The Grump I Married

“Shite!”

If there was one thing I’d learned after seven years of working for Weston Kincaid, the Scottish former-tech-guru-turned-energy mogul, it was to steer clear of the man once he started adding bloody to his swear words. Shite was fine. Calling someone a bawbag…well, no one else in Texas actually knew what that meant, so it wasn’t a problem. Saying a meeting was pure pish…people could make a good guess at that one, but no one seemed to mind because Weston never seemed all that upset when he said it. But once—

“Bloody fecking shite!”

Yep, once “bloody” started popping out, it was not the time to approach him with files that needed signatures, HR requests, or the reminder of my upcoming time off. It was time to solve problems, redirect non-urgent business, and push unsuspecting citizens out of his warpath—skills I’d honed into a fine art form.

I signed off my email—Lena Harp, personal assistant—just as the door to the adjoining room flew open, and I glanced up from my desk. Weston stood in the doorway of his office, dark hair mussed by tense fingers, steel-cut jaw on edge, his nostrils flaring.

“I take it the meeting didn’t go well?” I said, preparing to take notes.

“I hate solicitors!” He stalked across the top floor of Kincaid Energy’s Houston office, retrieving a paper from the printer. “It’s a mess. It’s all a bloody fecking mess! Wasn’t Grandad having a will supposed to make my life easier?”

“That’s the general idea,” I said, watching his scowl darken.

“Well, it’s not!” he snapped.

“What did the lawyer say?” I asked patiently. He wasn’t usually the kind of boss that shouted. He preferred a good, intense glare when trying to break people. But he’d been understandably out of sorts and on edge since losing Grandad Pete. “Is your grandfather forcing you and Jasper to share Lochbrae?”

Weston hissed at the sound of his much-hated cousin’s name. “That would almost be easier. No, the estate’s mine—conditionally.”

“Well, what’s the condition?”

“I have to get married.”

Brooding Scottish billionaire say what? I blinked, my eyes flicking from those thick brows, coiled tight across his forehead, to the ticking muscle in his jaw, certain I’d misheard him. “Excuse me? You have to—”

“Get married,” he repeated. He strode toward my desk, paper in hand, like this was a perfectly normal Tuesday morning. He thrust the paper in my direction.

I was so caught off guard that I forgot my rule and inhaled, drawing in a deep whiff of that damn cologne that always muddled my head. It was spicy and smoky and put all sorts of thoughts in my head. Goddamnit. I pinched my arm to get my head back in the game and took hold of the paper, blinking down at what looked to be a copy of Peter Kincaid’s will. The legalese was dense, but I’d gotten good at parsing through it after years of reading the contracts that came through Weston’s inbox. I scanned the page, my eyes running over the words again and again. It was all there in black and white. Provided that Weston Kincaid shall be lawfully married within 30 days of my death…Holy shit.

“Grandad gave me a month to sort it—”

“Less than that now. It’s thirty days from his death,” I pointed out. We both knew it had already been a couple days.

“Exactly!” he growled. “I forfeit the entire Scotland estate if I can’t produce a wife and hand over a marriage certificate to the solicitor’s office in Braeburn in that time. All of Lochbrae would go to Jasper.”

I rubbed the side of my head, already feeling a boatload of work coming my way. Work I didn’t have time for! Ughhhh. I was trying to tie everything up in neat bows for Weston before my time off next week. His grandfather passing had been a shock—one even I had felt, despite mostly knowing Pete Kincaid through phone calls—but we were handling it, and I’d already managed to line everything up for him to return to Scotland to attend the funeral.

But this! This wasn’t just some little problem. When exactly was I supposed to find him a wife? Okay, that sounded ludicrous despite the things I’d done for Weston over the years, but I wasn’t so naive as to think he’d handle this on his own.

“When you say—” My words were cut off by the sight of Weston rolling his shirt sleeves down, depriving me of the view of his toned forearms. Bad move on his part—you’d think someone with his genius-level IQ would have realized I had a much harder time standing strong against him when those forearms were in view.

But if he wanted to make it easier for me to keep a clear head, that was fine by me. Maybe he thought he looked more authoritative and in charge with his cuffs buttoned and his jacket on—and if he thought that, he wasn’t exactly wrong. But as he slipped on the suit jacket—black, as all of his suits had been since he’d gotten the news of his grandfather’s death—he looked like the untouchable billionaire he was.

