I pace back and forth across the hotel room, one eye on the clock. I just hung up the phone with Lina, who excitedly told me all about the dinner the babysitter made her, and how the sitter let her play dress up with princess gowns, and how Lina chased her all over the house with her toy dragon afterward. Aside from sparing a single pitying thought for our sitter, and hoping that Lina doesn’t wear her out before bedtime with her boundless energy, most of my thoughts have been caught up in distraction over Tilly.

That was the last thing Lina asked before I hung up the phone.

“What happened with Tilly?” my daughter squealed, her tone high-pitched with excitement. “Did someone buy her book? Are they going to make it real? Is she gonna be famous now?”

A stream of questions that I can’t answer. “We’ll know soon,” I told her, and then I told her goodnight.

But now, I’m all too aware of the time. It’s well past the hour we’d agreed to meet. I try to tell myself it’s a good sign. Tilly wouldn’t be so late unless something was happening. But another part of me—a part I don’t let Tilly see, since she needs me to be strong for her right now—is worried. I know Tilly is an amazing writer. Her story captivated me and Lina alike, and I’ve seen how much work she’s put into revising it, into getting better and better at her craft every day.

But the publishing industry is notoriously fickle. And there are a lot of hoops to jump through, a lot of steps you have to take on the road to publication. I can’t help worrying about what might happen if she doesn’t make any significant strides today.

Will she let it break her confidence? Will she be so worried that it will take her weeks to start writing again? I know she’ll publish a book someday—what I told her outside the convention center is true, she’s too determined to achieve this goal not to—but I want that day to be sooner than later. Selfishly, I want to save her as much suffering as possible, if I can help it.

That, and I really do believe the world needs her books.

So, I feel almost as strung out and stressed as Tilly herself must have when I finally hear the key in the lock, and watch the hotel room doorknob turn. I’m on my feet almost before she even makes it through the doorway, racing toward her, heart in my throat.

“How did it go?” I ask, and then I stop dead in my tracks as she looks up at me, her face deadpan serious.

Shit.

“Listen, Tilly,” I start right off the bat. “Whatever happened, don’t doubt that your work is important, and necessary, and really, really great.”

“I know,” she replies, still with that deadpan expression, no hint of a smile at the edges of her mouth, and my heart could crack in two, I want so badly for this to have gone well for her. But then, her eyes catch mine. I spot a hint of a sparkle in them. A spark of something like mischief.

Before I can process what’s happening, she strides across the room, her whole face shifting, a bright smile blooming across her face as she pulls a piece of paper from her purse and slams it against my chest. It’s a large envelop, with stiff, formal, expensive-looking paper jutting out the top.

“What…?” I start to say, and she cuts me off with a bright, happy laugh.

“I sold it!”

My jaw drops. I stare at her in shock, eyes huge. Even knowing how great she is, I’d also been lectured by her ad nauseam for the past few months about how difficult publishing is, how hard it is to break into. I wanted today to be great for her, but even I didn’t dare hope for her to leap straight to this. “Tilly!” I exclaim, when I finally find my voice again. “That’s… Holy shit, that’s fantastic!” I catch her in a tight hug and pull her against me, not caring that I crush the papers she’s holding against my chest between us.

She laughs and struggles free from my arms, waving the papers. “Whoa, hang on, don’t wrinkle it! This is my first contract.” She waves it in front of my face and I snatch it from her, eager to see it.

“We need to frame this,” I tell her as I draw it out of the envelope. “What happened?”

In a voice breathless from excitement, she tells me the whole story, from start to finish. When she reaches the part where my ex showed up and tried to sabotage her in front of the illustrator she’s idolized forever, my heart nearly stops. But she explains how she stood up to Tricia, and Tricia backed down, and I find myself grinning.

Tricia can be intimidating as hell. But Tilly? She’s on a whole other level. Because when Tilly decides to fight for something, it’s not for any made-up, delusional reasons. She fights for what’s right, for what’s fair. That’s why she’ll always win, no matter how big a bully she needs to face down to get there.

