For The Taking: A Standalone Marriage of Convenience Romance (Gaming The System Book 8) Read online

  For The Taking

  A Gaming the System Novel

  Brenna Aubrey

  For all my lovely family and friends who live in the Great White North. I hope Katya does you proud.

  So I married my nemesis…

  My new life in the States and dream job as a game tester just hit a massive snag. If I don’t want immediate deportation on my to-do list, I need help, stat. Quickest solution—marry Lucas Walker, my cranky and oh-so-annoying co-worker.

  Still, this can work. We’ll have rules and have to stick to them. I won’t think about his muscled arms or how stupid handsome he is even while he pushes all my hot buttons. It’s a marriage on paper only. I need to remember that.

  Player two, press start.

  When that exasperating Canadian, Katya Ellis, asked for help, I agreed because she was willing to help me in return. She doesn’t need to know it’s in my best interest for her to stay in the country. Nope, this is a business arrangement through and through. Which means I’ll set aside all those involuntary fantasies I’ve been having about her shapely body pressed to mine…

  What could go wrong? Welp… as it turns out, just about everything.

  The Gaming The System series

  Girl Geek (Mia) (click to purchase)

  At Any Price (Adam and Mia part 1) (click to download)

  At Any Turn (Adam and Mia part 2) (click to purchase)

  At Any Moment (Adam and Mia part 3) (click to purchase)

  For The Win (Jordan and April) (click to purchase)

  For The One (William and Jenna) (click to purchase)

  Worth Any Cost (Adam and Mia part 4) (click to purchase)

  It was Always You (Jeremy & Michaela) (click to purchase)

  For The Taking (Katya and Lucas) (click to purchase)

  The Point of No Return series

  High Risk (click to purchase)

  High Reward (click to purchase)

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Katya

  I got married in a fast-food restaurant booth, on an extended lunch break squeezed into a sixty-hour crunch workweek.

  Not gonna lie, this wedding was far from the stuff of dreams. My soon-to-be husband on the other hand? He’d probably starred in several—or even dozens—of fantasies. Not mine, of course.

  This marriage was strictly a professional transaction. Ahem.

  Lucas Walker, my co-worker, erstwhile nemesis and now bridegroom sat across the Formica table from me. He was tall and broad shouldered, with sultry eyes the color of melted chocolate. And he had that angular cut to his scruffy jaw that transformed a good-looking man into a remarkably handsome one.

  My future husband. When we walked out of this burger joint, Lucas would be my legal spouse.

  And I’d be his wife.

  “Okay, let’s do this.” My friend and roommate, Heath Bowman, cracked his knuckles. Then he pushed aside the receipt for our lunch order so he could spread out the marriage license paperwork on the table. He turned to dart a glance at me beside him. “Thanks for filling all this out, by the way. That’s going to make this go a lot quicker.” His blue eyes flicked back to the page and he tensed as if remembering something. “Oh shit, I forgot we need someone else.”

  Lucas leaned forward, staring through narrowed eyes at Heath with that intense gaze. “Someone else? Why are we involving anyone else in this insanity?”

  Heath looked up. “At least one witness. It’s California law.”

  We all froze and stared at each other. Should we call in a co-worker? No, definitely not. A friend of mine or of Lucas’s? My gaze flicked to his and he stilled. I knew he was going to blame this on me somehow. I saw it in his glare. He did it at work often enough.

  Cranberry, you are always getting into these weird-ass situations, he’d intoned at me when I’d proposed this whole thing at a coffee shop the week before. Now you’re dragging me into it?

  I blinked, my eyes focusing on the stylized red palm trees lining the tiled walls all around us.

  Record scratch. Freeze Frame.

  Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation…

  So yeah. It all started about three weeks ago. Just before New Year’s, I’d left the U.S. to go to my friends’ fancy Caribbean destination wedding. As you do. But Customs and Immigration nailed me when I came back into the country.

  They made the wild accusation that I, a hardworking, somewhat innocent Canadian girl, who minded her own business, had been working in the US illegally. With no special visa or permit! And no legal residency!

  The actual nerve.

  They were correct. No alternative facts. But damn, they didn’t have to be so mean about it, threatening to kick me out of the United States of America for good.

  The feds didn’t care that I’d rebuilt my life anew, kissing the old one goodbye—for so many reasons I was grateful they didn’t dig into. In the US, I was working my dream job and putting past troubles behind me. I had a new group of friends here who loved me probably more than my own family did.

  But to them, none of that mattered.

  In that tiny room at the airport, they’d threatened me with deportation. And I’ll admit, I panicked. In the heat of the moment, with all their fingers pointing straight at me, I’d blurted out the first lie that popped into my head: I was getting married. To Lucas, my team member from work. An American citizen.

  And boy, did that lie multiply and divide and reproduce like a feverish virus. Since popping the question, my life had taken an even crazier turn. Once I’d explained my predicament in intricate detail, to my shock Lucas had agreed to help me.

