Accidentally Married to the Billionaire (The Billionaire's Touch, #1) (7 page)

“Listen, you’re welcome to work three jobs if it makes you happy, but be aware that I have public appearances and work trips all the time and you’ll be needed for most of those. There’s a lot of grooming and shopping and crap you have to do to keep up with the social engagements. I’m mainly concerned with the part where you insist on taking care of yourself. I’m your husband, and I’m paying the bills. By tomorrow afternoon you’ll have a credit card.”

“What am I supposed to do with that? By formalwear?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Like an airplane?”

“We have an airplane, and the company has a larger one as well. So you already have air travel at your disposal should the whim strike you to shop for emeralds in the Virgin Islands or the like. I was thinking more of anything you felt was wanting in the home we’ll share, wardrobe, personal effects. That sort of thing.”

“Boxed set of zombie DVD’s?”

“If it makes you happy. I’m not putting restrictions on you. I’m not going to comb through the credit card statement and question you. My accountant will pay it without raising an eyebrow.”

“No restrictions whatsoever?”

“If you start building an arsenal of assault rifles and grenade launchers, yes, it’ll be flagged and I’ll ask you about it.”

“Define arsenal. Like more than ten guns? More than twenty?” she laughed.

“I’m not comfortable setting a number on that. I’d prefer zero grenade launchers personally.”

“I’m kidding, Cates. Relax. I’m much more likely to splurge on a decent spray tan.”

“And cover up those freckles? I like those freckles,” he grinned.

She lay down on the sofa where he was stretched out at full length, and she wedged in until her head was on his chest, her ear against his heartbeat. Instantly, she settled down, soothed, eyes beginning to droop.

“So you’ll accept the credit card?” he asked.

“A paid line of credit with no restrictions outside of probably illegal firearms? Who wouldn’t?”

“Someone far too independent for her own good?”

“Right. Count me in. I’ve already accepted your diamonds. I might as well take living expenses, too.”

“We’re heading home to New York tomorrow. There will be photographers when we get off the plane. You’ll need to go shopping before we depart, choose a going away outfit. There are plenty of places to shop in Vegas, I believe.”

“I’ve looked at pictures of the Forum shops at Caesar’s. The place looks like a museum or a cathedral with painted ceilings and statues and, like, a Cheesecake Factory in the background. It’s crazy and tacky and I would be in paradise there. Especially with a credit card.”

“Then the car will take you there in the morning. I have other business, but we can meet back here before departure.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said.

Marj was a little disappointed that he didn’t plan to come with her. She realized it wasn’t a real marriage, a real honeymoon. It must have been the sensational sex that confused her, she thought. It wasn’t in her best interest to start being clingy. It was smarter to take what he offered and ask for nothing more. It was better than scraping by to make rent, giving up her weekly latte and being lonely all the time. It would be nice to have a man around, even if he was only a friend with benefits.

He stroked her hair as he gazed into her eyes. “Thank you for everything. You singlehandedly saved my ass, saved my estate, and my future. I’ll always be indebted to you.”

“You’re welcome.”

His lips softly brushed against hers. 

Brandon laid there for a few minutes with his arms around her, seemingly content. Then he levered up off the sofa, draped a cashmere throw over her, kissed her forehead, and mumbled something about having work to do.

Brandon Cates had never needed much sleep. He got by on less of everything, seemingly, except for his damn type one diabetic pancreas of course which demanded insulin, demanded regular low-carb meals. So he downed a bottle of water and sat down with his laptop and vowed not to waste time thinking about his wife.

It sounded ugly and selfish when he put it that way, but she was, in fact, his rather unexpected wife. Sure, he’d figured out he was going to have to nail down a bride within the next few days, or he’d lose his inheritance, but he hadn’t figured on picking one up in a bar in Las Vegas. An employee, no less.