I shake my head slowly, grinning. If there’s any woman I want by my side in any fights that roll around in the course of life, it’s Tilly.

Then she explains how the illustrator loved her pages. The illustrator, Jessica, met with some editors she’d worked with before over lunch. One of them loved the story idea, and since she’d worked with Jessica before, she knew the art would be just as fantastic as the concept. After the afternoon panels, the editor took Jessica and Tilly out to dinner, and by the end of dinner, the editor put an offer on the table.

“That’s not even the best part,” Tilly exclaims by the time she reaches this part of the story.

My eyebrows climb higher. “You just sold your first book, Tilly. You’re achieving the dream you’ve had ever since you were a little girl. How could that not be the best part?”

She laughs. “Because.” Her grin is so wide, I’m pretty sure she could infect the whole world with happiness right now if we unleashed her out into it. “They didn’t just want to buy one book. The editor liked the idea so much, and she just had a recent series writer retire, that she wants to make it into a whole series of picture books! Each with a different character in the same world, and all with Jessica as my illustrator. A three book contract!”

She flings her arms around me again and I pick her up off the ground, spinning her around in a full circle, laughing along with her, happier than I can remember being in a long, long time. “Tilly, that’s incredible. This is amazing.” I set her back down on her feet and gaze down into her eyes, reaching up to cup her cheek. “You deserve this, Tilly. You’ve worked so hard for so long.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she murmurs, her eyes flickering to my lips and back. “You’ve been so strong for me, supporting me while I work on the book, giving me the courage to walk away from my old job and all the mind games.”

“I never doubted you,” I tell her, cupping her cheek with one hand, my fingertips grazing her cheekbones. “Not once.”

“I did,” she admits, swallowing hard. Her smile broadens. “But that never stopped me from fighting. You’re right—I’m stubborn as hell. And it’s gotten me here.”

“It’s just one of the many things I love about you,” I reply. “You’re the strongest fighter I know.”

She smirks. “Don’t you forget it. And be careful what you wish for with strong stubborn girls,” she adds with a wink.

“Believe me, I know exactly what it is I’m wishing for.” And then I can’t resist anymore. I lean down to steal a quick kiss, which turns into a long kiss, both of us losing ourselves in each other, arms entwined. I hear a soft patter, and realize she’s dropped her contract onto the desk beside us. I take advantage of that to scoop her into my arms and carry her backwards toward the bed. Her knees hit it and she tumbles backward, pulling me with her. I prop myself up on one elbow, gazing down at her and tracing my hand down her curves to her waist, my fingertips exploring the edges of her hips.

“Now, famous author-to-be,” I say, my voice dipping low and hot with desire. I tilt my head, considering her, and she lifts her chin, gazing right back up at me, as eager for me as I am for her. “I’m going to need you to do something for me.”

She leans back on her elbows, her body a curved question mark. My gaze dips lower to take in her outfit. The sparkly skirt she picked out, one that just walked the line between professional and sparkly-princess, because with or without her old job, my girl is still a princess at heart. And above that, her loose-flowing, professional top, with a glittery nametag stuck to one lapel. She looks effortlessly sexy, the way she always does. Rocking a kind of hot librarian with a girly twist look, right now.

I’m into it. But then again, I’m into everything she wears. Everything she does. Because I’m just that into her.

“What’s that?” she asks with a confident, sexy-as-hell arch to her eyebrow.

“I need you to take off these very work appropriate, very nevertheless tantalizing clothes.” I smirk, and her eyes flash hot, mirroring my own. “Before we go celebrate your achievements with some rooftop champagne, I’m going to need to celebrate privately in here.”

She grins and slides across the bed, just far enough to sit upright and tug her shirt off over her head, letting it drop beside us before she reaches back to unclasp her bra. “Exactly what kind of celebration did you have in mind, Killian?”

