I once compared Victor St. Clair to Satan, but that’s unkind.
Even the devil treats his demons better than St. Clair treats me.
I know his schedule by heart.
He can’t remember my first name.
So when he calls me into his office, I’m expecting another rant.
Instead, he says he needs to get married to inherit the St. Clair fortune.
Oh, and the kicker?
He wants to marry me.
His assistant.
A one-year marriage of convenience to the boss I hate.
It means living with Victor’s dark stares and silences for a full year.
But it’s also a chance to quit my job and start my own business.
He’s a jerk, but he’s also a respected businessman.
How hard can it be?
Answer: very.
Because there’s more to Victor than I thought.
Things beyond learning his lunch orders and sending company memos.
And while the man is cold, his kisses are hot enough to consume us both.
He drove me crazy at work. Now he drives me crazy in bed.
But craziest of all is…
I might get used to being Mrs. St. Clair.
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Excerpt
"Have a seat, Myers.”
Nerves dance in my stomach, but I do as he says, sitting down on the chair opposite his desk. "I'm sorry.”
Victor looks at me from his computer. "What are you apologizing for?”
"My resume?" I ask. "You saw it? I know I shouldn't have had it in the office."
"No," he says, "you shouldn't have."
“I recognize that, and I’m sorry. Won’t happen again.” I'm about to start cold sweating beneath my silk blouse.
Victor raises an eyebrow. “Despite how unprofessional that might have been,” he says, "I didn't call you in for that."
"Oh."
He leans back in his chair and looks at me in that full, scrutinizing way he'd done the other day. That's twice in a week. I bear the full brunt of Victor St. Clair's intensity, unsure if I'll survive a third time.
"So you want to quit," he says.
"No,” I say. “I mean, I might in the future. This has been a terrific job, truly. But I think I've learned all I can in this position. I’m thinking of finding another job, one more challenging, so I can continue to grow. But that’s in the future.”
“Right. Well, that’s excellent."
I stare at him for a long moment, my heart pounding like I’ve run a marathon. His words don’t make sense. "It's… excellent, sir?"
"Yes. I have a new job proposal for you."
"You do?" He has never expressed anything but disdain or a complete lack of interest in me. Had I managed to impress him? I do everything he asks of me and a lot more he doesn’t.
"Yes. It's unorthodox."
“Unorthodox?”
He braces his hands on the desk. "You know that my grandfather passed a few months ago.”
“Yes, I do. I helped arrange his funeral."
“Right. Well, he left a will."
"Oh."
"A will with certain... stipulations."
This I understand. “You want me to coordinate with the lawyers?"
The lines of his face deepen. "No. I've already tried that for the past half year. They won’t budge.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sorry."
His jaw works. “My grandfather’s will stipulates that to gain access to my inheritance, I must be married.”
"Married, sir? Is it legal to include that in a will?"
"I doubt it," Victor mutters. His hands clench tight around the edge of his desk. "But the old bastard got his lawyers to agree. They filed every loophole available to make sure my inheritance is contingent on my civil status.”
"Wow. I'm sorry, sir. I imagine that's difficult."
St. Clair is never going to marry. I know that from working a year with him. Hell, I'd known it after working for him a week. He dated like a tomcat. Over the past couple of months I'd set him up on dates nearly every week.
Not to mention there wasn't a woman in this world who'd tolerate the long hours he worked. The man had even spent Christmas Day in the office and forced me to answer his emails remotely.
And then there’s the issue of his personality, of course.
“It’s ridiculous," he says. "But as it so happens, I've decided to do it."
"To get married, sir? To whom?”
“I’m glad you asked, Miss Myers," he says. There’s a hint of humor in the ice blue of his eyes. "To you."
“You want me to marry you?”
Victor meets my gaze. I've never looked at him for this long before. It's terrifying. "You want a new job.”
"Not as your wife."
“Marrying me would get you out of this office."
"Yes, but not away from you."
St. Clair blinks once and then his usual scowl breaks, lips curving. Something glitters in his eyes and damned if it doesn't make me more afraid. "I always knew you wouldn't last a year.”
My hands curl into fists, nails digging into the meat of my palm. “Six days from now,” I say, "I will have worked for you for an entire year."
