Page 21 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
He frowned. ‘Appearing at an event won’t turn the tables in our favour.’
‘Of course not,’ she agreed. ‘But in the meantime, I’d like to temporarily resume working with you until the deal is done. Together, I think we can do this.’
She waited, holding her breath and worrying she’d overplayed her hand until, shockingly, Xander nodded in agreement. ‘We could do with your eyes on it, I agree. I’ll have you hired as a freelance translator.’
Freelance. The words rang in her mind all evening like a revelation as they ate take-out sushi side by side in the apartment’s dining area and she got up to speed on what she’d missed from the meeting. Happiness filled her up, her mind whirring with the relief of having a problem to unpick once more. She was determined to show the Tanakas the true Xander Mytikas, the one he didn’t even seem to know himself.
The following days were a blur of public appearances around Osaka to show their front of perfect coupledom. Late nights were spent hunched over market research and contracts while Xander crunched the numbers. The moment Ran heard that Pandora was now freelancing, she insisted on giving her a temporary office on the top floor of the Tanaka Corporation skyscraper, one that overlooked the city with fabulous views.
Apart from chatting during the select few appearances they made in public, she and Xander didn’t speak much to one another, but every night he kept his promise and slept in her bed. Every night she struggled not to reach out and touch him, breaking their fragile truce. And every morning she woke up tangled in his arms for a brief few seconds of bliss before he rolled away.
If he was uncomfortable with their quiet working relationship or intimate nightly routine, he didn’t show it. If anything, he seemed to seek her out more and more, arranging a quick private lunch for them in the ground-floor restaurant or asking her to grab some fresh air on one of the airy top-floor terrace areas. As far as the first week of a marriage went, she was pretty sure that theirs was rather unusual. But she felt...happy. Her mind was fulfilled and her nights were peaceful... If only she could get a handle on the rapidly growing feelings she was developing for her husband, everything would be rather perfect.
More than once Ran approached her quietly about hiring her skills for future projects, but Pandora always tactfully steered the conversation away. Xander might have labelled her as a freelance specialist, but she wasn’t silly enough to believe that was true. He was just bolstering her ego to make her feel less useless, giving her a title so that his wife wasn’t his official employee, but a loophole still existed to allow her to help him close this deal. Yet she discovered she didn’t completely want to refuse Ran’s tentative job offers and found herself pondering them more than once. But above all there was the small matter of her temporary billionaire husband and the intimidating shadow of the grand society wedding that she was set to return to. Followed by a year of playing the role of his wife...
Ran had assured her that if she wanted to work for the Tanaka Corporation, she could simply make a call. She was fast considering the other woman to be a kind of...friend. Friends had always been few and far between for her, with her childhood filled with travel and her adulthood tucked close under her family’s anxiously caring influence. Perhaps a little too caring, she realised, now that she’d had time away from them all. Still, she made sure to send her dad regular photo updates and videos, pointedly leaving out the fact that she was in Japan with her husband.
There was no point in telling them of her hasty marriage just yet, she had already decided. She couldn’t lie to the people she loved, yet she wasn’t able to tell the truth without revealing all of it...so she’d decided to simply wait it out. She’d have to tell them before the big wedding, otherwise they’d probably see it in the world’s media anyway, but she wouldn’t expect them to travel so they could attend and, truthfully, she really didn’t want them there. Family were for real weddings, not PR stunts, she reminded herself. If she had her father walk her down the aisle, her foolish mind might start actually believing that her fairy-tale wedding was true.
On their final day of new and improved negotiations, they broke new ground and she felt a buzz of excitement building in their small team. It was late in the evening when a large meeting was held on the top floor between Xander and the board of directors. Pandora wasn’t allowed in and so she’d gone back to the apartment to wait, passing the time by sitting on the sofa in the living area with one of the small cross-stitching projects she’d brought with her. She was terrible at it, but it kept her hands busy. Two whole hours had passed by the time Xander strode in, a huge smile on his face.
‘We did it,’ he announced, looking exhausted and elated and devastatingly handsome. Pandora stood from where she’d been anxiously awaiting the news, relief making her limbs heavy. She wasn’t quite sure what the appropriate response was in this case, uncertainty pinning her feet in place as Xander continued to cross the room towards her. Without warning, he lifted her up against his chest and pressed his mouth to hers.
His kiss was hard and hot and filled with so much passion it quite literally took her breath away. But he pulled back almost as quickly as he’d started, a look of complete surprise on his face. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said breathlessly, pursing her lips as Xander took a few steps away from her, leaving her body feeling cold.
‘Christos.I just wanted to thank you.’ He attempted to straighten his tie, then lost his patience and pulled it off completely. ‘Just when I think I’ve pulled us back from dangerous territory...’
‘It’s only a kiss,’ she said quietly, leaning against the arm of the sofa.
‘We both know it’s not. Do you regularly go around kissing people?’
‘For me, dating and kissing are unavoidably connected.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t enjoy one, therefore I don’t particularly engage in either.’
‘You seemed to enjoy it with me.’ Xander frowned, then froze. ‘Pandora, are you telling me that I was...forcing myself on you?’
His last words came out slightly strangled and she moved forward quickly, placing a hand in the centre of his chest. ‘Absolutely not! I enjoy your kisses, Xander. Probably more than I should.’
His gaze darkened. ‘Good.’
‘Is it?’ she whispered. ‘It doesn’t feel good. It feels like...torture most of the time. I don’t understand why all of a sudden I’m craving something that I’ve never particularly enjoyed before. Why it would suddenly become appealing with the one person who has made it very clear that he doesn’t feel the same.’
She took a step back, feeling vulnerable and unsure of herself. This conversation felt strange, foreign to all their others. But, she supposed, they hadn’t been sharing a bed before. As if she had just realised how thoroughly far apart this was from their sensible business arrangement.
‘But then again, you’re you,’ she added, forcing a light laugh from her cold lips. ‘We’ve come to know one another better, so maybe that’s the difference. It makes sense that kissing you would feel safe.’
‘Safe,’ he repeated, the expression on his face dark and unreadable.
‘What I mean is...’ She scrambled for words. ‘We have an agreement between us. There’s no emotion involved, no feelings to hurt. It’s simple.’
‘Simple and safe.’ He raised one brow. ‘A man wouldn’t want to have an ego to uphold around here.’
Xander prowled towards her so that a mere foot lay between them. ‘There is nothing simple or safe about the way I feel right now, let me make that clear. If you could see the fantasies I’ve concocted in my mind...’
The air around them turned thick and heated and she was suddenly thankful for the privacy of their apartment.
‘Tell me,’ she breathed.