“Well.” My gaze drops to her chest, and as her bra slides down her arms, I get a full, tantalizing view of her breasts. I raise my eyes to hers again, smirking. “I’d thought we could start with me demonstrating how much I admire you.” With that, I slide across the bed toward her, and press her gently back down to the mattress. I kiss her breasts, one after the other, my tongue lapping at her nipples before I kiss my way lower, licking and nipping at her navel while I push her skirt down with my hands. I leave her panties on, though, and kiss my way to her mound, then press my lips against the fabric, kissing her hard through it.

“And then,” I add, eyes flashing as they travel across the plane of her sexy, perfectly curved body to meet her gaze. “I thought I’d deliver my congratulations to the author. Using my mouth. Well, and my tongue, specifically…” With that, I bite down on the fabric of her panties, and gently drag them down her hips, pulling them off with my teeth alone.

She gasps and reaches down to run her hands through my hair, her fingertips delving, exploring.

I leave her panties around her ankles and slide back up to kiss and suck at her inner thighs, trailing my tongue along the creases where her thighs meet her hips, until she’s breathing hard and gazing down at me, hands fisted in my hair.

“I’ve never tasted a soon-to-be famous author before,” I admit in a low murmur before I bend to kiss her mound. Her lips. My tongue traces the edges, before I part her lips with two fingers, and slip my tongue between them, into that hot pink cleft. Her flavor rushes over my tongue at once, fills my senses.

“Just as I suspected,” I say, my breath hot against her now that she’s wet, both from her own juices and from my tongue. “She tastes absolutely amazing.”

Tilly laughs breathily, but the laughter stops as I begin to lick at her again, long, slow strokes along her slit, designed to drive her wild. To judge by the way her legs rise on either side of my face, and clench around my head, I think I’m hitting the right spot. And to judge by the way she’s quickly screaming my name, her head tilted back, chest heaving as she shakes from the force of her orgasm, I know just how to keep finding the right spot, over and over again.

We wind up staying in bed all evening. We skip our celebratory dinner altogether. But we don’t mind. We order room service, and late, late in the evening, hours after we started to celebrate her success, we sit side-by-side on the bed, still naked, facing one another with raised glasses of champagne. We toast, and I grin at her. “To the woman who changed my whole life,” I say.

She clinks her glass against mine, the champagne inside glittering almost as brightly as her eyes, or as that puffy, ridiculous pink dress she was wearing the day I first met her. “To the man who gave me the courage to change mine,” she replies.

As I lean in to kiss her, I think about the ring.

It’s not with me tonight. It’s back at home, tucked away in a drawer in my bedroom. But I know exactly when I plan to propose. It’s our six-month anniversary next month. Lina and I have been planning the whole thing for weeks now. I know Lina is bursting with the secret, but she’s managed to keep it so far, and for that, I’m grateful.

No matter how tempted I am now, I can’t disappoint Lina by blowing our plans and proposing to Tilly right now. I’ll just have to be patient. Wait a couple more weeks, until the day Lina and I rented out a party space and arranged to have it decorated like a castle from a fairy tale. Under the sparkling lights and the glittery pink tulle, with Lina by my side in her princess dress, I’ll get down on one knee and propose to Tilly.

For now, I’m just going to enjoy the moment. Savor being with Tilly, and savor the knowledge that soon, I’ll be making her mine for all the days to come.

* * *

* * *

He never wanted a wife. Until he met her.

Here is a bonus excerpt of THE WIFE ARRANGEMENT. !

* * *

60 miles per hour.

70.

80.

85.

I floor the gas pedal, a wild grin on my face as I careen toward the corner of the track.

“Jasper…” warns a voice in my ear.

“I’ve got this,” I murmur, in response to my usual test track monitor, safely above in a booth, watching me and this brand new gem of a car speed around the test track.

“We haven’t tested the tires on curves yet. Slow down to a more reasonable—”

I reach up and tap the headset attached to the crash helmet. The voice fades away. My smile widens.