My weakness was for the man underneath the bespoke, the one few people got to see.

But there was no need for him to know that.

He straightened to his full six-foot-two, pinning me in place with those sharp, penetrating eyes.

“We’ll have to get married,” he said.

My thoughts short circuited. What the hell was he talking about?

I wasn’t marrying the man!

“Weston—”

“Yes,” he barked. “You and me. Married. Today.”

He set off, pacing back and forth in front of my desk—one of his stress reactions—as a humorless laugh escaped my lips. “Okay, Mr. CEO of Insane Ideas, I know you didn’t just phrase that like an order.”

“It all needs to be in order before the funeral,” he continued. “I don’t have time to be chasing down marriage certificates in Scotland, so we need to move quickly.”

I stared at Weston like he’d sprouted three heads. There was no we in this equation.

“How soon will the helicopter be here?” he asked, checking his watch.

“Thirty minutes,” I answered.

“Right then, can you get a hold of city hall and see what hoops we need to jump through to make the wedding happen today?” He set off for his office.

I jumped to my feet, chasing him into the glass-walled corner space that looked over downtown Houston. This was his problem: he walked too fast, talked too fast, made decisions too damn fast—without bothering to actually talk to the people who were affected by them. “Hang on a second,” I said, stumbling as Milo, his adorably mischievous golden retriever, nudged me in the knees. Weston brought Milo into the office today so they could leave directly for the airport. I patted Milo’s head and nudged him away. “We need to discuss this.”

“Discuss what?” Weston asked, standing behind his desk, eyes glued to his phone.

Seriously? The man expected me to marry him—with zero warning—and he didn’t think that merited a little discussion? Or maybe, I don’t know, starting with an actual proposal instead of skipping past all that and taking my consent for granted?

I resisted the urge to groan out loud and released a steadying breath, as I so often did when dealing with Weston’s more ridiculous demands. Because I needed the paycheck if I ever had a hope in hell of being able to afford grad school one day. For that, I was prepared to do a lot. But there was nothing in my contract about marrying my boss, and I planned to keep it that way.

“Milo!” Weston snapped as the dog started gnawing on a stack of files I’d left on his desk for him to sign. “Get off of that, you wee menace!”

Milo darted back to my side for head rubs.

My phone pinged suddenly with a new task: Wedding Prep. A spark of irritation crawled up the back of my neck as I glared at Weston. “You can’t be serious right now.”

“I need this done today, and you’re the logical choice,” he insisted, scrolling through his phone like he was ordering lunch instead of upending my entire life. “Six months, max. Once the estate clears probate, we’ll file for divorce.” He held up his phone. “The website says something about needing a waiver if we want this to happen today,” he said. “Can you sort that? License this morning, ceremony this afternoon.”

I rolled my eyes, staring down at Milo, wondering at what point today we’d stepped into the twilight zone. “Sure, let me just update my email signature to temporary wife,” I snarked. “Do you want that above or below personal assistant?”

Weston frowned at my expression. “This isn’t a joke.”

“Good, I’m glad we’re in agreement on that,” I bit out, still trying to process the fact that my boss, the same man who made me pick up his dry cleaning, had just added nuptials to my list of daily tasks, as if it mattered just as little as that. Okay, so maybe he didn’t know the idea of marriage was a sensitive subject with me, but that was still no excuse to be so damn cavalier about the whole thing.

“Do you even realize what you’re saying?” I had to fight the urge to grab him and shake some sense into his ridiculously handsome head. “This is like actual marriage. A legally binding agreement with—”

“Temporary marriage,” he corrected, as if that somehow made it all okay. He grabbed some of the files on his desk and started stuffing them into his briefcase. “We’ll say it falls under the additional tasks and responsibilities part of the contract.”

I wanted to lean over his desk and whack him with those files. “Um, no, that’s for things like picking up Milo’s dog food.”

He waved me off, back to scrolling his phone. “I’ll obviously compensate you for the inconvenience. We can discuss terms—”

I dropped my hands to my hips. “I don’t need to discuss the terms, Weston. My answer is no.”

He huffed, still barely bothering to look my way. “Why are you being so difficult?”

“Do you hear yourself?” I said, my voice starting to climb. “You just told me to marry you. Not ask. Told. TO MARRY YOU, Weston!”

He stared at me, perplexed. “I’m failing to see the issue here.”

I scoffed. “Trust me, I can tell.”

