Not-So Temporarily Married Read online

  Not-So Temporarily Married

  Fiona Davenport

  Copyright

  © 2016 Fiona Davenport

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by PREMA Editing

  Cover design by Elle Christensen

  All rights reserved. No part of this 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. For permission requests, please send your email request to [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ Use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Not-So Temporarily Married

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Pursuit

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Power

  Books By This Author

  About the Author

  Not-So Temporarily Married

  Zoe Elliot has resisted Landon Heath’s advances, only because he’s her boss and she needs her job to keep her work visa. But when she’s in danger of being deported, she agrees to his crazy suggestion of getting married... temporarily, of course.

  Landon wants the beautiful Canadian for his own, and he’s not above using her situation to tie her to him—permanently. He knows he has to move quickly, before she realizes they’re not-so temporarily married.

  Chapter 1

  Zoe

  It was supposed to be just another day at the office. A relatively safe one, too. That’s how I thought of the days when I wasn’t going to spend much time with Landon Heath—my incredibly sexy boss who was too damn tempting for my own good. We’d wrapped up a project the week before, and my focus had shifted to the designs for a hotel that was in the final stages of construction.

  For four blissful days, I’d been able to hide away in my office and avoid basically everyone while I immersed myself in lighting plans, fixtures, finishes, hardware, furnishings, textiles, window treatments, paint color, wallpaper and accents. I threw myself whole-heartedly into the project for two reasons. First, I still felt like I needed to prove myself, even though everyone was more than happy with my work over the last couple months.

  But I knew I’d been lucky to land the interior designer job at Heath Construction. I’d only earned my bachelor’s degree a couple weeks prior to the job being posted, and they could have gone with a more qualified applicant. They also could have chosen someone who didn’t have the complication of needing a work visa to stay in the United States like I did.

  Not that it was incredibly difficult to get one since I was Canadian. All I’d really needed was proof of a job offer—which Heath Construction had provided—and to be able to show I had strong ties to my home country. With my parents, three older sisters, two older brothers, and a bunch of nieces and nephews living there, that had been easy enough to demonstrate.

  The second reason was a tad bit more complicated. Okay, more than a tad considering Landon was about nine inches taller than me at six foot three. With a lean, runner’s body, thick, light-brown hair and intense hazel eyes; he was a distraction I didn’t need, considering he was my boss... at a job I needed to keep if I wanted to stay in the United States. Which is how I’d been able to summon the super-human willpower it had taken to tell him no each time he’d asked me on a date over the last two months.

  Almost every single day since I’d started working here. Quickly heading towards one hundred times.

  It was so damn hard to keep turning him down, but I knew it was for the best. I loved my job, my cute little apartment, and the freedom I had from my family that living in another country provided. A family who loved me so much, they thought they had the right to interfere in every facet of my life. I wasn’t willing to risk it all because Landon was sexier than sin. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. Over and over again.

  “Damn him for being so persistent,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Did you say something?”

  My head jerked up at the sound of the feminine voice in the doorway. It was Samantha, our receptionist and Landon’s younger sister.

  “Nothing important,” I assured her.

  “Okie-dokie.” She walked towards me and dropped a stack of mail on my desk. “Lots and lots of catalogs for you, as usual. But there’s an envelope in there you may want to look at ASAP ‘cause it looked important.”

  I dug through the pile and found the envelope she was referring to at the bottom. It was impossible to miss with US Citizenship and Immigration Services listed on the upper left corner.

  “Crap. Crap. Crap,” I chanted to myself as I tore it open. Then it turned to “fuck, fuck, fuck” as my heart dropped. I read through the letter quickly the first time around, and then much more slowly to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding what it said. Unfortunately, the meaning didn’t change the second time around.

  “I’m fucked,” I groaned.

  “Not yet you aren’t,” Landon growled from the door as he barged into my office and slammed it shut. “If you were, I’d know it because I’d be the one doing the fucking.”

  His raspy voice slid over my skin and heated it. Just the sound of him talking had my panties wet, and I’d been avoiding him all this time because I’d thought he’d be the reason why I had visa problems.

  “All those wasted opportunities,” I muttered.

  “Not wasted,” he corrected. “Foreplay.”

  “I don’t have time for this right now, Landon. Not when my whole world is falling apart,” I cried, waving the letter in the air.

  “You sound as bad as Samantha did when she told me to get my ass in here.” He tore it from my hands, and I dropped my head to my desk while he read through the letter.

  “It’s just an additional interview, Zoe,” he said soothingly, in a failed attempt to calm me down.