The turn approaches. I swing the wheel hard. I feel the tires skid under the car, and for a pulse-stopping, heart-in-my-throat instant, I worry if the voice in my helmet was right. If I’ve taken the curve too fast, put too much stress on this new model, a car that hasn’t even been unveiled to the public yet, let alone tested by the scientists and engineers who oversee the production of all new car regulations in the country.

If the car skids, flips, this could be it…

But then I feel the rubber screech, catch purchase again, and I rev the engine, accelerating with the turn instead of against it, so the car flows around the sharp turn of the track smooth as a knife through butter.

Safely onto the straightaway once more, I let out a loud whoop and gun it. I watch the speedometer leap up to 100, 120, 140… Higher. Faster.

I love this. I love getting to drive cars like this, and really put them through their paces. Drive them the way they’re built to be driven—with abandon, and without road laws getting in the way. Germany has it right, I think briefly. If only the United States had its own autobahn. One road, one spot where people could let loose.

But, of course, that’s a pipe dream for another time. For now, I’ll have to settle for this closed test track, and the chance to pacify my inner speed demon from time to time—and earn a paycheck for it, no less.

I reach the makeshift finish line, really just a little dugout where we modify and prep the cars for the track, and squint through the visor of my crash helmet at my assistant, Greg.

Greg’s enormous arms are crossed, his brow lowered in the thunderous expression he gets when he doesn’t approve of something I’ve been doing. Of course, I’m his boss, so Greg can’t really protest too much when I do things like this. But that doesn’t mean he can’t allow his disapproval to show on his face.

I skid to a halt outside the engineer shelter, and climb from the car while several test engineers flood the area, bending to take measurements of the axels, the tires, and one popping the hood to study how the engine held up, as another inspects the fuel gauges.

“How about that turning radius, huh?” I shout over the clank and clatter of tools and measuring devices. I sidestep a pair of engineers to reach Greg, and he removes his own earpiece.

“You shut off your radio,” complains Greg, the voice in my ear, who has now become the constant voice in the back of my head. My conscience, one might even say. He’s constantly watching me, overseeing things, warning me to slow down, take it easy, be more careful. I know my father puts him up to half of these disapproving glares and lectures, but even so, it can wear on a man. Especially when I know what I’m doing.

You might say I have a lot of practice ignoring the conscience in the back of my head. “Your talking was distracting me,” I say. “It was a finicky turn.”

“Because you were driving at least twenty miles per hour faster than we’d run the car even in simulations,” Greg mutters.

“And look how well it turned out!” I clap my assistant on the back. “Now we can all skip a few of the intermediate stress tests and put this model straight into pre-production status.”

Greg rolls his eyes. “It was still an unnecessary risk—”

“But you say that about every risk,” I point out, jamming a single finger into Greg’s bicep. It barely makes a dent.

I take after my father’s side of the family—all lean, slim, sculpted muscle. We’re built for running. Descended from the first marathon runners of ancient Greece, Dad always claims. Me, I mention that a fair amount too, albeit for different reasons. I blame those ancestors for my need for speed. “My speed demon was inherited,” I always say. “Nothing I can do about it.”

But Greg, he’s a distant cousin, part of my dad’s grandmother’s vast clan. The line Greg comes from isn’t built like marathoners so much as like walls.

Greg narrows his eyes at me.

I smirk and stride toward the main building. “Come on, worry wart. Lunch is on me to make up for your stress-induced high cholesterol levels.”

“I would love to take you up on that, Jasper, but you have a lunch appointment.” Greg flips open his tablet and squints down at the screen, scrolling through it with a finger.

“With who?” I frown. I don’t remember any new clients planning to stop in and check out the factory today, and it’s far too early in the production schedule for any fellow manufacturers to be poking around. Maybe early buyers? Wholesalers we invited to view the pre-public models…?

“Your father,” Greg replies, and my stomach sinks. In an instant, the happy mood I manage to whip myself into on the test track evaporates, like a bubble popping in midair.

