In Name Only: Best Friend Bride (In Name Only) / One Night Stand Bride (In Name Only) / Contract Bride (In Name Only)

The real issue was that he needed to kill that spark and was pretty certain that would be impossible now.

Especially given the way she was gazing up at him with something a whole lot hotter than warmth in her brown eyes. She’d liked kissing him as much as he’d liked it. She might even be on board with taking things a step further. But they couldn’t consummate this marriage or he could forget the annulment. Neither did he want to lead her on, which left him between a rock and an extremely hard place that felt like it would never be anything but hard for the rest of his life.

“In fact,” he continued, “we should really keep things platonic behind closed doors. That’s better for our friendship, don’t you think?”

He’d kissed his wife and put his hands on her body because she’d told him to. And he was very much afraid he’d do it again whether it was for show or not unless he had some boundaries. Walking away from Viv wasn’t an option. He had to do something that guaranteed he never got so sucked into a woman that she had power over his emotional center.

Thankfully, she nodded. “Whatever works best for you, Jonas. This is your fake marriage.”

And how messed up was it that he was more than a little disappointed she’d agreed so readily?

Three (#u31b7ac24-ca2f-5f1b-b268-bc2e0c29b419)

Viv hummed as she pulled the twenty-four-count pan from the oven and stuck the next batch of Confetti Surprise in its place. Customers thronged the showroom beyond the swinging door, but she kept an eye on things via the closed-circuit camera she’d had installed when she first started turning a profit.

Couldn’t be too careful and besides, it made her happy to watch Camilla and Josie interact with the cupcake buyers while Viv did the dirty work in the back. She’d gotten so lucky to find the two college-aged girls who worked for her part-time. Both of them were eager students, and soon Viv would teach them the back-office stuff like bookkeeping and ordering. For now, it was great to have them running the register so Viv could focus on product.

Not that she was doing much focusing. Her mind wandered constantly to the man who’d kissed her so passionately last night.

Jonas had been so into the moment, so into her, and it had been heady indeed. Score one for Viv to have landed in his arms due to her casual suggestion that they needed to “practice.” Hopefully he’d never clue in that she jumped when he touched her because he zapped a shock of heat and awareness straight to her core every dang time, no matter how much she tried to control it.

Of course, he’d shut it all down, rightfully so. They were friends. If he’d been interested in more, he would have made a move long before now.

Didn’t stop her from wishing for a repeat.

A stone settled into her stomach as three dressed-to-the-nines women breezed through the door of her shop. On the monitor, she watched her sisters approach the counter and speak to Josie, oblivious to the line of customers they’d just cut in front of. Likely they were cheerfully requesting to speak with Viv despite being told countless times that this wasn’t a hobby. She ran a business, which meant she didn’t have time to dash off with them for tea, something the three housewives she shared parentage with but little else didn’t seem to fully grasp.

Except she couldn’t avoid the conversation they were almost certainly here for. She’d finally broken down and called her mother to admit she’d gotten married without inviting anyone to the wedding. Of course that news had taken all of five minutes to blast its way to her sisters’ ears.

Dusting off her hands, Viv set a timer on her phone and dropped it into her pocket. Those cupcakes in the oven would provide a handy out if things got a little intense, and knowing Hope, Joy and Grace, that was likely. She pushed open the swinging door and pasted a smile on her face.

“My favorite ladies,” she called with a wave and crossed the room to hug first Grace, her next-oldest sister, then Joy and Hope last. More than a few heads turned to check out the additions to the showroom. Individually, they were beautiful women, but as a group, her sisters were impressive indeed, with style and elegance galore.

Viv had been a late-life accident, but her parents tried hard not to make her feel like one. Though it was obvious they’d expected to have three children when they couldn’t come up with a fourth virtue to name their youngest daughter. She’d spent her childhood trying to fit in to her own family and nothing had changed.

Until today. Finally, Viviana Kim had a new last name and a husband. Thanks to Jonas and his fake marriage deal, she was part of the club that had excluded her thus far. Just one of many reasons she’d agreed.

“Mom told us,” Hope murmured, her social polish in full force. She was nothing if not always mindful of propriety, and Viv appreciated it for once, as the roomful of customers didn’t need to hear about Viv’s love life. “She’s hurt that you ran off to Vegas without telling anyone.”

“Are you happy?” Grace butted in. She’d gotten married to the love of her life less than a year ago and saw hearts and flowers everywhere. “That’s the important thing.”

“Mom said you married Jonas Kim,” Joy threw in before Viv could answer, not that she’d intended to interrupt before everyone had their say. That was a rookie mistake she’d learned to avoid years ago. “Surely his family would have been willing to make a discreet contribution to the ceremony. You could have had the wedding of the year.”

Which was the real crime in Joy’s mind—why spend less money when you could spend more, particularly when it belonged to someone else? Joy’s own wedding had garnered a photo spread in Bride magazine five years ago, a feat no other Raleigh bride had scored since.

It had been a beautiful wedding and Joy had been a gorgeous bride. Of course, because she’d been so happy. All three of her sisters were married to handsome, successful men who treated them like royalty, which was great if you could find that. Viv had made do with what had been offered to her, but they didn’t have to know that. In fact, she’d do everything in her power not to tip off her sisters that her marriage was anything but amazing. Was it so wrong to want them to believe she’d ended up exactly where she’d yearned to be for so long?