  “My visa was approved by an immigration officer at the border two months ago. It was easy peasy. I showed him my TN visa application letter, my bachelor’s degree, and my passport. I answered some questions about how long I planned to stay in the country. About how often I planned to go home to see my family. Boom, I was approved. Which means they shouldn’t have any additional questions for me,” I retorted as I jumped to my feet and paced back and forth. “Except, someone apparently has it in for me since they received a tip that I lied about my intent to stay here for only three years. Who would do something like that?”

  “Calm the fuck down,” he ordered, as though it was that simple.

  “Calm down?” I parroted. “That’s easy for you to say since you’re not the one in danger of being depor
ted!”

  “Neither are you.”

  “I beg to differ”—I stormed towards him and jabbed my finger in his chest, absently noticing how firm it was—“since an appointment at an immigration field office sure sounds like the start to yanking my work visa to me.”

  “You know what?” he drawled. “Don’t calm down. Feel free to freak the fuck out because in the end that will work out even better for me.”

  “What in the heck are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you and me, Zoe. You’ve been denying what’s happening between us for two, fucking long as hell months,” he growled, his eyes lit with determination. “You’ve used your work visa as an excuse to keep yourself away from me. Well guess what, Blondie? Giving in to me is your way out of this mess.”

  “I still have absolutely no idea what you mean. Maybe you can dumb it down for me since I’m blonde and all,” I muttered sarcastically, not a big fan of his nickname for me.

  “Fine,” he bit out. “I’ll make it as simple as one word—marriage.”

  “What? No,” I gasped. “We haven’t even been out on a date!”

  “And whose fault is that?” he countered. “It certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part. If I’d had my way, you wouldn’t have a single doubt about how damn serious I am.”

  Gah! He was absolutely right, and it was so darn frustrating. I couldn’t blame him for our lack of dating history, but he was missing the biggest flaw in his plan. “Nobody is going to believe we got married for any reason other than me receiving that letter. The timing is too coincidental.”

  “Not if you didn’t get the damn thing before we were already married,” he suggested.

  “That’s impossible, Landon. I already received it.”

  “Nobody but my baby sister knows you did,” he countered, moving towards the door and yanking it open. “Samantha! We need you in here for a minute.”

  “What’s up?” Her gaze was worried as she peeked her head inside my office.

  “If anyone asks, Zoe and I were already gone for the weekend when this arrived.” He stuffed the letter back in the envelope and handed it to her.

  “Anyone, as in mom and dad? Or anyone, as in the authorities?” Samantha asked.

  “Both.”

  “You can’t ask her to lie for me,” I objected. “She could get into serious trouble.”

  “Sure he can. That’s what family is for,” Samantha disagreed, flashing me a smile before turning to her brother with a calculated look in her eye. “It just means he’s going to owe me big later on.”

  “Whatever you want, consider it done.”

  “Hot damn!” she crowed. “You do know you’re probably going to regret it later, right?”

  “Zoe’s worth it.”

  “Holy crap,” I breathed out, not even knowing how to respond to the certainty in his voice.

  “That she is,” Samantha agreed. “If I was a nicer person, I’d do this for you out of the kindness of my heart because I want you to be happy.”

  “But we both know you’re too mercenary for that,” Landon chuckled.

  “Pot meet kettle,” Samantha quipped. “Where should I say the two of you went when everyone asks?”

  “Vegas.”

  Holy crap, he was serious about marrying me to fix my visa problem.

  Chapter 2

  Landon

  “We don’t even know each other, Landon. How would we convince anyone that we were together, much less decided to get married?” Zoe squeaked, looking a little shell-shocked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Just because you’ve been stubborn and haven’t been on a date with me doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten to know you, Blondie.” I knew the nickname irritated her and my intent paid off when she went from looking freaked to annoyed. “You hate coffee, even the smell. You drink tea instead, with cream and sugar. You have a weird aversion to certain fruits, particularly peaches—”

  “It’s the texture,” she cut me off with a slightly defensive tone.

  “Good to know,” I grinned and kept going. “You chew on your bottom lip when you’re nervous. You love to read and judging from the blushes I see while you’re buried in a book, they’re steamy romances. You love your family, but they drive you mad. You’re incredibly brave. You have the softest, prettiest blonde hair I’ve ever seen, captivating green eyes, and plump lips that constantly bombard me with images of them wrapped around my cock.

  “At five and a half feet tall, you’ll fit just right when I hold you against me. Your gorgeous curves are enough to make me insane when another man looks at you. And, you’re sweet as hell”—I paused and rose my eyebrows—“Do you need to hear more?”

  Her eyes had slowly widened, her mouth opening in a perfect “O” of surprise. “How do you...” she trailed off.