“You’re the most convenient option,” he said like he was rhyming off what kind of dog food to get Milo. “We both know that. You’re here, you’re single, and you spend all your time with me anyway.”

“Because that’s my job,” I said, trying to get the difference through that thick head of his. “Being your temporary wife is not my job.” It wasn’t just paperwork and posing and ticking boxes. Not for me. If I ever stood next to someone and made those kinds of promises, I’d want it to mean something. Marriage was supposed to be choosing someone, but Weston wasn’t choosing me, he was using me.

“It’s not like you have a life outside the office.”

His words landed like a blow to the chest. It took me a second to catch my breath. “Excuse me?”

Weston ran a hand through his dark hair. “I’m serious. When’s the last time you went on a date, Lena? When’s the last time you interacted with someone who doesn’t work here?”

My face went hot. “That’s none of your business.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, get off your high horse. I’ve called you at two in the morning and you’ve answered every time—and I’ve never once heard a man’s voice in the background. Let’s be honest here. It’s not like you’re drowning in other offers.”

I could feel myself go crimson, but I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or rage. Or both. Probably both.

“Are you saying you asked me because you thought I was too desperate to say no?”

At this, he finally seemed to realize he might have misstepped. “I didn’t say desperate,” he hedged.

“No, but it was what you meant,” I shot back, fuming.

Rather than addressing that, he chose to change the subject. “Let’s talk terms. Duration, financial arrangements, living situations during the transition period.”

Oh, look at that. It turned out I actually could get angrier after all.

“Financial arrangements, Weston? Seriously? Are you buying me to be your bride? Do you honestly expect me to say yes to that? No wait, I can’t say yes because you still haven’t asked me. You’re just acting like it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll go along with this.”

He had the audacity to look confused by my reaction. “Of course you will. You always do. All that’s needed now is for us to settle the terms. This is how business works, Lena. We negotiate, we agree, we execute. You know this.”

Something inside my chest cracked like a fault line. Seven years. Seven damn years of sixty-hour weeks, of canceled vacations, of missed birthdays because he absolutely needed me at the office. I was the most efficient assistant in Houston, and this was how Weston Kincaid thought he could treat me?

Well, like hell was I going to be office equipment he could temporarily rebrand as a wife.

“You know what?” I said, slamming his laptop closed as he reached for it. Milo’s tail wagged furiously as he looked between us. “You’re absolutely right. I do know this. So let me negotiate.”

I planted my palms on his desk and leaned toward him, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his green eyes. “Here are my terms,” I said as seven years of swallowed words clawed their way up my throat. “Go. Screw. Yourself.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth briefly, like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of it, before snapping back up.

“With a rusty spoon,” I added helpfully. “Sideways.”

For the first time in the seven years I’d known him, Weston Kincaid looked genuinely speechless.

“While we’re negotiating,” I continued, my voice rising higher, “let me also decline your ‘generous’ offer to discuss my living arrangements like I’m a houseplant you’re relocating. And for the record?”

His lips curled back as he leaned across the desk. He was so close, I could practically feel the heat radiating off his body. “Lena,” he growled in warning.

I was too frustrated to care. “Telling your employee they will marry you isn’t negotiation. It’s desperation!”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I am not desperate.”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, you look like a man who thought ‘I need a wife’ and immediately looked at the nearest woman with a pulse and a valid ID.”

“This is a business solution to a business problem.” His voice had that clipped edge it got when people weren’t keeping up with his logic. “Everything doesn’t have to be…” He waved his hand dismissively. “Emotional.”

I laughed. It was a sharp, slightly unhinged sound. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m deeply emotionally invested in not being treated like a blow-up doll with a business degree.”

His jaw ticked. “That’s not—”

“Or maybe you’d actually prefer the inflatable wife model? She comes with an automatic ‘yes, sir’ feature and never requires vacation days.”

“Bloody hell! What do you want?” he snapped. “Some sappy, cliched rot with me down on one knee? Will that make all of this easier?”

“No, I don’t want you down on one knee!” I didn’t want him in any position, especially that one.

“Then what do you want from me?” he growled, something simmering in the tension in his voice. Something that made my skin prickle.

“Why don’t you start with trying not to insinuate that I have nothing else going for me,” I said, my voice layered with irritation. “And that my sole purpose in life boils down to my availability to be your fake wife.”

“I was merely pointing out the fact that this shouldn’t inconvenience you,” he said through his teeth.