His father was no doubt laughing his smug ass off in the afterlife even now. Because Brandon had spoken with his dad, had pulled him aside before the wedding with Lena, and asked if it was really appropriate for him to marry someone who’d worked for him. His father had laughed in a knowing way and suggested that his teenaged son mind his own damn business. Brandon had felt somehow wronged by that, as if his opinion, his righteous and somewhat inflexible adolescent moral compass had been discounted when his father, in fact, should have kept it in his pants and stayed away from the employees and interns instead of treating them like his personal candy store.

And now, a decade and more on, Brandon was doing the same thing, screwing a woman who worked for Power Regions, Ltd. and expecting everyone to overlook the fact that his position of authority made it seem smarmy and exploitive. A fairy tale is what he planned to spin it as in the press. Of course, most fairy tales were fairly patriarchal, he mused.

He would get some work done. He’d already sent a photo of his marriage license to the legal team. Now he set to work on the restructuring plan for Simpatico Paper, where his bride worked. If he combined PR and marketing divisions, he could eliminate some redundancies and reassign those employees to keep from pink slipping them. He wanted to preserve the existing team as far as possible for the sake of morale, but there were some inefficient methods at work that he needed to remedy.

And if this girl he’d picked up in a bar, the one with the pretty eyes, and the smart mouth, and the killer ass. If she had looked at him and listened to him like he was really something, well, he wasn’t about to let that cloud his judgment. She was a necessary investment, the kind that protected his interests by her very existence. He would have the papers drawn up, so she was subject to a gag order with punitive damages far in excess of her net worth if she ever violated it. He would make sure a proviso in their post-nuptial paperwork entitled her to ten million if she lasted a year as his wife, fifteen if they were together for longer than that.

He’d even try to make it look legitimate by throwing in a live birth clause entitling her to an additional million for each Cates offspring she bore. Those were some safe millions, he knew, considering he wasn’t about to take that risk. He didn’t want to be tied to her after the necessity of their union was over. Custody and visitation and child support and all those other complications were things he wanted to avoid.

If she had seemed disappointed when he’d insisted on a condom, if he’d said it more as a power play than out of any true protective instinct, that was beside the point. She may or may not have an IUD or a tubal ligation for all he knew. He was still using backup birth control when they slept together. He’d be a faithful husband, if only to spite his father’s gloating spirit. Still, the explosive coupling on the sofa—that had been unexpected. He’d intended on a cursory consummation on the king size bed in the hotel suite. He hadn’t intended on getting all hot and bothered watching her eat the damn cake. That cake bothered him...not because he couldn’t eat any of it himself, but because he was unreasonably jealous of it.

There was no time to be wistful about cake or women. He was about to snatch his father’s empire (the word, her use of it made him smile) away from Lena, who had done nothing but make everyone miserable since the day she married his dad. Lena had been young and obviously his dad had taken advantage of her. He hesitated to use the phrase ‘preyed upon her’ because, from his experience, Lena had exploited Dane Cates as much as he had exploited her. She noticed everything and, by extension, needed to put her stamp on everything. Suddenly, seemingly all of the household linens including the curtains boasted a swirly embroidered monogram of D-C-L.

He always assumed it was so anyone who entered the home knew at once that it was hers, that Dane Cates was hers (despite her infidelities). For the holidays, instead of a nice check from his dad, Brandon opened a tailor’s box with a navy blazer inside, monogrammed at the breast pocket like a prep school boy’s uniform. He had done his best to seem appreciative but it was appalling. For his birthday, monogrammed pajamas (again, no check, no tickets for a ski trip) and the following Christmas, cufflinks.

It wasn’t her impersonal gifts, her seeming obsession with monogramming anything that stood still long enough for unnecessary stitchery. It was her overpowering sense of tangible entitlement. Even if she hadn’t been practically peeing in the corners to mark her territory, it would have been obvious. Not one stick of furniture remained in his father’s mansion from the time when he was married to the first wife. It was all donated so things could be refurbished. Including the blue chintz armchair that his mother used to love. It had sat by the window in her bedroom, and she used to sit there to read to Brandon when he was a child before she got sick. When he found out the chair was gone, that she’d never thought to ask him if he wanted anything that had been his mother’s, he had broken things. Things newly purchased and displayed, and made by Lalique and Wedgwood.

