The Marriage Code: A Novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE MARRIAGE CODE

  “Thoroughly charming, a modern romance for people who love to laugh!”

  —Penny Reid, New York Times bestselling author

  “Deliciously entertaining. A page-turning delight! You’ll root for Emma from start to finish!”

  —Nina Bocci, USA Today bestselling author

  “The Marriage Code is an adorable, satisfying, and sweet romance I devoured in one sitting. It will make you homesick for India, even if you’ve never been there.”

  —L.J. Shen, USA Today bestselling author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Brooke Burroughs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542025072

  ISBN-10: 1542025079

  Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino

  For Prabhu, my real-life Rishi

  CONTENTS

  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

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Emma Delaney woke up, a silk pillowcase under her cheek, a modern midcentury lamp beside the bed, and some kind of framed squiggle on the wall that had been explained to her twice, but she still couldn’t remember what it meant. No comfortable, haphazard clutter of books and random clothes she hadn’t put away yet or the Goodwill bedside table she’d carried with her since she was an undergrad. And most of all, there was a distinct missing aroma of coffee coming from the kitchen.

  She groaned as the memories of last night rushed at her while she reminded herself why she’d stayed the night at her best friend’s house. Followed by the question, Why didn’t Jordana drink coffee? She needed a good, strong cup to wake her out of the nightmare of the past twelve hours.

  A patter of slippered feet came down the hall. “There’s my girl! I was just coming to wake you up.”

  Jordana sat gently on the side of the bed, and Emma wheezed out a weak “Hi.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Emma was feeling like she wanted to hide under Jordana’s five-hundred-thread-count sheets and sink into her silk pillowcase for the rest of the day, if not eternity. She was feeling like she might have made a huge mistake last night by listening to her gut and not her brain, which measured everything out in logic and reason. Because logic and reason said she and Jeremy were perfect together. They both worked in IT, they watched the same movies, they had a weekly rhythm of dinners and coffee and friends that was practically scheduled in their calendars, and they fit in well to each other’s long hours and busy work lives.

  But when he’d asked her to marry him, she couldn’t do it. Even though the fifty people around them were staring at her, making her feel like she was the unfortunate star in the final episode of a TV series. All of them holding their breaths for the big yes.

  “I’ve been better,” Emma said, and then her nose detected the faint smell of coffee. Could it be? “But I’m hallucinating a coffee smell, so that is probably a weird sign of something.”

  “Oh!” Jordana whisked her right hand around. “I brought you this. Double latte, no sugar.”

  “You’re the best. I’m like fifty percent better already.” She sat up and cradled the to-go cup like it was a chalice and gave a big smile to her friend. Jordana knew her. She knew that Emma needed a double latte every morning to wake up. She had to wonder if Jeremy did.

  In the past two years she and Jeremy had been together, Jordana was always the one to make sure no one was planning a surprise party for Emma’s birthday and that there was no public fanfare when she did well at work or had a successful project. But as Jeremy had sunk down on one knee last night with all those people watching, she’d wanted to slide under the table and disappear. He’d been oblivious to the torment inside her and had grinned at the people sitting at the neighboring tables as they gave him knowing smiles. Like it wasn’t even about her. Like he had no idea that for her, this type of public spotlight was nothing less than a nightmare.

  He doesn’t know you. And you don’t even love him. That’s what Jordana had said last night when Emma had run over to her apartment after Jeremy had abandoned her at the restaurant. And maybe she was right. Maybe love wasn’t an easy life of cohabitation. Sunday: walk to get coffee and read the paper day. Friday: happy hour with friends day. Wednesday: midweek sex night.

  When she looked at it like that, it was exactly what Jordana had said. She’d organized her and Jeremy’s relationship like something for work.

  “God, what have I been doing for the past two years?” Emma asked as she took a big sip of her coffee, the warmth flooding her body. “If love isn’t that easy feeling that fades into the background and stitches itself into your life, what else is it?”

  “You make it sound like a quilt your grandmother gave you. Love should be more like an electric blanket. If you mishandle it, you could get shocked. Or, if you’re lucky, it’s like being electrocuted.” Jordana shook her head at Emma like she was the crazy one.