  “I can’t help but notice everything about you, baby.” My eyes pinned her down and I didn’t even try to hide the heat in them. I almost blurted out that she was mine, but managed to stifle the compulsion at the last second.

  She nibbled on her lower lip for a minute, then sighed. “Okay. If you’re sure it won’t be a huge inconvenience. I mean, it’s two years of a pretend marriage. But, I’d be really grateful to get temporarily married.”

  I barely contained my scoff. Temporarily? Over my dead body. But, I decided to save that conversation until after the ink was dry on our marriage certificate. Instead, I stood from where I’d been sprawled on a chair and walked around her desk. Grasping her hands, I pulled her up and wrapped her in my arms. My head lowered and I closed my mouth over hers. Her little gasp of surprise worked to my advantage and I slipped my tongue inside.

  She tasted even more incredible than I’d imagined. My hands dropped to her ass and I squeezed, forcing her closer, letting her feel what she did to me. I’d been a walking hard-on for two fucking months. Constantly dreaming of what it was going to be like when I finally got her under me. Tearing my mouth from hers, I stared down into her cloudy green eyes. That was about to change, I vowed. Before the night was over, my dreams would become reality.

  When I’d woken up this morning, I’d been in a shit mood. Every damn day, my bed seemed emptier, something I hadn’t even noticed for years until Zoe walked into my office. I hadn’t been able to come up with a feasible plan for getting her to at least go on a date with me. Other than to tie her ass up and keep her prisoner until she agreed. An idea that still held merit.

  Now, the perfect fucking solution had fallen into my lap. More than perfect because this wasn’t just dating. I didn’t have to go slow and convince her of what I already knew. She and I were made for each other. This meant I’d be able to skip all the bullshit and make her completely, officially mine. Claimed by law so everyone would know who she belonged to. My dick twitched happily at the thought.

  I let her go with another quick peck on her kiss-swollen lips and walked towards the door. “I’ll make the arrangements while you go home and pack a bag.” Without waiting for her reply, I stalked over to my office and sat at my desk. I sent an email to Samantha with a list of meetings that couldn’t be handled by my managers and needed to be rescheduled. Then I told her to make sure she cleared my schedule for the next week or so.

  Plane tickets were next on the to-do list. I wished there was a way to make it appear as though this trip wasn’t quite so spontaneous. Then it hit me. Apparently, Lady Luck was rewarding me for two months of patience because I suddenly remembered a conversation with my friend Jeremy during our poker night a few days before. He’d planned a trip to Vegas for the coming weekend and was taking his private jet. Hitching a ride meant less of a paper trail.

  I gave him a call and convinced him to start his trip early. He even agreed to let us use his incredible house in Malibu for our honeymoon, another way to avoid the appearance of impulse. Groveling was involved, along with a pretty hefty discount on his next construction project. But, like I’d said, Zoe was worth it.

  ***

  Zoe was u
nusually quiet from the moment I picked her up at her apartment building. I wasn’t fond of her neighborhood and wanted to lecture her about her safety habits, but it might give away the fact that I’d practically stalked her for the last two months. Making sure she was always safely in for the night before going home. It might also have had something to do with making sure she didn’t date anyone else. And, I might have warned off a few guys who looked interested.

  I pulled into the private airport and drove out to hangar ten. Jeremy was just boarding and he stopped to wave in the direction of his yellow Ferrari, parked in the hangar next door. I maneuvered my much less ostentatious, black Audi right next to it then turned the car off and hopped out. Rounding the hood, I opened Zoe’s door and helped her from her seat.

  She glanced around with an unbelieving expression, taking in the man helping with our bags, before settling her gaze on the jet. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she whispered. “It’s surreal.”

  Grabbing her hand, I began to lead her out to the tarmac. “Believe it, Blondie. In a few hours, you’ll finally be mine.”

  “Temporarily,” she insisted.

  “You keep telling yourself that, baby,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, baby.” I gestured to the steps leading up the airplane door. “Up you go.”

  She bit her bottom lip and looked at me speculatively, but didn’t say anything more. Holding the railing, she climbed up the steps and stepped inside. She gasped and I couldn’t help grinning, knowing exactly what she was seeing. Jeremy owned a multi-billion-dollar corporation, making my millions look paltry. After growing up in poverty, with two shitty parents, he went all out on his possessions, making sure they were always the best.

  “Welcome,” Jeremy’s low baritone said, in a tone that was clearly meant to bug the shit out of me. Coming up behind Zoe, I growled and shoved his hand away before they were able to make contact. Jeremy smirked, and I covertly flipped him the bird.

  Obnoxious motherfucker.