Better Off Wed

When your arranged marriage to a small-town stranger is the most promising thing on your calendar, it's time to accept that the year has gotten away from you.

My Manhattan bridal business is circling the drain. My finances are a crime scene. My wedding singer parents have opinions about my string of failed engagements. Loudly. In public. Often in harmony.

And the only thing standing between me and my childhood bedroom is an arranged marriage to a man I've never met, in a small coastal Maine town I've never visited, with a six-week eject clause I fully intend to ignore.

Gideon Mars—six-foot-something of controlled fury and burn-scarred jaw—stares down at me from the altar like I am, specifically, his worst nightmare. He's hostile. He's enormous. He's clearly trying to scare me off before the ink dries.

But I don't scare easily. Despite his glares, I march up to him and say, "I do."

What follows is six weeks, one bed, and someone in Marswood Harbor who wants me gone even more than Gideon does.

The difference is Gideon changes his mind. Apparently, "I do" comes with a bodyguard.

And I’m going to need him.