He had hated Lena from that day on. Even though she wasn’t that much older than him, even though she should have been less secure about her position than he, Lena had slapped his face. When he broke the crystal swan, she cracked him right across the mouth with her palm. Brandon, who had never been hit outside of the occasional schoolyard scuffle, had stopped immediately, horrified that he’d been struck in the face.

She had to have known that he wasn’t the sort to hit her back, to tell his father what she had done and why he was angry. He knew his father would have been annoyed with them both for it, and he would have taken a petty enjoyment from making her partake in his father’s displeasure, but he hadn’t tattled. At sixteen, he hadn’t wanted to admit he’d lost his temper or that he’d been smacked. So he put up with the punishment of having to mow the lawn—and the lawn at the Cates Manor was substantial—and help the gardeners to earn back the cost of the china and crystal figures he broke ‘by accident’.

It had been the second shittiest summer of his life. First, was obviously the one when he was nine and his mom died. His sixteenth, though, was spent in that house, knocking his elbows on unfamiliar furniture that seemed to be rearranged constantly, trying to stay out of her way. Feeling like a stranger in his own home and missing his mother so much it ached.

If he had managed to hold onto family feeling after his mother’s passing, if he had held on to an attachment to his distant workaholic father, Lena had managed to sever that. He stayed at school and took extra classes during the summer after that. He went on school-sponsored trips to Switzerland and Spain and once to South Africa. Brandon managed to avoid going home—or what he used to consider his home—over holidays.

When he graduated, his father insisted he come home. Brandon had asked, he had practically begged his dad to take him skiing or boating or anything rather than back to that house. He hadn’t mentioned Lena at the time. He hadn’t wanted to make trouble, but he knew his father suspected there was discord between them. He also knew his father had done fuck all to make sure he saw his own and only son despite her. It was only when he turned eighteen that his dad made an effort and by ‘effort’ that meant he issued a command. Brandon had gone, had stayed out of the house as much as possible—catching up with old friends, he had said by way of excuse.

And yet, apart from a ‘family dinner’ the night Brandon arrived, his dad made little attempt to see him. It had been another in a litany of disappointments. After college, Brandon had joined the family business at his father’s invitation, but they’d never grown closer. Seeing each other at the office and at occasional dinner meetings with other executives made up the bulk of their contact. No birthday celebrations, no holidays. At Christmas, Lena liked to go to ‘their’ home in St. Barth’s and invite friends. He had never been, nor was he likely to become, one of Lena Cates’ friends.

So here he was, marrying a complete stranger to cut Lena out. It seemed immature, vindictive. She got rid of all his mother’s things and slapped him; therefore, he would commit fraud to keep her from getting his dad’s business. He had the education and impressive resume to get a job anywhere in the world, and the trust fund to make sure he didn’t have to work if he didn’t like it. And yet, he was beating his head against the wall, had been for the last four years, to block the terms of his father’s will so he could keep Power Regions.

Brandon rubbed his hands over his face and shook his head. Everything felt thorny, too complicated, too fraught. He didn’t want to examine why exactly he needed to lay claim to his dad’s company, didn’t want to sit on a therapist’s couch and discuss his issues with his parents. He just wanted to forget. Since he couldn’t usually drink alcohol or numb out with drugs, there was no oblivion for him there. He paced the length of the sunken living room in his suite, restless.

When she appeared in the doorway of the bedroom wrapped in the white sheets, he wondered what in hell he’d done...and why he hadn’t done it sooner. She advanced toward him and dropped her sheet. Brandon opened his arms.

Marj woke up in a king sized bed. Which was weird because her hotel room had a double. She was also butt naked with a sheet wrapped around her leg.

This was not her room.

