“It’s not a real wedding. Therefore, one would assume that the traditions don’t really have to be observed.”
Warren shook his head. “It is a real wedding. You’re going to marry this woman simply to get out of having a different bride. Hence my question. Are you sure this is the only way? I don’t get why you can’t just tell your grandfather thanks but no thanks. Don’t let him push you around.”
They’d literally been having the exact same argument for two weeks. Grandfather still held the reins of the Kim empire closely to his chest. In Korea. If Jonas had any hope of Grandfather passing those reins to him so he could move the entire operation to North Carolina, he had to watch his step. Marrying a Korean woman from a powerful family would only solidify Jonas’s ties to a country that he did not consider his home.
“I respect my elders,” Jonas reminded Warren mildly. “And I also respect that Sun’s grandfather and my grandfather are lifelong friends. I can’t expose her or it might disrupt everything.”
Sun had been thrilled with the idea of marrying Jonas; she had a secret—and highly unsuitable—lover she didn’t want anyone to find out about and she’d pounced on the idea of a husband to mask her affair. Meanwhile, their grandfathers were cackling over their proposed business merger once the two families were united in marriage.
Jonas wanted no part of any of that. Better to solve the problem on his own terms. If he was already married, no one could expect him to honor his grandfather’s agreement. And once the merger had gone through, he and Viv could annul their marriage and go on with Jonas’s integrity intact.
It was brilliant. Viv was the most awesome person on the planet for saving his butt from being burned in this deal. Tomorrow, they’d say some words, sign a piece of paper and poof. No more problems.
“Can you guys just be happy that you got a trip to Vegas out of this and shut up?” Jonas asked, and clinked glasses with the two men he’d bonded with freshman year at Duke University.
Jonas Kim, Hendrix Harris and Warren Garinger had become instant friends when they’d been assigned to the same project group along with Marcus Powell. The four teenagers had raised a lot of hell together—most of which Jonas had watched from the sidelines—and propped each other up through everything the college experience could throw at them. Until Marcus had fallen head over heels for a cheerleader who didn’t return his love. The aftermath of that still affected the surviving three members of their quartet to this day.
“Can’t. You said no strippers,” Hendrix grumbled, and downed his champagne in one practiced swallow. “Really don’t see the point of a bachelor party in Las Vegas if you’re not going to take full advantage of what’s readily available.”
Jonas rolled his eyes. “Like you don’t have a wide array of women back in Raleigh who would get naked for you on demand.”
“Yeah, but I’ve already seen them,” he argued with a wink. “There are thousands of women whose breasts I’ve yet to ogle and I’ve been on my best behavior at home. What happens in Vegas doesn’t affect my mom’s campaign, right?”
Hendrix’s mom was running for governor of North Carolina and had made him swear on a stack of Bibles that he would not do anything to jeopardize her chances. For Hendrix, that meant a complete overhaul of his social life, and he was feeling the pinch. So far, his uncanny ability to get photographed with scantily clad women hadn’t surfaced, but he’d just begun his vow of chastity, so there was plenty of opportunity to cause a scandal if he really put his mind to it.
“Maybe we could focus on the matter at hand?” Warren suggested, and ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair as he plopped down on the love seat near the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the Sky Suite they’d booked at the Aria. The dizzying lights of Vegas spread out in a panoramic view sixty stories below.
“Which is?”
Warren pointed his glass at Jonas. “You’re getting married. Despite the pact.”
The pact.
After the cheerleader had thoroughly eviscerated Marcus, he’d faded further and further away until eventually, he’d opted to end his pain permanently. In the aftermath of his death, the three friends had sworn to never let love destroy them as it had Marcus. The reminder sobered them all.
“Hey, man. The pact is sacred,” Jonas said with a scowl. “But we never vowed to remain single the rest of our lives. Just that we’d never let a woman take us down like that. Love is the problem, not marriage.”
Once a year, the three of them dropped whatever they were doing and spent the evening honoring the memory of their late friend. It was part homage, part reiteration of the pact. The profoundly painful incident had affected them in different ways, but no one would argue that Warren had taken his roommate’s suicide harder than anyone save Marcus’s mother.
That was the only reason Jonas gave him a pass for the insult. Jonas had followed the pact to the letter, which was easier than he’d ever let on. First of all, a promise meant something to him.
Second, Jonas never got near a woman he could envision falling in love with. That kind of loss of control...the concept made his skin crawl. Jonas had too much to lose to let a woman destroy everything he’d worked for.
Warren didn’t look convinced. “Marriage is the gateway, my friend. You can’t put a ring on a woman’s finger and expect that she won’t start dreaming of romantic garbage.”
“Ah, but I can,” Jonas corrected as he let Hendrix top off his champagne. “That’s why this plan is so great. Viv knows the score. We talked about exactly what was going to happen. She’s got her cupcake business and has no room for a boyfriend, let alone a permanent husband. I wouldn’t have asked her to do this for me if she wasn’t a good friend.”
A friend who wasn’t interested in taking things deeper. That was the key and the only reason Jonas had continued their friendship for so long. If there was even a possibility of getting emotional about her, he’d have axed their association immediately, just like he had with every other woman who posed a threat to the tight rein he held on his heart.
Hendrix drank straight from the champagne bottle to get the last few drops, his nearly colorless hazel eyes narrowed in contemplation as he set the empty bottle on the coffee table. “If she’s such a good friend, how come we haven’t met her?”
“Really? It’s confusing to you why I’d want to keep her away from the man voted most likely to corrupt a nun four years in a row?”
With a grin, Hendrix jerked his head at Warren. “So Straight and Narrow over there should get the thumbs-up. Yet she’s not allowed to meet him either?”
Jonas shrugged. “I’ll introduce you at the ceremony tomorrow.”
When it would be unavoidable. How was he supposed to explain that Viv was special to a couple of knuckleheads like his friends? From the first moment he’d met her, he’d been drawn to her sunny smile and generosity.
The little bakery near the Kim Building called Cupcaked had come highly recommended by Jonas’s admin, so he’d stopped in to pick up a thank-you for his staff. As he’d stood in the surprisingly long line to place his order, a pretty brown-haired woman had exited from the back. She’d have captured his interest regardless, but when she’d stepped outside to slip a cupcake to a kid on the street who’d been standing nose pressed to her window for the better part of fifteen minutes, Jonas couldn’t resist talking to her.
He’d been dropping in to get her amazing lemon cupcakes for almost a year now. Sometimes Viv let him take her for coffee to someplace where she didn’t have to jump behind the counter on the fly, and occasionally she dropped by the Kim Building to take Jonas to lunch.
It was an easy, no-pressure friendship that he valued because there was no danger of him falling in too deep when she so clearly