The Favor: A Marriage of Convenience Romance

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I headed to the door. Reaching it, I looked over my shoulder as I said ever so casually, “Oh, and Travis turned up to see you.” In all honesty, I’d had a harmless crush on my boss for years now. I didn’t give myself a hard time about it. There was no way to remain unaffected by Dane Davenport. “Good-looking” was too tame a term for him. Tall, dark, and supremely male, he exuded a raw sex appeal that could shake any girl’s equilibrium. A tall, well-groomed figure moved aside to get a better look at me. Owen. Karma clearly hadn’t caught up with him yet, because he was even more good-looking than he’d been seven years ago. He had more muscle definition now and carried himself with more confidence, but he didn’t make my heart skip a beat the way he used to. I stepped aside, allowing him to enter. His all-knowing eyes swept over our surroundings, and I fought a blush. At work, I was hyper-organized. At home? Not so much. Probably because I needed a little break from being hyper-organized throughout the majority of the day. I kept my home super clean, but no matter how many times I decluttered, I never managed to keep everything in their designated places.

After relaying some important messages to him, I placed the papers on the desk in front of him. “You need to sign these.” I exhaled heavily. “No. No, I wouldn’t.” It would be more unfair to ask them to play a part in the deception than it would be for me to lie to them. I was pretty sure he grunted by way of hello, but it was hard to tell from all the way over here. Taking in his default unimpressed expression, one might think he suffered from chronic indifference. It tended to make people nervous; they often seemed compelled to try to please or amuse him. The latter was truly a waste of time. In all the years I’d worked for him, I’d never heard him laugh. Not. Once.Dane,” she said quietly, calmly, her nerves quite clearly shot. “Dane, you know this is a bad idea.” He and his wife have filed for a divorce, apparently. I told him that I’m involved with someone. I didn’t say who,” I hurried to add.

It’ll only be for show. We won’t need to stay married very long.” He lifted his brow. “I warned you I’d one day call in my favor.” Inside, my brows lifted as I glanced around. This was no casual restaurant. There were no comfy booths, no wall-mounted TVs, no empty tables piled with dirty dishes, no waitresses in mini-skirts. It wasn’t long before our food arrived. We talked as we ate. He didn’t touch me, but he really didn’t need to. Not when he was so wholly focused on me, like every sentence that came out of my mouth was a nugget of pure wisdom. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.Disregarding her poor excuses to avoid a dance, he led her onto the dance floor and held her close. Tense and awkward, she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. He pulled her flush against him and said, “Relax.”

Casual and confident, he steered me into the restaurant. The pressure from his hand was light but very much firm and dominant as he, essentially, took control. I need a new PA,” he said, lounging in his leather chair. “I did a little digging after overhearing your … conversation with Clint. I learned a lot of things about you. You’re meticulous. Dependable. Highly efficient. Hyper-organized. You don’t balk at hard work, you have a positive attitude, you’re good at multi-tasking, and you’ve been a great right-hand person for Clint. And I saw—or, more precisely, overheard—that you can handle difficult characters. I need all that in a PA.” I took a sip of my coffee, but I barely tasted it. “You have a whole year before you need to be married. You could meet someone within that timeframe who makes you reconsider your views on marriage.” Even if Dane had been prepared to dismiss the matter, he couldn’t have kept me as his PA—I’d have lost the respect of everyone at the company. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay anyway for the simple reason that I couldn’t have looked any of my coworkers in the eye.Once my meal was ready, I sat at my small dining table and dug into my mac and cheese. My neighbors, sadly, continued to row. And said row got louder and louder. His thumbs deftly flying over the screen of his cell, Dane named a prestigious, well-known restaurant. “Many people who I know and do business with frequent there. It’s a place where we’ll be recognized.” I’d understood, so I hadn’t vilified him for it. But I’d hated that he’d made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be part of the future he’d mapped out for himself, that I wouldn’t fit with whatever new image he meant to create. Yeah, my defenses had slammed up in an instant. And I was glad of that, because it had numbed the pain and allowed me to move on from Owen faster than I otherwise might have done. Not much else he wanted to say, I thought. But I let it go, because there was plenty of information that I’d kept to myself about my own family.