Not that my old man and I don’t get along. Quite to the contrary. I work for him, I spend every day helping build the family business—testing our latest models of cars, suggesting improvements or modifications to the designs, marketing and selling them on the front end… I have a hand in every part of our company, and Dad’s been grooming me to take over for him since I was about sixteen years old. I love this job, love my life, and I love my dad too. There’s nothing I’d change about my life right now.

Well. Except for one tiny thing…

Dad’s current mood. Because even without seeing his face, I can already guess what he’s going to be on about today. The same thing he’s been on about for the last several years. The same thing he railed at me over when I broke up with Karen, a friend-with-benefits who lasted a grand total of a month. The same thing he freaked out about again when I stopped seeing Meghan. Then Brooke. Then… who was that girl with the horses?

I can’t even remember her name, truth be told.

What can I say? I’ve never been the dating type. Or the relationship type. Or the anything more than casual sex type. And who cares? Certainly not the girls I hook up with—I make it clear up front that things will only ever be casual between us, and none of them have complained. Well, except Stacey, who smashed the taillights of my car when I broke things off. But, well, you can see why I had to break off our casual arrangement, given her temper and possessive streak.

No, that one anomaly aside, nobody cares that I’m not the settling down type… Nobody except my father.

And with our family reunion looming on the horizon, an enormous affair he hosts every five years, he has grandbabies on the mind worse than ever. This reunion will be the biggest of all, because at this reunion, Dad’s announcing his retirement. His retirement and the appointment of the new company CEO. The future heir apparent to Quint Motors. Me.

But with all the reflecting Dad has been doing on the company’s history, it just makes him more sentimental than ever about what’s still missing in his life. Namely, grandchildren.

“I’m suddenly feeling really dizzy,” I tell Greg. “Think I’m coming down with something. Head cold, maybe? Flu? Isn’t it still flu season?”

Greg narrows his eyes at me. “Your father is already waiting out front in the Andromeda.”

Ah, the Andromeda. The first car our company, Quint Motors, ever released, way back in the 1970s when my dad was barely old enough to drive himself. He loves that thing. Not only because his father gifted it to him on his (way too young, if you ask me) wedding day. But also because it reminds him of family. If there’s one thing that’s more important to my father than our business, building cars, and putting the best product we can out into the market—it’s the family behind all that.

“Family is the most important thing in the world,” he’s always saying. “Even when you want to strangle them.” He usually adds that last line while he’s glaring at me over a cup of coffee, having just learned from Greg (who, for being my personal assistant, can definitely be a real narc when it comes to sharing my extracurricular activities with the old man) about one of my exploits or another.

What can I say? It’s my job to keep this family interesting.

I just wish it wasn’t my job to listen to hours-long lectures on how interesting I make it. “No chance of talking my way out of this, huh?” I sigh and square my shoulders. “All right. Time to face the music.”

“Bring a coat,” Greg shouts at my retreating spine. “It’s the Waldorf again.”

Dad’s favorite lunch spot. I’m halfway through the office when one of our other admins, an older man named Marco, waves a hand to flag my attention. “Jasper, thank goodness, I’ve been looking all over for you.” He holds out a file almost as thick as my arm. “We got the list of interns for the summer season. We need to start sorting them into departments…”

“Tell Greg to put something on my calendar,” I say, already snatching a suit coat from the back of my chair and shrugging it on as I walk toward the distant front entrance, and the driveway where I can already see Dad’s car idling. Tugging the jacket on over my work shirt at least gives the appearance that I dressed for the occasion.

So I think. Then I drop into the front seat, and find Dad eying my neck, nose scrunched up in disapproval.

“No tie?” he says. “And when was the last time you shaved?”

“This morning,” I reply. “Not my fault I inherited your ridiculously fast hair-growth genes.” Permanent five o’clock shadow, just one of the many markers of a Quint man. That, a tall but muscular frame, and our thick dark hair—mine and Dad’s look almost exactly the same, messy and wavy in front, with a shock falling across our eyes. Even though he’s pushing sixty now, his is still as dark and thick as ever. Pretty sure Quint men will still pass for young men in their mid-twenties from behind right up until we’re on our backs in coffins.