  Heath spoke again. “In order to be legally married in the state of California, you’re required a licensed officiant.” Heath placed a large hand on his own chest. “That’s me. Then you need to declare out loud, when asked, that you take each other as your legal spouse. And we need a goddamn witness to sign this license.”

  Someone from the booth behind Lucas jerked his head in our direction. His look said it all… WTF?

  Yeah buddy, I’m right there with you.

  Lucas looked like he was ready to bolt, so I had to act fast. At that moment, I recognized our new eavesdropper’s uniform. He wore the white collared shirt and matching white nametag complete with In-N-Out Burger logo, the remains of his lunch on the empty tray in front of him. An employee on his lunch break.

  Slipping out of the booth, I asked Heath, “You got cash on you?”

  “I have a couple twenties, why?”

  “Be right back with a witness,” was all I said while my future husband stared at me, wary and wide-eyed. Deer in the headlights.

&nbsp
; In less than five minutes, I returned with our new “witness” who I instructed to squeeze into the booth beside my bewildered spouse-to-be. His nametag read Rob, so I introduced him to the other two.

  “I gotta be back at work in fifteen,” Rob said in a tight, high-pitched voice. “You said there’s forty dollars in it for me?”

  “Yup! Heath will pay you when you sign. This shouldn’t take that long, right?” I arched my brow at Heath, silently demanding he agree with me.

  Heath blinked a few times, mouth opening at least half a minute before he spoke. “Uh, yeah, sure, sure. Fifteen minutes for the long version. You can split after you sign.”

  Rob glanced between the three of us while tucking a longish strand of dark blond hair under his red cap. “Okay, then.”

  Heath’s gaze flicked to me. “Do you, Katharina Rose Ellis, take Lucas Walker—” Heath squinted at the name I’d squeezed into the form. Until yesterday, I had no idea that my husband-to-be had another last name and Walker was his middle name. And that last name, it was a doozy. I’d run out of space in the blank while filling in the surname box, the letters spilling out into the margin.

  “Lucas Walker van den Hoehnsboek van Lynden,” Lucas rattled off.

  “That’s enough names for four people.” Heath snorted.

  Lucas only responded by rolling his eyes and making a gesture that clearly meant, Let’s get on with this.

  Heath’s gaze flicked back to me. “Okay, so Katya, do you take Lucas to be your legal husband?”

  I couldn’t look Lucas in the eye, even knowing that he had his own good reasons for helping me. Things just got weird, so I stared at the tacky plastic tabletop and croaked out a quick “yes.” If I could’ve gotten away with a mere nod, I would’ve.

  Heath moved on to the next question. “And Lucas, do you take Katya as your wife?”

  His hands on the table, where they were laced together, seemed to tighten, the knuckles turning white. Other than that, he made no movement. He gave a sharp nod and an even sharper, “Yes, I do.” He stated with the same tone he might use for announcing that he’d contracted an STD.

  Heath nodded, satisfied “Okay so… by the power invested in me by the state of California, yadda, yadda, yadda, I now pronounce you husband and wife—”

  “Number ninety-three, your order is ready!” came a disembodied voice over the overhead speakers.

  “Ooh, that’s us.” Heath offered the pen to Rob. “If you’ll kindly sign right here…” He dug out his wallet to pull out some bills.

  Rob had slid out of the booth, checked his watch and then with a sigh scratched his name out on the table. “Weirdest thing ever, but yeah, witnessed it.”

  Shit, what if immigration asked for Rob’s testimony for whatever reason? I reached out and covered Lucas’s large hand with my own, squeezing it. “I’m sorry. We’re just so desperately in love that we need to be married immediately.” I sent a warning glance to Lucas, who grunted and nodded along with what I said. Yeah, he’d never be in danger of winning an Academy Award, for sure.

  Rob handed the pen back to Heath and as he scooped up the cash, his phone bleated out the cheesy synthesized beat of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.

  Heath pushed out of the booth. “Gotta go procure the wedding feast. You two sign here while I’m gone.”

  The rick-roll was the pièce de resistance to add to the surreal list of this strange day. The semi-hostile bridegroom. The yadda-yadda-yadda-ing of our marriage vows. The interruption over the loudspeaker. To say nothing of the imminent marriage “feast” of Double-Double burgers, milkshakes and skinny fries.

  Our witness, Rob, answered his phone, sauntering away without a further word of congratulations or thanks for the easy forty bucks. And I was left to stare awkwardly at my bridegroom.

  Shit. He was my husband now. Didn’t feel that different, though. He still glared at me with the same nonchalant annoyance as before.

  With almost robotic jerks, Lucas reached over, dragged the form in front of him. He signed with quick, decisive flicks of his pen scratching across the surface of the table. He then scooted the paper to me.

  But instead of signing right away, I held up my waxy paper cup of soda and tilted it toward him in a clear sign of a toast.

  Our gazes met. The air between us crackled and popped.

  My gaze flicked to his hands, fingers laced together tightly atop the table. My eyes lingered on them, realizing for not the first time how much they fascinated me. They were strong, masculine. Long fingers, prominent veins crisscrossing lightly hairy hands. My gaze traveled up the solid, muscular arms under his flannel shirt.