“Also, he’s Korean,” Hope added as if this might be news to Viv. “Mom is very concerned about how you’ll handle the cultural differences. Have you discussed this with him?”

That was crossing a line. For several reasons. And Viv had had enough. “Jonas is American. He was born in the same hospital as you, so I’m pretty sure the cultural differences are minimal. Can you just be happy for me and stop with the third degree?”

All three women stared at her agape, even Grace, and Viv was ashamed at how good the speech had made her feel. She rarely stood up to the steamroller of her sisters, mostly because she really did love them. But she was married now, just like they were, and her choices deserved respect.

“Jonas does make me happy,” she continued, shooting Grace a smile. “But there’s nothing to be concerned about. We’ve known each other for about a year and our relationship recently grew closer. That’s all there is to it.”

Despite the fact that it was absolute truth, prickles swept across her cheeks at the memory of how close they’d gotten last night.

An unconvinced expression stole over Hope’s face. As the oldest, she took her role as the protector seriously. “We still don’t understand why the secrecy. None of us even remember you so much as mentioning his name before.”

“Of course we know who he is,” Joy clarified. “Everyone in Raleigh appreciates that he’s brought a global company to this area. But we had no idea you’d caught his eye.”

Viv could read between those lines easily enough. She didn’t wear nine-thousand-dollar Alexander McQueen suits to brunch and attend the opera with a priceless antique diamond necklace decorating her cleavage. “He’s been coming in to buy cupcakes for quite some time. We go to lunch. It’s not that big of a mystery.”

Did it seem like a mystery to others? A lick of panic curled through her stomach. She couldn’t ruin this for Jonas. If other people got suspicious because she wasn’t the type of woman a billionaire CEO should want to marry, then everything might fall apart.

Breathe. He’d made that decision. Not her. He’d picked Viv and anyone who thought she wasn’t good enough for him could jump in a lake.

“But he married you.” Grace clapped her hands, eyes twinkling. “Tell us how he proposed, what you wore at the wedding. Ooooh, show us pictures.”

Since his proposal had begun with the line “This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out,” Viv avoided that subject by holding out her left hand to dazzle her sisters with the huge diamond and then grabbing her phone to thumb up the shots Warren had taken at Jonas’s request. The yellow of her dress popped next to Jonas’s dark suit and they made an incredibly striking couple if she did say so herself. Mostly because she had the best-looking husband on the planet, so no one even noticed her.

“Is that Hendrix Harris in the shot?” Hope sniffed and the disapproval on her face spoke volumes against the man whose picture graced local gossip rags on a regular basis.

“Jonas and Hendrix are friends,” Viv said mildly as she flipped through a few more pictures that mercifully did not include North Carolina’s biggest scandalmonger. “They went to Duke together. I’ll try not to let him corrupt me if we socialize.”

As far as she could tell, Hendrix had scarcely noticed her at the wedding, and he’d seemed preoccupied at the cocktail lounge where they’d gone to have drinks after the ceremony. The man was pretty harmless.

“Just be careful,” Hope implored her, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt. “You married Jonas so quickly and it appears as if he may have some unsavory associations. I say this with love, but you haven’t demonstrated a great track record when it comes to the men you fall for.”

That shouldn’t have cut so deeply. It was true. But still.

“What Hope means is that you tend to leap before you look, Viv,” Grace corrected, her eyes rolling in their sister’s direction, but only Viv could see the show of support. It soothed the ragged places inside that Hope’s comment had made. A little.

“It’s not a crime to be passionate about someone.” Hands on her hips, Viv surveyed the three women, none of whom seemed to remember what it was like to be single and alone. “But for your information, Jonas and I were friends first. We share common interests. He gives me advice about my business. We have a solid foundation to build on.”

“Oh.” Hope processed that. “I didn’t realize you were being so practical about this. I’m impressed that you managed to marry a man without stars in your eyes. That’s a relief.”

Great. She’d gotten the seal of approval from Hope solely because she’d skirted the truth with a bland recitation of unromantic facts about her marriage. Her heart clenched. That was the opposite of what she wanted. But this was the marriage she had, the one she could handle. For now. Tomorrow, Jonas would take her to his father’s house to meet his grandfather and she hoped to “practice” being married a whole lot more.

Thankfully, she’d kept Jonas in the dark about her feelings. If he could kiss her like he had last night and not figure out that she’d been this close to melting into a little puddle, she could easily snow his family with a few public displays of affection.

It was behind closed doors that she was worried about. That’s where she feared she might forget that her marriage was fake. And as she’d just been unceremoniously reminded, she had a tendency to get serious way too fast, which in her experience was a stellar way to get a man to start looking for the exit.

That was the part that hurt the most. She wanted to care about someone, to let him know he was her whole world and have him say that in return. It wasn’t neediness. She wasn’t being clingy. That’s what love looked like to her and she refused to believe otherwise.

But she’d yet to find a man who agreed with her, and Jonas was no exception. They had a deal and she would stick to it.

* * *