“Always blaming me.” Dad shakes his head, but I notice he peels out of the driveway just as fast as always, and cuts corners the whole way to the Waldorf, speeding through every yellow light along the route.

My speed demon genes didn’t pop out of thin air either, much as he never cares to admit where I got it.

We skid into the Waldorf parking lot, and Dad barely glances at the valet as he tosses his keys over his shoulder for the man to catch. I stride after him through the broad double doors, past the hotel lobby, and back into the dining room, where we’ve got our usual booth.

He’s in a mood today. I can tell by the way he starts in before we’ve even had a chance to sit down, let alone give the menus a once-over. “The reunion is in one month, Jasper.”

“Yes, I know. It would be impossible not to—it’s all you’ve been talking about for the last six months.” I shoot the waiter who’s appeared at our table an apologetic glance, then wave him off to come back later.

“The reunion is in one month,” Dad plows on as though I haven’t even spoken, “and I’m planning to announce the company’s future. My own retirement. My successor. But that’s not what I’m really looking forward to. Do you know what I’m looking forward to most?”

Here we go. “What, Dad?” is all I say.

“The family. We’ll get to see your cousin Sofia—you know she’s pregnant again. That’ll make five for her and her husband. And your cousin Alexander and his three little boys. Chloe and the twins; Luke and his newborn; and did I tell you Jason is married? I hear he and his wife are trying for a baby now, God bless them. I hope they don’t have the same trouble your mother and I did.”

“Dad…” Thankfully, the waiter returns to spare me for the time being. I order a glass of water, but don’t decide on any food for the time being. My stomach is already tensing up just listening to this.

Dad takes time to order his usual—steak, medium rare, a side salad and mashed potatoes, heavy on the gravy. He thinks it’s healthier than French fries. Who am I to deny the old man one of his few vices in life?

Mom would be throwing a fit if she knew. She’s always on about his cholesterol levels and the bad hearts that run in his side of the enormous family he’s just been listing off.

The pause for food ordering only spares me for so long. Then Dad lays down his menu and crosses his hands on the table once more. “Your Aunt Zoe is a grandmother how many times over now? Fifteen? Aunt Alyssa has Chloe’s little twins to keep her busy. Uncle Xavier spoils Sofia’s tribe rotten.”

“Dad—”

“Everyone’s family lines are carrying on except mine. Mine has stalled out like a bad clutch on a car destined for the junk yard.”

I grimace. “Look, I’m not like my cousins, okay?”

“You mean you aren’t a family man. More of a philandering man.”

“Philandering implies it’s not totally consensual on both sides.” I roll my eyes. “And I never said I’m against starting a family—“

“Well clock’s ticking, son, and you aren’t getting any younger. Neither are your mother and I, for that matter.”

“But I’m not going to throw myself into some crappy marriage with a wife I’m not that into just to satisfy you. Or anyone else, for that matter. It’s my life, Dad.”

“Your spoiled, easy life. Yes.” Dad heaves a sigh. “Your mother is right. She tells me I spoiled you too much. Gave you too much. We were both so happy to have you, Jasper, after all that time and all that money and all that heartache spent trying. You have no idea what it was like. To watch my brother and sisters having children, yet be unable to conceive a child of my own. And your mother, her heartbreak every time we failed, I cannot even describe…”

And yet you continually try, I think. After all, he’s told me this story—the saga of he and Mom trying to conceive me—about a hundred times. “Dad, I appreciate that you and Mom stuck with it. Honestly. But that’s the thing—you had Mom. You were married. You knew you wanted a family with her. I’m…”

“Enjoying sleeping around too much to ever get serious about one woman or choose a wife? Yes, I’ve noticed.” Dad glares at me over the top of his glass of water. “This is a family business, son. My grandfather founded Quint Motors, and then he passed the company on to my father before me. I’d planned to pass it on to you, son, after I go, so that one day, in the future, you can pass it on to your son or daughter next. But it’s looking more and more like there won’t be anyone for you to hand this company down to when the time comes.”

