The morning after Steven King proposed a fake marriage to her, Marie awoke with a splitting headache. After her meeting with him, she had driven straight to a bar and gotten herself drunk. Thinking about marrying him had sounded easy while he sat across from her and explained it but as soon as she had time to think it through, Marie had realized that her feelings concerning the matter were far from straightforward.She had loved Steven so long that she was prepared to marry him in a heartbeat if it were real. The thought of a fake marriage was what haunted her the most. How was he supposed to keep her feelings secret for the next couple of months?At the party, she had been so surprised at how fervently he had kissed her back. If he kept kissing her like that, Marie wasn't sure how much her heart would be able to take before it blurted out its love for him. And then there was the issue of Sandra. Marie knew that sooner or later, Sandra would find out what was going on. Even though sh
Light filtered rudely into Steven King’s room, tugging at his eyelids until he was forced to open them. A quick glance at his watch revealed that the time was 7 AM. Ever since his proposal to Marie, he had been battling several thoughts that were stuck on a loop in his mind. Today was Monday, and that meant that he had to put away any doubts he had and made his romance with Marie seem believable. It also meant that he had to take sniffing out the mole in Alden Kings Inc. more seriously. At first, when proposed ideas and insights had begun to leak, Steven had waved it aside but over the past few months, the frequent occurrence was beginning to rankle him. He had placed Zed Norton in charge of finding out who was sabotaging them but Zed’s efforts had turned out nothing. The leaks were the only reason he was being forced into the situation with Marie. It was the only reason why instead of spending time working on productive campaigns, he was thinking about how to smooth over ruffled f
Steven watched calmly as a panicky Marie paced back and forth in his office. The poor girl was so frightened that a part of him wanted to call the whole thing off. So what if he wasn't married? How did that affect his ability to run the company? “Marie, calm down. What are you so nervous about?”“But they were meant to be here by 1PM. 1PM. It’s barely 11 and they show up. What are we going to do?”“I won't tell you to calm down again, Marie. Breathe.”Taking a deep breath, Marie dropped into the chair beside him.“So, how do you know they're here? Did you see them?” Steven asked, taking a sip from his cup of iced latte.“I was nervous about not knowing the exact time they would show up and so I asked Lara and Thelma to be on the lookout for them. Lara just texted them that two men fitting their description walked in and were logging their details at the front desk.”“Okay, okay. So what's the problem here?.”“I don't know, Steven, do you think this would work?” Marie asked, the fear
Marie’s fingers flew across her keyboard as her thoughts flitted in different directions. Her heart was still slightly racing from Steven's kiss.Touching her lips, her body shivered with pleasure as she remained lost in the sweet memory of the kiss. Just this morning, over five people who had never spoken with her had come to chat with her. Marie could see through their plastic friendliness and knew they were only doing it because of the favors they hoped to get. What hurt the most was the people whom she genuinely liked and cared for who were now awkward around her. With the way Steven had looked at her before kissing her, Marie wasn't so sure it was pure acting anymore. Or was she so naive that she was seeing things that weren't there? But she hadn't imagined the comment about her cardigan so what game was he playing at?“Marie, get in here.” Steven's voice butted in, interrupting her thoughts. What did he want now? Wiping her clammy palms on her pants, she covered the short dist
“Hello, hello, hello!” Marie cried as she walked through the door and dumped the things she was carrying on the dining table. A brief inspection around the room revealed that nothing material had changed since the last time she was here. It was so like Sandra to move at a snail pace.“Hey you.” Sandra said, walking towards Marie with a white bra and a blue palazzo pant. Sniffing the bags holding their takeout, Sandra's eyes lit up in delight.“Hmm, this smells yummy, Marie. Chinese?”“Yes.” Marie said, giving Sandra a quick hug and heading to the kitchen to get wine glasses. “Babes, your phone is ringing,” Sandra called out from the living room.“I swear to God Babes, if it's Godzilla, I’m flushing your phone down the toilet. One of these days, you’re going to have to put your feet down. You can't come running every time he calls.”Reappearing with the wine glasses, Marie handed them to her and took the offending device to the kitchen. But it wasn't Steven or Alden who was calling,
Marie tried again to dial Steven King’s number. The last six times she had called, it had gone straight to voicemail. Clenching her steering wheel tightly, Marie tried to focus on getting home. Her mind seized with panic as he recalled the words from the text. Did she know this person who seemingly knew the truth and was now threatening her? And why wasn't Steven answering his damn phone!Pulling into the driveway, Marie gathered their purse, and the carrier bag and alighted from the car. Great, her neighbor had parked his car wrongly. Again. Deciding to deal with the issue in the morning, Marie headed to her front door and unlocked it. The thought of someone waiting for her flashed through her mind but she squelched it. This was the home she had lived in for several years, she was not about to start being afraid of being in it. Tossing the things she was holding aside, Marie kicked off her shoes and plunked down on the sofa. Rubbing her aching toes with one hand, she reached into he
“What I meant was that I would have felt better if I was getting married for real. To a man who loves me.” She said, as she dusted invisible specks of dust off her dress.Relieved, Steven let out a sigh. The last thing he needed was Marie getting attached to him. The only Marie he wanted in his life was the one who wore awful cardigans, and did her job well. “I asked because that's what you can expect the press to ask. You do know there will be interviews once we go public?”“Hold on Steven, you never said anything about going public. You said it was fake!” Marie spat.“ Fake, Marie. Not hidden. And the fakeness of it stays between us.”Her recurring terror was beginning to get on his nerves. If she had agreed to do this, why did she keep acting up?“I would feel better if we had this conversation with you sitting across from me like you always do.”“Nothing doing, Marie. I'm your husband now, you have to get used to being with me in close proximity.”“I thought that was in public wh
Reclining in his seat, Steven closed his eyes and massaged his temple with both hands. It was ironic that the woman who had started this whole act was beginning to act like a woman scorned. Was he the one who had walked up to her in a room full of people they worked with and entangled him in a passionate kiss? It was becoming annoying that he had to seduce her to get her into character, and that he had to deal with her tears and tantrums.He picked up his phone to text her when he saw Ellen, Head of Events at Alden Kings Inc. walk into his office with a worried expression on her face. “Sorry to bother you, Steven, I don’t have an appointment but I swear I heard muffled sobs as I walked past the bathroom just now and I think Marie is hurt.”“She is?” Steven said, injecting the right note of alarm into his voice as he stood and followed Ellen to the bathroom where Marie was crying.“Marie, honey. Are you hurt?” Steven asked as he knocked on the bathroom door. “No, thank you, Steven.