get what they wanted, but
marriage
? Beck Blackwood was either seriously delusional, seriously arrogant, or a staggering combination of both.

She rolled her eyes. “That’d be great publicity, throwing my own divorce party.”

He missed her sarcasm when he smiled, and his lack of superciliousness impressed. “Yeah, think how business would boom.”

“Except for the part where I need to remain
anonymous
.”

“Hey, with the amount of money you’d be depositing in your sister’s account, who cares if the whole damn town doesn’t knock on her door again?”

Good point.

“Okay, on the off chance I lose my mind and consider this for longer than one second, how exactly would it work?”

“Logistics are my forte.” She hated his triumphant grin almost as much as she hated herself for considering this.

What kind of crazy person married another for money?

Actually, when she phrased it like that, it didn’t seem so bizarre at all. People did it every day: for the security and high life money could bring. At least she’d be doing it for an altruistic cause.

But freaking
married
?

She was the least romantic person she knew and the whole white dress/man of her dreams had never been high on her to-do list. Marriages made people do dumb things—she’d seen that firsthand with her sister. As for love? Waste of time. Love faded, gave way to antipathy at best, derision at worst. Why take the risk?

She’d never met anyone who remotely piqued her interest long enough to consider falling in love, never had the ridiculous tummy free-fall depicted in chick flicks.

In a way, a business marriage would suit her purposes nicely. No fuss, no muss.

And the kicker, she would save Sara in the process.

Win-win indeed.

“I’d take care of everything. Marriage license, ceremony, reception.”

She wrinkled her nose. “We’d have to go through the charade of a reception?”

“This marriage has to look real to my investors, otherwise we’re wasting our time.” His quick look away was the first time she’d seen him anything other than one hundred percent confident in his outlandish scheme. “We can keep the ceremony quiet but the reception will have to be big.”

“How big?”

“I’m a prominent businessman and this deal I’m trying to nail will take Blackwood Enterprises nationwide.” He shrugged. “You do the math.”

If considering this zany idea didn’t make her belly churn, the thought of pretending in front of hundreds did the trick.

“You’re really serious about this?” She searched his face for answers to questions she could barely formulate.

“I don’t propose marriage to every woman I meet.” His wry grin alleviated the tension lines bracketing his mouth but did little for the wariness clouding his eyes.

She knew the feeling. Wary didn’t come close to how she was feeling. Try floundering, confused, and freaking petrified. “What about living arrangements? The legalities of terminating after a year? Appearing in public together? Would there be other functions with your investors—”

“Standard pre-nup to facilitate easy termination. As for the rest, this marriage needs to look real in every way.” His gaze locked on hers, mesmerizing and challenging, daring her to ask how real.

Heat licked her veins at the thought of how far she could go to make this marriage authentic; if she lost her mind. “I guess my assistant, Ashlee, could man the Provost office and I could consult as needed while continuing to run Divorce Diva Daily online.”

“You’d continue with that?”

“‘Course. Your cash injection isn’t going to last forever. Besides, I’d be lousy as a trophy wife.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I can see you lounging around poolside in a black bikini…thong, of course—”

“Dream on.”

“I’m doing plenty of that.” He stepped into her personal space, crowding her, bamboozling her.

She couldn’t think with him so close, let alone breathe, her senses bombarded by his nearness, his crisp aftershave, his heat. So much heat, radiating off him like a furnace and making her want to lean into him.

“You know this marriage won’t be
that
real, right?” She regretted the question the instant it slipped from her lips as his eyes flared with fire. She should’ve known better than to challenge a go-getter.

“Who are you trying to convince?” His smoldering gaze dipped to her lips. “Because from where I’m standing, making this marriage appear real in every way is my number one priority.”

Poppy couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, his preposterous proposal reverberating through her head until she wanted to bang it against the wall. He made a fake marriage sound logical, but could she really pretend to be this guy’s wife?

Beck Blackwood encapsulated everything she despised: arrogant, commanding, bossy. Being shackled to him, albeit for a good cause, would be insufferable. But she couldn’t lose out on the twenty grand for his buddy’s party, so she better couch her refusal wisely.

“Thanks for the offer, and I appreciate you discussing how this would pan out, but I’m afraid my answer’s no.”

Shock flared in his eyes before he blinked. When he reopened them, the eerily cool green almost sent a shiver of trepidation down her spine. “And I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me.”

Huh?

“I need a wife ASAP or I’m screwed. You need to protect your sister and I can help do that. Marriage is a speedy resolution for us both.”

Uh-oh. His steely stare wasn’t that of an altruistic man. It was the “You’ll do as I say or else” stare that foreshadowed a threat. Plus he didn’t mention the money to save Sara’s business. He’d said
protect.
What did he mean?

She shook her head. “Sorry. Not interested—”

“It’s quite simple. Either you marry me or I let slip your precious secret.” His silky tone raised the hairs on the nape of her neck. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want your sister to hear you’re touting divorce in her condition.”

No effing way. He was
blackmailing
her into marriage?

Red spots of rage danced before her eyes and she almost swayed, wishing she could punch him.

How many times had she seen guys like him coerce their way in and out of situations? Her dad had been a classic example, buying his way into the local country club, paying off a patient who threatened to go to the media when she wasn’t happy with his work, throwing lavish gifts at her to assuage his guilt at being a lousy dad.

His friends had been the same, too, assuming money gave them the right to control anything and anyone. It made her sick, and now she could add Beck Blackwood to the Rich Pricks Society.

Poppy dragged in several deep breaths, wisely waiting until the red spots faded before speaking. “I take it planning the party’s off the table if I refuse?”

“Smart girl.” He took a step closer and she forced her feet not to instinctively back away. “So what’s it going to be?”

“Honestly? I’m over the blackmail routine you have down-pat.” She tilted her head up to eyeball him. “So you can take your dumbass proposal and—”

He kissed her, effectively shutting her up. A novel silencing technique, one she had no intention of submitting to. But as her brain sent a snappy message to her knee—aim for the groin—a strange thing happened.

“Please,” he murmured against her mouth. “This deal is everything to me.”

She heard a hint of vulnerability beneath his surprisingly honest declaration and it resonated like nothing else. She knew the kind of desperation that made people do crazy things, was doing it for Sara in turning up here in the first place.

“I can’t—”

He coaxed her lips apart, confident and demanding and oh so delicious. There was no sweet seduction, no hesitation, as he plied her with a skill that left her breathless and reluctantly clinging to him.

She’d never been the helpless female type, taking as good as she got, but there was something about Beck’s take-charge attitude that made her weak-kneed and a little off-kilter.

His arms slid around her waist and pulled her flush against his erection at the same time his tongue invaded her mouth, sending a jolt of pure lust shooting to her core.

She shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t want this…whatever this was.

He plundered her mouth, long, hot, moist kisses that had her boneless and mindless with desire, until all she could do was sag against him, soft and pliant and wanting. So much wanting.

An eternity later his lips eased away, lingering long enough to place a surprisingly sweet kiss on the corner of her mouth.

“One last time.” He traced her bottom lip with a fingertip, the residual tingle from his kiss intensifying, as he stared at her with the determination of a guy used to getting his own way. “Marry me?”

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to tell him where he could stick his proposal.

But he’d left her no choice. Sara had been the only parent she’d ever known, and now it was Poppy’s turn to do the protecting. She owed Sara and she’d do whatever it took, including giving in to this incredibly infuriating guy.

Hating how he’d bullied her into this, hating herself for succumbing to that scintillating kiss more, she nodded, a reluctant “Yeah” tumbling from her lips a second before he claimed them again.