“Well, then you have nothing to lose."
The man is serious. There are a billion reasons why this is a bad idea, but as I grope for them, I say the first one I can think of. "But you're not the marrying type."
The same half curl to his lips. "This would be a marriage in name only, Miss Myers. We would not actually be in a relationship."
“No. Right. I would never... of course not."
"You'd be compensated handsomely for your time,” he says. "You're in quite the bargaining position here, Miss Myers. How much do you want for agreeing?"
“I’m not going to marry you for money.”
"You worked for me for money," he says, voice dropping. "You already trade your time for money. I'm asking for very little of your time for this contract. Only your name, signature, and one year of not being able to marry anyone else. It's a far better bargain than the job you're currently at."
Victor St. Clair is infamous for driving a hard bargain, and he doesn’t relent until the other party accepts. I know. I’ve listened in on more than one of his negotiations, when he pesters and coaxes and intimidates until the person across from him folds. And then he walks away, victory glittering in his eyes, having doubled his fortune.
I just never expected to be the one on the other side.
“But… it’s marriage,” I say, in a brilliant stroke of verbal genius. “It’s not the same as a job.”
“We can decide it is. Come on, Miss Myers. What do you want?” He leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing as he studies me. “An entirely new wardrobe? A year of traveling around the globe? There must be something you want, more than simply out of your current job.”
“You’re really doing this. You’re buying a wife.”
He snorts. “If I was trying to buy a wife, I’d go online. Plenty of people in the market for a green card. No, I want a contract. I want someone I know, someone I can trust to follow orders, who is organized and reliable. Someone who understands exactly what this is.”
“So you thought of me.”
“Well, you submitted your resume.”
“Not intentionally.”
“Does it matter?” he says. “You said you wanted away from me. Well, you won’t have to work for me anymore.”
I stare at him. “But I’d be married to you.”
“You’d have your own bedroom, bathroom and space in my apartment. Your own set of keys. We’d barely see one another.”
“I’d have to live with you?”
St. Clair’s jaw ticks. “One of my grandfather’s rules. I’m aware of how… unorthodox this is.”
“Who on earth was your grandfather?” I shake my head, his desk turning blurry. “No, sir. I’m not going to marry you. I can’t. I won’t.”
“You can,” he says, “and you will.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
“No, it’s up to you,” he says, and I know not to trust him, but I look up anyway. He’s braced his hands on the desk and ice-blue eyes lock with mine. “This is the chance for a new life, Miss Myers. Leave Exciteur. Make enough money from this deal to do whatever you’ve ever dreamed of. If you want no contact with me, I’ll make sure it’s minimal. You’ll be married to me for a year and not a day longer. After all, you’ve lasted one year with me already. What’s one more?”
I stand on hollow legs. His words make no sense, and yet they do, and that’s why I have to leave. Because I know Victor St. Clair gets what he wants.
And he’s not getting me.
“I’m sorry, sir. But I’m not interested.”
“Take the weekend to think on it. We’ll discuss it further on Monday.”
I force the next words out. “No, we won’t. I’m not interested.”
“Of course, Miss Myers. We’ll see where we stand next week.”
I shake my head, more to myself than for him, and head for the door. The bleak, impersonal atrium that is my office has never seemed so welcoming before.
“One more thing.”
I pause, fingers on the door handle. “If you’re asking me to be the mother of your children too, then the answer is no to that as well.”
Silence stretches out. I want to apologize for the words, but I don’t. Because they’re true. Because who is he to demand this of me? He’s my boss.
But he won’t be my husband.
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About Olivia
Olivia is a twenty-something hopeless romantic who loves billionaires heroes despite never having met one.
Taking matters into her own hands, she creates them on the page instead. Stern, charming, cold or brooding, so far she's never met a (fictional) billionaire she didn't like.
A voracious reader of romance, Olivia picked up the pen a few years back and what followed was a love affair of her own.
Now she spends her days grinning at the steamy banter she's writing or swooning at happily-ever-afters. Or, to be frank, struggling with writing about herself in third person for the purposes of marketing.
She's been writing contemporary romance novels since 2018.
They're all exclusively available on Amazon and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.
(Phew. Now I can go back to first-person love stories!)
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