I groan and lean back in my seat. “Dad, you’re being ridiculous.”

“What do I always tell you is the most important thing?”

“Family, yes—”

“Even more important than money. Even more important than a successful business, or making good cars, or finding the right buyers. Family is all you have at the end of the day, when everything else fades. You say you know that, you claim to understand it, and yet here you are, no grandchildren, not even a decent prospect of a future wife to show for it. How can I believe that you really value family?”

“I put up with you every day, don’t I?” I mutter.

Wrong direction to steer in. Dad’s face goes white, then red-hot. “I’ve made this too easy for you. I’ve let you waltz through business school and through the last ten years of working for us like you’re the heir apparent. But this company would never have existed without family, and it won’t exist without that support in the future.” Dad leans forward and jams his finger into my face. “Plenty of your cousins would kill to be in your shoes. Given the real respect and family-mindedness they show, I have a mind to name one of them as the heir at the reunion.”

“What?” I nearly shout. Other faces swivel in our direction, other people in the restaurant lean closer to spy. I ignore them, though I do lower my voice a touch. “That’s insane, Dad. I’ve been involved in this business from the minute I was old enough to understand what a car was. I’ve devoted all my spare time to working for you, putting in the hours, understanding how every inch of this company operates.”

“And yet you failed to understand the most important lesson—the most important thing—in the world.”

“This is ridiculous. What does having a wife and kids have to do with owning a business?”

“Everything, son,” Dad snaps. “That’s what you don’t see. That’s what I won’t wait around for you to wake up to.”

“So, what? You’re just going to sign Quint Motors over to my cousins, and that’s it?”

“You could change my mind.” Dad leans back in his seat. He eyes me now, cool once more, his expression composed.

Beneath the table, out of sight, I clench my fists. “How?” I ask through gritted teeth. I know I won’t like whatever’s coming next. But whatever I expect, it isn’t this.

“Find a woman.” He holds up a hand, forestalling my protest. Because it’s not like I can’t find women just about anywhere I go. “A marriageable woman,” Dad clarifies. “A wife. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece, then maybe I’ll believe you’re as serious about this company’s future—and more importantly, this family’s future—as you claim to be.”

“You sound like a crazy person. I’m not listening to this.” I wave a hand to get the waiter’s attention. I need the check. I’m out.

Dad lunges across the table and grabs my wrist. “All your mother and I ever dreamed about was having a big family.” His eyes bore into mine as he says it, as though he’s willing me to understand.

But I don’t. I don’t get it. I’ve never felt the way about a woman like he felt about Mom. I’ve never looked at a girl and thought, I’d like to have dozens of kids with her. I’m just not like him. On some core level.

“You’re our only shot at that now,” Dad is saying. “You’re our only hope at fulfilling our dream.”

“Exactly.” I stand, giving up on the waiter. “Your dream, Dad. That’s what you wanted. I’m different, okay?”

“Well.” Dad releases my wrist and turns his attention back to the table, unrolling his own silverware. Clearly he plans to stay and eat anyway. “If we’re so different, then you won’t care about my decision to hand the company over to one of your cousins instead. Maybe Alexander. He does always have good manufacturing suggestions…”

My blood boils. Alexander is half the salesman I am, I think. Last time we let him run a European business conference himself, he walked away without a single new buyer. Not a single one. You have to be completely incompetent to do that—Quint cars practically sell themselves.

“If you want to run this business into the ground, have at it,” I mutter as I turn to stride away.

“One month,” Dad calls at my retreating spine. “You have one month to prove to me you’re not a lifelong bachelor after all, or I drop you from the company roster.”

* * *

“I need a wife,” I tell Greg.

Once he finishes laughing, I scowl and snatch the stack of intern applications from his hands.

“I’m serious,” I say, fanning the pages of the applications, but not really paying any attention to the ink on the paper, what any of the words say. “Dad’s talking about giving Alex the company if I don’t get serious. Find someone to settle down with.”

