Paper Marriage Proposition

Two

Music and laughter boomed. Jewels glinted under the chandelier light. Lisa could see the top of his silky ebony hair as he wound through the sea of elegantly dressed people and soaring marble columns. She could see him—her one and only chance—walking away from her. And all she could think of was no.
    Waiters twirled around with armfuls of canapés, and Lalisa methodically maneuvered around the crowd. She caught up with him by the sloshing wine fountain as he snatched up a glass.
    “Mr. Arnault,” she began.
    He didn’t break stride as he tossed back the liquid. “Go home, Miss Manoban.”
    Lisa sprinted three steps ahead of him and raised the black book with imploring hands. “Please listen to me.”
    He halted, set the empty glass on a passing tray, then stretched his hand out to her, palm up. “All right, let’s see the goddamned book.”
    “No.” The book went back to her chest, protected with both hands. “I’ll let you see the book when you marry me,” she explained.
    “Pardon?”
    “Please. I need my circumstances to change so I can get custody. Jungkook will hate the idea of you having me as a wife. He will…he will want me back. He will fear what I can tell you. And then I can bargain for my child. You can help me. And I will help you destroy him.”
    Something akin to disbelief lifted his brows. “You’re a little thing to be full of such hate, aren’t you?”
    “Lalisa. My name is Lalisa. But you can call me Lisa.”
    “Is that what he called you?”
    Her hand fluttered in the air. “He called me woman, but I can’t see how that matters.”
    The disgust on his face said it all, how romantic he thought the “pet name” to be. Lalisa did not have time to explain, for he’d plunged back into the crowd. Everyone, it seemed, either came forward or waved at him. Event security spotted Frederic from their posts, and their quick eyes landed immediately on Beth.
    “Look, I warn you,” she said, bumping her shoulder against a woman who said, “Hey!” and swiftly apologizing before sprinting back to his side. “Jungkook is obsessed. He believes you’re out to get him and he wants to get you first. If you do not actively do something, he will tear you apart.”
    He stopped and frowned darkly. “I don’t think you have the vaguest idea of who I am.” As he bent forward, his narrowed gray eyes leveled ominously with hers, making her hackles raise. “I am ten times more powerful than Jeon Jungkook. He’d dance in a pink tutu if I said so.”
    “Prove it! Because all I can say is Jungkook is happier than he’s ever been. He’s not hurting at all.”
    “Frederic! God, Frederic, there you are.”
    He did not glance up at the speaker, but stared at Lisa with eyes so tormented they provided a peek into the darkest pits of hell.
    Her heart pounded a thousand times in only a couple of seconds.
    And still he didn’t speak.
    “Let me make this clear, Miss Manoban.” Whatever she’d seen in his eyes vanished as though a shutter had dropped. “I am not in the market for another man’s leavings—nor am I in the market for a wife.”
    “It will only be temporary, please, my family is helpless against his, I cannot even see my son! I crawl around the streets waiting for a glimpse of him. You’re the only man who hates my ex-husband as badly as I do. I know you hate him, I can see it in your eyes.”
    His lips thinned into a white, grim line.
    “Frederic, are you enjoying yourself? Can I bring you anything, darling?”
    Not even the fluttery woman’s voice, coming somewhere behind his broad shoulders, could tear those lethal silver eyes away from Lisa’s. He seized her chin and tipped her head back. “Perhaps I do hate him,” he said silkily. “More than you will ever know.”
    “Frederic,” another voice said.
    His thumb slid up from her chin to explore her trembling bottom lip. A jolt shot across her body. An avalanche of longing unlike anything she’d ever imagined crashed in her. She trembled, head to toe.
    “Frederic,” yet another voice said, this one male.
    He ground his teeth, grabbed her elbow and began dragging her through the tumult of people toward a back hall, into a little room. Slamming the door, he closeted them in shadows. Only a faint flicker of city lights was visible through a small window.
    “Lalisa.” He seemed to struggle to grasp the last tatters of his patience. “You seem like a smart woman. I suggest you come up with another plan for yourself. I’m not interested.”
    “But you’re still talking to me, aren’t you?”
    “In two seconds, I won’t be.”
    She caught his arm, noting his eyes were getting a little dark, a little wild. She couldn’t help but think that if she pushed a bit…if she pushed just a bit more…
    “Please,” she implored, her voice praising. “The public loves you. The court will want to know my new husband to believe I am respectable. They will want to know how much you make and what you do…” Aware that she was squeezing his biceps—very hard, very strong biceps—and that he’d gone rigid as if he didn’t want her to, she let go. “You’re an enigma, Mr. Arnault. You give to charities. You…you’re adored by the media.”
