Page 7 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
CHAPTER THREE
PANDORAFELTTHEsound of laughter escape her throat, coming from a place filled half with dread, half hysteria. Like the kind of feeling she got when someone made a joke and everyone else laughed but she didn’t quite get it. But Xander didn’t make jokes, she reminded herself. It was part of the reason she had always found conversation with him to be so effortless. He was the kind of person who only spoke words that mattered and always with frank honesty. It was ludicrous for anyone to ever think he would have deceived Priya.
He was still looking at her, awaiting an answer to his ridiculous proposal, if she could even call it that.
‘Quinn,’ Xander gritted, ‘I just asked you to marry me. Have you no response?’
‘You didn’task,’ she pointed out. ‘You demanded. There’s a difference.’
It was utterly preposterous to even consider her as a last-minute replacement for his previous fiancée. She had only ever met Priya Davidson-Khan on one occasion, when the other woman had come to the office to sign some documents with her uncle. The entire office, including herself, had been a little transfixed at the woman’s confident stride and effortless class. She wasn’t just beautiful...she was the whole package. Intelligent, well bred and knowledgeable about the pitfalls of high-society circles that Xander needed to infiltrate. In short, she was the exact opposite of Pandora.
Men like Xander Mytikas did not choose the loud, quirky girls that didn’t quite fit in.
She remembered one of the mornings during his first week at the office. He was impossible to miss really, him being all broad shoulders and piercing blue eyes. He’d noticed her with her earphones in chuckling to herself as she’d surveyed her latest cross-stitch project and stopped, staring down at the intricately crafted curse word decorated in pretty roses. She’d watched him for a long moment in her peripheral vision, puzzled at being the recipient of his infamous glare when she was pretty sure she’d done nothing wrong.
She’d tried to defuse the tension, asking if he needed anything. Only it had come out wrong, as happened sometimes when she was uncertain of somebody. Instead of a polite question, it had emerged as something harsh and accusatory.
There had been no mistaking the look on his face then. Irritation and impatience.
Over the next few weeks, she’d tried her best to avoid him but he’d seemed to be everywhere. In meetings where she’d acted as translator, she’d noticed he spoke in short, clipped sentences and he always said what he meant, no embellishing or pandering. In short, she was fascinated by him. Despite his clear disapproval of her, being around him seemed almost effortless. A rarity in her experience.
That was when she’d begun to feel that familiar pull, like when she’d first discovered a new language as a child and begun learning it, decoding and absorbing it into herself.
It was completely inappropriate and yet, she became hyperaware of him. Dangerously so. After the years she’d spent being told by teachers and therapists to tone down the more intense facets of her autistic traits, she now tended to be rather pointed in letting her fixations have free rein. But she’d never felt the pull towards another human being before. At least, not a non-fictional one.
If her unwanted attraction to him meant working together had been almost unbearable...anything more would likely break her spirit entirely.
‘You can’t ask me to do this. I will help you find a replacement, someone more appropriate. Someone...’ Someone who is not me. God, anyone but me.
He leaned his tall frame against the shelving. When he finally spoke, there was a calm to his voice that hadn’t been there before. A cool determination that made her stomach twist.
‘I’ve already thought through the probabilities of every other solution to this problem. Quinn, it has to be you.’
His words hit her squarely in the chest and for a moment she was floating, watching this surreal scene from above. Situations like this belonged on a cinema screen, not in real life.It has to be you.That was almost a declaration from a man who barely even muttered goodbye to her at the end of the day.
She caught herself at the ridiculous thought. It wasn’t as if he’d said, ‘Quinn, you’re my only hope,’ or begun chanting that her very existence completed him. This was a very serious real-life issue, not something she could dress up as a romantic movie moment.
But then, of course, like most of the vaguely nice things that Xander said to her, he went straight ahead and ruined it.
‘You’ve already betrayed me once so at least I know where I stand with you. Better the devil I know, et cetera.’
‘Just to be clear, I’m the devil in this situation?’ she said dryly.
He folded his arms, surveying her with an air of impatient superiority that did nothing to soften the swirl of chaotic emotions inside her chest.
‘I can’t do this, Xander. Perhaps this is how situations are settled among high-society rich people but you’re asking me to marry you as part of some kind of illicit bargain. It’s highly improper. Probably illegal.’
‘What was illegal was you breaking in here to steal from me. Not to mention breaking your NDA to talk to Arista.’ He remained still...an ominous statue half bathed in shadows. ‘This is an opportunity to redeem yourself. After the part you played in recent events, this is the only repayment I will accept.’
If his anger wasn’t already evident in the taut set of his chiselled jawline, she heard it veiled under every syllable. An eye for an eye. A bride for a bride.
‘You would become my wife in name only, so there would be very few demands other than signing your name beside mine on the legal documents, moving into my home and appearing in public occasionally to maintain the façade of a happy marriage.’
‘Move in?’ she squeaked, feeling uncomfortably hot all of a sudden. ‘Xander, I can’t...people would think that I was your...that we were...’
‘That we were lovers?’ His expression darkened suddenly. ‘If this is going to be believable, that’s the story we would tell. That our long nights in the office took an intimate turn and now that my business marriage to Priya is off, we’re free to get married ourselves.’
Pandora felt her breathing quicken, remembering some of the more X-rated fantasies she’d entertained about her handsome boss while daydreaming at her desk. The desk, incidentally, had always played a starring role. He was watching her with cool interest, waiting for her to respond, she realised. She cleared her throat, praying he hadn’t developed the ability to mind-read.