  Try not to focus on that. I forced my attention elsewhere to prevent meeting his gaze again. He had the loveliest big brown eyes. They looked sleepy, even when he was fully alert. And they were fringed with dark lashes. And his mouth…

  Stop it, Kat!

  I cleared my throat and brandished the cup at him. “Come on, we should at least toast, right?”

  He flicked his gaze back to mine, appeared to fight the temptation to roll his eyes. But he complied, tapping his cup of Coke against my sugary pink lemonade.

  “And what are we toasting? Excellent deadline margins? To an early beta-release bonus from our bosses?”

  I smiled. “To us. Mr. and Mrs. uh, van—van Hoehns—”

  He sighed and put his drink down, cocking a brow at me. Letting his eyes drop slowly, they trailed down the line of my long hair, past my shoulders, down my arms where it nearly brushed the table.

  His gaze warmed everywhere it touched. But I’d never in a zillion years let him know that.

  “Walker. Let’s just keep it simple. And I thought you were keeping your name?”

  I shrugged and nodded. “Yeah… sure. Unless it makes a stronger case with immigration to change it. I’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”

  “Since this isn’t lasting long, I’d say the less work you have to do to change it all back when this is over, the better.”

  I slurped on the last of my lemonade and watched him with wide eyes. “It’s a good thing that I was never all that attached to the typical dream of a big wedding. Expensive dress and bouquet of half-bloomed flowers, a glamorous first dance in front of a roomful of mostly drunk friends and family. This is about as far from that as you can get.”

  This time, he did roll his eyes. “Totally overrated anyway. You’re not missing anything. Even if this was for real.”

  I twitched my brows, wondering what that cryptic remark meant. I’d have to get used to it. My now-husband was fond of making dry remarks that no one got. At least I knew mostly what I was getting into with marrying Lucas. We’d worked together for over a year and sparred regularly.

  His eyes flicked away from where he’d been studying my fidgeting hands, then checked his watch. “We don’t have time to wax poetic with the could have beens, anyway. When we get back to work today, we’ve gotta hit it hard. You promised.”

  I raised my right hand as if solemnly vowing—because there hadn’t been quite enough of that today, I guess. “All of my lunch breaks and overtime and all-nighters are yours until we make this deadline.”

  He nodded grimly, satisfied. “Good. Because this—” he motioned between himself and me “—is a business transaction.”

  I waggled my head, tiredly nodding in agreement. I’d heard this repeatedly in the past week. “Yeah yeah yeah. I get a certified Yankee husband to put on my immigration forms for a green card. You get all my help to make the deadline so you can impress the big bosses for that new promotion you’re coveting. I’ve got it, Lucas, like I had it the twelfth time you told me.”

  “Hmm. Well, a few more times can never hurt.”

  As game testers, our department at Draco Multimedia Entertainment had to assure the software was clean of bugs and glitches. It was especially important due to the upcoming release of the new Dragon Epoch expansion, War of the Sunderlands. For a game as massive and complex as Dragon Epoch, this w
as no simple task.

  Our bosses had given us a nearly impossible deadline to accomplish this. But instead of pushing back and asking for more time, Lucas, our project manager, had accepted the challenge. Because he had something to prove.

  He pressed his index finger into the tabletop between us. “Right?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Yes. Right. Jeez. I’m well aware of how much you want the new job. I’ll do everything in my power to help. You know what they say about immigrants getting the job done.”

  Damn, he was infuriating and also hot when he got this way. Bossy and insistent with a healthy dose of cranky—that was Lucas in a nutshell. Too bad he was also wrapped in a pretty package that I couldn’t help noticing. Over and over. It’d be so much easier to be irritated by an ugly asshole rather than a beautiful one.

  It didn’t help that his bossiness always had me wondering if he was that way in bed, too. Stop it, Kat!

  I was lucky, really. So far he hadn’t asked many questions about why it was so vital I stay here in the US and not go back to Canada. My heart raced and my stomach dipped even thinking about that possibility. No. He was helping me stay here and putting himself on the line to do it. So for that, I’d overlook the asshole-ness and be grateful.

  My home country was a wonderful place. But the specific situation I’d left… not so much. I fidgeted again, plunging the straw in and out of my empty cup to produce a wailing squeak. After a minute of this, he shoved his hand on top of mine to stop me, that fabulous jaw tensing.

  “Cranberry,” he muttered between his teeth. “Calm down.”

  His hand was warm and calloused—apparently from years of rowing crew in college, he’d once said. Warm tingles raced up my arm from where our skin connected. Holy crap. Tingles… shocks… goosebumps. I gulped loudly and extricated my hand from under his. Then I scooped up the pen and added my signature to the license.

  After reading over the form again, I sat back, glancing up in time to catch that he was staring intensely at me, his eyes somewhere on my neck or hair. But as soon as I caught him, everything changed. By the time he met my gaze again, that usual granite veil had been replaced in seconds.