My Billionaire Boss Won't Let Me Quit novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: City Hall
Magda marries Lucas at city hall with a stepsister in the doorway and a ring that fits too well, and the kiss is not for the cameras.
We got married on Friday at 11:20 in a room that smelled like floor wax and carnation spray.
There were eleven folding chairs, a clerk with a lanyard, and a flag in the corner.
Ingrid Gorski sat in the front row with her handbag on her knees, looking at the flag.
Kit sat behind her in a green dress she had borrowed from a bridesmaid at a wedding where she had been fired.
I wore the navy suit again.
It was the one I'd kissed him in, and it felt like a point.
Lucas stood beside me in charcoal, with his hands clasped in front of him.
"You came," he said, very low.
"I told you I would."
"People say things."
"I don't," I said.
The clerk cleared her throat and began to read.
I knew the words from other people's weddings, but they came out strange with my name in them.
Halfway through, the back doors slammed open.
Clara walked down the aisle in white, which was a choice.
Behind her came a photographer with a camera the size of a casserole dish.
"Sorry," she said, to the entire room.
"I couldn't stay away from my sister's big day."
Ingrid turned in her chair.
The clerk looked at Lucas.
"Is there a problem?"
"No," Lucas said.
"There's a photographer, which is different."
Clara stopped three rows back and held out both hands.
"I object," she said.
"This is a contract.
"It's a trade.
"Her mother did the same to my father, and it ended exactly the way it will end for you, Lucas."
I felt Lucas go still beside me.
He opened his mouth.
I put my hand flat on his arm.
"Let me," I said.
I turned around.
Clara had her chin up and the photographer was already snapping.
"My mother married your father when I was twenty," I said, "and she paid the electric bill for four years.
"She worked until the week she died.
"She never took one dollar from that man."
My voice stayed level, which was the one skill the job had given me.
"He's been living in her house since.
"So if there's a trade in this room, Clara, you're standing in it."
Somebody in the second row said "ooh" and turned it into a cough.
The clerk looked at Ingrid.
Ingrid rose from her chair, all five-foot-four of her, and spoke over her shoulder without looking at Clara.
"Security will walk Miss Kruszewski to the street," she said.
"She can take the photographer with her.
"Leave the flowers."
A man in a dark suit I hadn't noticed was at Clara's elbow.
She went without saying another word, because there was no way to say one that wasn't a scene.
The doors closed.
A quiet murmur went around the room.
"Would either of you like to say something of your own?" the clerk asked, a little faintly.
I looked at Lucas.
"You first," I said.
"I'm bad at this."
"Say it anyway."
He faced me.
For a second, he looked younger than thirty-one.
"I don't know how to be married," he said.
"I know how to run a company and how to be quiet in a room.
"But you walked up to me in front of a hundred people and you picked, and I haven't stopped thinking about it."
He stopped and tried again.
"I'll stay.
"And I don't plan to let you go.
"That's the whole vow."
I realized I had stopped breathing.
"Okay," I said.
"My turn.
"Lucas, I'm marrying you because you showed up at my door with exactly the right coffee."
A laugh went through the folding chairs.
"I'm marrying you because you wrote 'not yet' instead of a lie.
"I'm marrying you for thirty days.
"And on day thirty, I'm collecting my letters."
His face did something complicated.
The clerk said, "By the power vested in me," and the rest of it went by in a blur.
Lucas took a ring from his pocket.
It was a plain gold band with one small sapphire, old and a little worn at the edges.
"My great-grandmother's," he said.
He slid it on, and it fit.
I stared at my hand.
"How did you know my size?"
"I asked Kit."
"Don't look at me," Kit said from the second row.
"He asked very nicely, and he had a lemon drop."
"You may kiss the bride," the clerk said.
I had kissed him once in front of a hundred people, and I'd decided it was a tactic.
He put one hand against my jaw.
He waited, with his eyes on mine.
I pulled him down by his tie.
It was not for the cameras.
There were no cameras left, and it went on long enough for the clerk to look at her watch.
His hand slid to the small of my back, and my whole body tilted toward his.
When we came apart, I was warm to my knees.
He stared at my mouth for one more second.
"Thirty days," he said, hoarsely.
"Thirty days," I said.
Ingrid appeared at my elbow with her handbag and her pearl studs.
She looked at my face and then at her grandson's, and she patted my arm twice.
"I have known that boy thirty-one years," she said quietly.
"He has never kissed anyone like that in front of me."
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