Marj was completely hung over.
How much did I drink?
Obviously too much. Her head throbbed and her eyes burned.

She sat up, pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes and looking around. Her clothes were not readily visible. The bed was empty except for herself. She must’ve come here with someone, some guy she picked up after six or seven drinks. She rubbed her eyes and her hands came away smeared with eyeliner. She had to find her stuff and get out of here before whoever he was came back. She didn’t want to deal with some random hookup. Especially not when she had nothing on.

Nothing except a very suspicious new diamond ring on a crucial finger.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” she muttered, looking accusatorily at the offending jewelry.

Whoever she picked up couldn’t be filed away in the one-night stand category. It looked perilously as if he was going to occupy the brief and unexpected position of First Husband. Soon to be Ex-Husband, as soon as she could find her damn underwear and get out of here.

She jerked at the sheet to cover herself, for a wrap until she could locate her clothes from the previous night. Her head was pounding. Her heart was pounding. Surely she’d worn clothes last night. She couldn’t quite remember what they looked like, but surely she must’ve had something on. She pulled on the stubborn sheet again, unable to get it loose. Glancing toward the foot of the rumpled bed, she saw that it wasn’t tucked in to the mattress. So it was stuck on something.

She yanked again, and still it didn’t come free. She crawled across the bed and looked over the edge. Well, that made sense. The sheet was stuck under the naked man on the floor. She winced, dragged on the sheet again, and then screamed with frustration. The admittedly handsome form stirred and turned its face toward her, blinking sleepily.

He was hot. That sheet was stuck on a hot naked guy. This made things ever so slightly more complicated. She had gotten drunken, gotten married, gotten laid by what was probably the best looking man she’d ever seen. When he rolled over, she wondered fleetingly if he was bionic or something because there was a wire and a round bandage thing on his stomach. Was he electronic? A.I.? A bomb? She scooted away from the edge. Everything was fuzzy.

“Morning,” he said, evidently much less troubled by their unconventional situation and obvious nudity than Marj was.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

“Is that any way to greet your husband, Mrs. Cates?” he said with a lazy smile, levering himself up onto the bed.

His persistent nakedness was very disconcerting. She wished he’d cover up but the damn sheet was still on the floor. She leaned over the other side of the bed, grabbed a pillow and placed it in front of herself. So, at least, one of them was covered modestly enough for the conversation that clearly needed to take place very quickly.

“I told your colleagues you were okay,” he said. “So they wouldn’t worry because you never came home.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Thanks. So I guess, uh, we had a one night stand.”

“It’ll be more like a ‘one year’ stand when we’re done. Because that’s how long you signed on for.”

“We’re not married. This is a prank. You’re on some reality show where you play tricks on stupid, drunk women. Show me where the cameras are,” she said, her voice high and crazy, eyes darting around the room.

“No cameras unless you count my phone, and you were the last one to use that feature. You took a picture of the cake. The wedding cake.”

“Oh, quit it! There was no wedding. That’s stupid. That only happens in sitcoms and really bad chick flicks. I want my clothes and your name and—and your driver’s license number! So when I call my lawyer I know who to tell him we’re suing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. My legal team—that is OUR legal team can take care of any litigation you need to pursue. Besides, I don’t have a driver’s license. I have a driver. You remember Rafael. He drove us to the jeweler and the chapel and back to the hotel last night.”

“Nope. No clue,” she insisted, “which is another reason I’m sure this is a set-up. I don’t get blackout drunk. I’m not sick enough with a hangover to have downed enough to get married and forget about it. I’m not that stupid.”

He smirked. “I hate to be the one to say this, my wife, but you are, in fact, that stupid.”

He vaulted off the bed, giving her a fantastic view of his fantastic ass, and went into another room. He returned brandishing a sheet of paper. A notarized sheet of paper with their signatures on it and a declaration from the great state of Nevada that two had become one in the eyes of the law.

“Well. Shit,” she said flatly.

She shut one eye, scrutinizing the document at a squint. It looked pretty damning.