“Alex?” Greg says in the same tone you’d use about a pile of manure you stepped in. “The same Alex whose accountant we had to fire because he was embezzling thousands of dollars that Alex didn’t even notice was missing?”

“One and the same.” I drop the stack of intern applications once more with a groan. “Dad thinks Alex will be more serious about running the company because he’s family-oriented. Him or any one of my other married-with-children cousins. He’s holding it against me that I don’t have a million grandkids for him to spoil yet.” I run my hand through my hair, teeth gritted in frustration.

Over and over, ever since lunch, I’ve replayed our lunchtime fight in my head. And over and over, I just hear his voice on repeat. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece…

Crazy. He’s crazy. That’s a month away. And I’m not going to just marry some random woman to please him, to do what he says. It’s my life. I get some damned say in it, don’t I?

“He told me I had to be married by the reunion,” I inform the ceiling. “Or he’s giving Quint Motors to someone else in the family.”

Greg laughs. Then he catches a glimpse of my expression, and sobers immediately. “But that’s in a month. That’s insane.”

“I know.” I roll my eyes once more.

Greg, on the other hand, gets a new expression. A tight-lipped one that I recognize.

His thinking face.

“Uh oh.” I side-eye him. “You only ever look like that when you’re about to suggest something completely batshit, you know.”

“Because I think I am.” Greg turns to face me. “You only need a wife for the reunion, right? Your father is stepping down, naming the new CEO at the retirement event they’re all planning on day, what, four of the weeklong reunion?”

“Something like that,” I agree.

“So you only need a wife for that long. Once he signs Quint Motors over to you, it doesn’t matter what he wants—the company becomes yours.”

I tilt my chair forward and tear my eyes from the ceiling, sensing where this is going. “Good thought, but unfortunately, it’s not quite that cut-and-dry. Once he makes me CEO, Dad’s still going to retain the majority share in the company stocks. Not to mention our family holds the rest of the stocks. He can bully and strong-arm them into ousting me the minute I ditch any temporary wife I show up with.”

“True. Unless your father approves of the divorce,” Greg says with a laugh, because my father, Mr. Family Man’s, favorite rant topic is about kids these days and how little they value lasting marriages.

But… “Hang on.” Lightbulb. I look at Greg. “Say that again.”

He frowns. “Unless your father approves of the divorce?” he repeats. “But, he never would, I mean, he doesn’t approve of that unless…”

“Unless it’s someone like the crazy cheating woman Luke left before his second wife?” I say, mind racing. “The one trying to get her hands on his inheritance. Or like the one Chloe split up with, the one she married when she was a teenager, he was a real trip, utterly classless…”

Greg sits forward in the chair, following my drift. “So if you do find a wife, but she’s absolutely completely awful…”

“Then Dad would be begging me to divorce her. He’d be completely apologetic for forcing me into marrying so quickly in the first place too. And I can tell him I’ll only divorce her if he makes me CEO without any of his crazy conditions.”

“That could work,” Greg agrees. “But where the hell are you going to find a woman like that? Just start scouring local bars for a pick-up?”

He keeps talking, but I don’t hear the rest. My eyes have landed on a cast-aside stack of papers, and my brain is already ticking into overtime. I reach out and snatch up the pile of intern assignments once more. “It has to be someone desperate,” I hear myself saying. “Not an ounce of class in her. Someone who doesn’t fit in our world, someone who’ll take to rich like a fish out of water. The most untrustworthy gold-digger type you can find.”

Greg slides the stack of intern files out of my hands then. “In that case,” he says, flipping through it with the practiced eye of a man who’s already read through this file at least a dozen times today. “I have the perfect candidate in mind…”

With that, he withdraws a single slip of paper with my one last chance at freedom written on it.

“Deeandra Smith,” I read aloud.

* * *

This novel contains a hot alpha billionaire who NEEDS a wife. He won't rest until she's locked down with his ring on her finger. NO cheating, lots of kindle-melting actions, and always a happily ever after!