“No guns were involved,” I say lightly.
I decide not to tell him that there’s every chance we could annul our marriage because both of us were drunk off our asses and that’s grounds enough in California.
“Just do your thing and fix it,” Jax orders. “Find out what she wants. Give it to her. Fucking apologize for once in your life.”
I look at him. “Right. Or else.”
“Or else,” Jax agrees.
He sounds as if he’s talking to himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
MAN ON A MISSION
Liam
A WEEK AGO, I was a bachelor billionaire and the host of a now-legendary sex party. Saturday morning: I woke up with a ring on my finger and a wife by my side. Sure, the point of getting drunk off my ass was to do things I’d regret the next morning, but marrying Hana is a whole different category of messed up. Worse, I can’t stop thinking about her, and my lunchtime conversation with Jax just feeds my inner beast.
Hana naked.
Wrapped in a sheet wearing just my rings.
Bending her hot body into a yoga pose.
Her hot naked body.
We had sex, but seven days later I still can’t remember all of the details, although not for lack of trying. I wanted to punish myself, but instead I think I ended up hurting Hana. She’s not forgettable and although my blacking out is entirely my fault, not hers, she may not see it that way.
An hour after Jax roars off on his bike to kick ass at an underperforming start-up, I give up pretending to be productive. Instead, I stare out the window of my office. I can see both the Bay and the Transamerica Pyramid from where I sit. Despite the sunshine, smog dims the colors of the sky. It’s probably hot and bright in Marin where Hana has that farm of hers. I haven’t been out there, although I know Jax is a frequent visitor. I’ve teased him more than once about his newfound hippie tendencies and asked if he had urges to swap out girl hugging for tree hugging. A quick inbox check tells me that the investment bank in which I own a significant if private stake has done as I asked and acquired Hana’s mortgage. I know she won’t let me pay it off if I ask—Jax tried to gift her the money for the original purchase and she refused—but this way no one will ever foreclose on her or sell her loan. I just won’t tell her until it’s a done deal.
Leaning back in my chair, I stare out at the soaring buildings of the San Francisco Financial District. I’m only here in our city office today because I had a meeting. I jiggle my knee, trying to force myself to think like I normally do, but I don’t want to make more money or start another company.
Hana occupies the prime real estate in my brain as she has all week.
Since she’s not here, I fall back on my phone, firing up the video of our wedding. I’ve watched it so many times that I know exactly what will happen and when. Hana and I join hands and repeat our vows after the ringmaster. He’s included the standard stuff about love and honor, sickness and health, riches and poverty. While I’m not sentimental, the way Hana beams at me feels special. And then the cheesy circus music starts up, almost but not quite drowning out the ringmaster’s invitation to kiss my bride.
There’s a pause and then Hana throws her arms around my neck, hauling my face down to hers because she’s a tiny bit of a thing and I’m a big brute. She kisses me enthusiastically and I pull her up for a decidedly X-rated kiss. My hands thread through her hair, angling her mouth as I devour her onscreen. I sort of want a do-over because she’d been smiling up at me with wide brown eyes, looking happy and dazed, and then I’d fucked her mouth with my tongue like a barbarian, bending her backward over one arm because we had an audience that I was clearly playing to.
Usually she wears faded blue jeans or Bohemian dresses that are big on fabric, tassels and flowered prints. The dress she wore to our wedding looked vintage. One of my groundskeepers had found the black-and-white dress and I’d had it dry-cleaned and returned to her, along with the red fuck-me shoes that had turned up in my kitchen.
The video stops and I promptly restart it.
At some point, I have to delete it because I’m turning into a fucking creeper.
What started out as an impulsive bad idea is now an opportunity. I need to get her attention and fast. She drove away from my Napa Valley place as if her gorgeous ass was on fire. Normally I don’t give a shit what my hookups say or do after we’ve had sex, but Hana is different and not just because she didn’t sign an NDA. I promised her that I’d take care of her. Twice. First in our vows and then the morning after.
Mortgage security aside, an unexpected way to achieve this goal has come up and I need her to consider it. I’m thinking of her. Not me.
Mostly.
I cringe. Okay, so a quick annulment is still the easiest option for Hana and at first I thought it was what I wanted, too. Except I’ve already spent an hour today being berated by the board of Galaxtix about the circus sex party and how bad it looked. Apparently, we’d lost another potential private investor and it was all my fault. I’d looked from one suit to the next, calmly meeting their judgmental gazes, and had come perilously close to telling them to stay out of my personal life. I could fund a dozen science education foundations. I could buy another space project.
But it wouldn’t be this one.
This is the first time I’ve been invited to join a board for something other than my money, and I really love the direction our research has been headed. It’s weirdly addictive, putting my MIT degree to work, and while I honestly don’t expect to be driving a Bugatti on the surface of Mars in the next decade, it’s a great dream. I don’t want to lose it because a bunch of smart people, consisting mostly of engineers and nerds, have decided my dick is in charge of my brain. I’ve poured my money and my heart into this space rover thing, and it means something to me, so I won’t let them kick me out without a fight. Which was when I’d opened my mouth and overshared accidentally on purpose.
When I’d casually mentioned that I might, possibly, have been there that night with my new wife and that there would be no more public orgies because naturally she frowned on that kind of thing, being a nice girl and a huge fan of monogamy, they’d stopped yelling and started asking questions. Unfortunately, those questions included What’s her name? and Why was she at a sex party—are you swingers? I’d put them off, but eventually I’d have to provide answers.
As it stands now, I’ve been strongly requested to bring my new wife to a charity gala next month hosted by one of the board members. I don’t particularly want to be married, but it will smooth over ruffled feathers and it has been made clear that as long as I’m married to someone who can serve as my public face, all will be forgiven.
So I’ll just convince Hana to stay fake-married to me for a few months. I’ll trot her out in front of the board, bring her to a few charity gigs, and then we can quietly split up just as soon as people have forgotten about the whole Leda thing. I’ll make it easy—she won’t have to do much besides move into my place and go to the charity gala. Smile, take a few photos, let me buy her dinner and a bee farm. Maybe some really nice earrings. I’ve already determined through some judicious texting with her brother that she isn’t currently seeing anyone, and a quick hack into her checking account revealed that bee farming is even less lucrative than I would’ve guessed. So her cash flow issue plus my image issue adds up to us staying married for now. She used to have a huge crush on me, so maybe she won’t even mind.