“Right, sure,” I muttered sarcastically. “Why would getting married to my boss inconvenience me? Especially since my entire world revolves around you, Your Royal Jackassness.”

He bristled, his shoulders hunching up by his ears, but I wasn’t done.

“Oh boy,” I continued. “I can’t wait. Do I get dental with this promotion to wife? Is there a dress code to be Mrs. Kincaid? Let me guess, a lot of tartan, right?”

“Enough of this!” he cried. “Call the courthouse.”

I crossed my arms. “No. I will not be marrying you!”

His eyes flashed, something icy and sharp in their depths. “That’s not an option, Lena. We’re getting married today. You’ll come with me to Scotland to do a little song and dance for the solicitor and then—”

I threw my hand up. “You can stop right there. Even if some delusional part of me wanted to consider this, I’m on vacation starting the end of next week. Or have you already forgotten? What am I saying—of course you have. You always conveniently ‘forget’ when I take time off, or bulldoze over my vacation requests, because you can’t fathom the idea of me having a single sliver of a life that doesn’t revolve around you.”

He sneered at me. “You’ll just have to reschedule to another week.”

I clenched my jaw so tightly my head throbbed. It felt like it was going to explode as I willed the heat of my anger to suffocate him. “And miss my best friend’s bachelorette party? The one I spent months painstakingly planning to work around your already ridiculous demands on my time? The one I gave you a heads up about last year?” He was out of his mind. “Yeah, no. That’s a hard pass from me.”

“Tess will understand,” he said dismissively. “And I’ll compensate you with generous overtime. You can send her an expensive gift and call her from Scotland.”

“Bah!” That was it. That was the final straw. Something inside me snapped at his sheer audacity, speaking for Tess. Speaking for me. Assuming I’d ever be okay with ditching my best friend since childhood to play pretend with Weston while she was gearing up to get married for real. That any kind of gift would make up for my absence.

“If anything, you should be compensating me with hazard pay for having to put up with you! I can’t just go another week because I’m not skipping Tess’s bachelorette. And you can go to hell!”

He walked around his desk, coming toward me. Silence stretched between us, electric and dangerous, tinged with irritation and anger and something I couldn’t name. All I knew was that we were standing too close, breathing too hard, and I wanted to throttle him.

“This doesn’t have to be so dramatic,” he snarled.

“I’m not being dramatic. You’re making assumptions you have no right to make,” I hissed, tasting fire on my tongue, “and expecting everyone else to put their damn lives on hold for you. My God, Weston, I don’t know where you get the audacity. Maybe they start mailing it to you with your interest payments once you make your first million!”

“It’s actually auto-deposited!” he snapped.

“Along with the entitlement and the super-sized ego and that smug little smirk?”

His eyes flashed. “If you see my capable, professional assistant anywhere, let her know I’d like her back instead of whatever,” he gestured to me, “insanity I’m currently dealing with.”

“Why don’t you try throwing some more money around! That always helps, right?” The fact that he’d even suggest there was a dollar amount out there that would make it worth missing the bachelorette party was the most insulting part of all. As if anything could replace all the life experiences I’d be missing out on with my best friend.

Fuck that. And fuck him.

“You waltzed over and decided that poor, pathetic Lena would be grateful for the chance to marry you because you assume she has no life, no prospects, and nothing to offer except for her availability!” I was practically vibrating. “Well, let me assure you, I have plenty going for me outside this job. And I will be enjoying my happily unmarried life on a beach next week with my best friend, drinking margaritas, and there’s not a single damn thing you can say to change my mind.”

His mouth flattened into a thin line, his nostrils flaring. But it seemed he had no response to give to that. Not even an apology. I shook my head, all desire to continue this conversation leaving my body.

“You know what? Enjoy your inheritance crisis.” I needed to get the hell out of here before I added “murder obnoxious boss” to my to-do list. “I’m sure there’s a mail-order bride catalog somewhere that can solve your problems.”

I twisted away from him and marched straight for the office door.

“Lena!” he called. “We need to figure out a solution to Grandad’s will!”

“We will not be figuring out anything,” I said, yanking the door open. “I’m sure this is a simple business problem you can negotiate yourself out of. Since you’re so good at that.”

I slammed the door on my way out, my heart hammering against my ribs as I felt something I hadn’t experienced in seven long years: the delicious satisfaction of being absolutely, completely unavailable when Weston Kincaid needed me most.