    Adored because he had been on the deep end of a tragedy. Adored because he—powerful, handsome, rich—had been shattered once, like a human being.
    “The media is twisted.” He leaned back on his heels and scoffed. “It is also mine. Of course it loves me.”
    “They fear you, but they revere you.”
    He glanced out the window, his brow creasing in thought. “What do you know of Jungkook’s dealings?”
    “Names. People he’s bought in the press. Future plans.” At the thoughtful angle of his chin, she plunged on more boldly. “I will tell you everything. Everything I know—and I promise you I know enough.”
    He silently weighed her words, considering. Yes! She could see that he was tempted, sorely tempted. Hope spread inside her like a winged shadow. Help me, Frederic Arnault, for Christ’s sake, help me.
    Because she saw in this stranger’s eyes the same lost, caged fury he must see in hers. And sometimes a stranger is all you have in the world when your friends don’t hang around to watch the bloodshed. When they’d picked corners and they had not picked yours.
    Frederic Arnault would understand. Someone, at last, would reach out a hand to her. Please.
    He gave a toss of his head, emphatically denying her. “Find someone else.”
    Stifling a rising bubble of hysteria, Lisa slapped an arm across the door while fiercely clutching the book to her breastbone. “How can you do this?” she hissed through her teeth. “How can you let him get away with what he did to you? He destroyed your life. He still actively destroys it.”
    She could hear the furious scowl he wore in his words. “ Don’t pretend you know anything about my life.”
    “Oh, I know all about it, I even watched while he did it. He did it to me, too!”
    “Listen to me very carefully, Lisa.” His voice dropped, low and husky but laced with the unyielding iron of his will as he bent over her, a looming shadow eating up her soul. “It has been six years. I have put the past behind me, where it belongs. I’m not consumed by rage anymore when for years all I thought of was murder. Do not provoke me, or I may just take it out on you.”
    “This is your chance, don’t you see?” She was grasping at straws and she knew it. “I thought you would feel what I do. Don’t you just hate him?”
    He pried her arm aside and reached for the doorknob, but she blocked the exit, experiencing a horrible sensation of watching her last chance slipping through her fingers.
    “It will be over within a year, when I have Leo back. Please, what does a woman need to do to convince you!”
    The book crashed to the floor as Lisa grabbed his jacket, rose up on tiptoe, and slammed her lips to his, giving the kiss everything she had. Her lips wildly tried coaxing his, and her eyes flew open when he twisted her around in a dizzying spin. With enough force to yank the breath out of her, he pinned her back against the wall. “Are you out of your mind?”
    She shivered, felt dazed and disoriented. Her lips burned from that kiss, a kiss he had not returned, one that had devastated her nonetheless. God, his chest was steel, his hands were steel, his annoying will was steel steel steel. “What Will it take to make you help me?” she asked brokenly, sagging against the wall.
    “Why did you kiss me?” he demanded.
    He skewered her in place with his hands and the weight of his long, impossibly hard body. Her eyes widened. Her breasts prickled. An unmistakable stiffness bit fiercely into her pelvis. Oh, God. Somehow, with that awkward and pitiful excuse for a kiss, he’d gotten aroused.
    And Lisa was so…so shaky. She hadn’t felt this in years. Ever.
    “I…”
    Wet by her, his plush, gleaming lips were the most distracting thing she’d ever beheld.
    His fingers tightened on her wrists and his rolling deep voice vibrated across his muscles. “I don’t play games, Lalisa My sense of humor runs thin and if you raise a little red flag at me one more time, I will charge.”
    “Fred, there you are. You’re up for the microphone.”
    He abruptly released her and Lisa rubbed her sore wrists. A striking dark-headed man scrutinized them both from the doorway. Interest lit up his features and made his lips curve upward. “And who might the lady be?”
    "Jungkook's wife.” With that disgusted statement, Frederic stormed out of the room.
    “I’m not his wife!” she shouted after him.
    The newcomer shot her a look of incredulity, and Lisa spread her trembling hands down the plackets of her jacket, futilely attempting to regroup. She snatched the book, which lay open, facedown on the floor.
    “Alex Arnault,” the man said with a wry smile.
    She hesitated before seizing his outstretched hand. “L-Lalisa. Manoban.”
    “Lalisa, you need a drink.” He handed over his glass and easily tucked her free arm into the crook of his. He patted her fondly, like they were new best friends about to share intimacies. “Talk to me, Lalisa. May I call you Lisa?”