  As if on cue, Charlie, Jordana’s fiancé, appeared in the doorway. “How’s our little Emma doing?”

  Jordana smiled at him with a look that beamed all the electricity she’d spoken to Emma about, and Emma had to wonder if she’d ever looked at Jeremy that way. “Aww, she’s going to make it through.” She joined him at his side, and his hand just naturally slid around her waist like they were two lost puzzle pieces who had found their interlocking mates.

  Emma was certain she and Jeremy had never looked as comfortable as these two.

  Take their proposal. They just knew. They sort of mutually proposed to one another while they were at IKEA one night. Charlie didn’t have an elaborate proposal planned because they’d talked about their future and had decided together that they’d get married. So perfectly them.

  “Well, Dad, Mom got me this delicious latte, since you weirdos are tea drinkers, so I’m going to a
t least survive the morning.” Emma took a big sip and smirked at Charlie. They joked about how he and Jordana were like Emma’s parents sometimes because someone had to take care of her, but secretly Emma relished the idea, especially as she lay in their spare bedroom with their fancy sheets and coordinating furniture. Although Jordana and Charlie were nothing like Emma’s parents. Or at least what she remembered of them. When they’d been alive, and Emma was a little kid, everything in their small house had been mismatched and randomly eclectic, and Emma, maybe subconsciously, had embraced their theme of organized chaos into her own decorating.

  “Well, how nice, you taking care of the kiddo,” Charlie joked. He looked back at Emma. “Have you heard from Jeremy at all?”

  “I texted him again before I went to bed, and he said he’s not ready to talk to me.” A fact that made Emma feel a little glum. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t say yes to him, and yet he’d treated her like she was a stranger who’d done the unspeakable, like run over his childhood dog. But maybe she’d just run over his heart. She’d tried to explain that she wasn’t ready, that she’d been taken off guard, that she was horrified by the public spectacle he’d made of their relationship, but he wouldn’t let her get a word out. “Last night, before he left the restaurant, he said he couldn’t even look at me.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma. I’m sure he’s just hurt,” Charlie said.

  Jordana added, “I know he’s hurt, but that’s not fair to you.” She went to sit next to Emma on the bed, and Charlie took his cue that it was girl time and disappeared back into their bedroom with a little wave.

  “You two never talked about marriage. You’ve never gone ring shopping. I don’t know why he just surprised you with it. No wonder you were blindsided. Before launching into a big public marriage proposal, you should be pretty damn sure your partner is going to say yes.”

  Emma sat up straighter, but she wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed. “And now I feel like the bad guy. I was so embarrassed last night I wished I had the power to evaporate. Plus, I thought everyone in the restaurant was going to hold a public stoning if I didn’t run out of there.”

  “Poor Emmie.” Jordana hugged her. “But maybe it’s for the best. It sort of feels like you and Jeremy have run your course.”

  Maybe they had. She couldn’t imagine getting married to him, and he’d already gotten down on one knee. That probably wasn’t going to change. It was just unfortunate that it had taken a proposal to find this out.

  “I have to get ready for work. Didn’t you say you had a meeting to get to?” Jordana said, brushing out the long dark hair Emma had always been envious of.

  Emma grabbed her phone. It was seven o’clock. “Shit. Yes.”

  “Can’t you call in sick or something?”

  “No, it’s my postmortem for my Helix project.” Emma scrambled out of bed and grabbed her clothes, which Jordana had meticulously folded on the dresser, apparently while she was asleep. “I need to get all the feedback from the team so I can request budget for phase two of the project. Besides, it will be good to get my mind off Jeremy and what happened. I could use the distraction.”

  “Okay. Well, good luck! I know how much this project means to you.”

  She hugged Jordana. “Thanks for taking care of me last night. And say a prayer I don’t run into Jeremy when I go grab my laptop.”

  She clutched the remnants of her latte on the way into the office and hoped that it would power her through her postmortem. At least someone had said they were bringing Top Pot doughnuts: in her opinion, the best in Seattle. She’d go to war with those Krispy Kreme people all day over their cake doughnuts. Besides, why did the name have Ks where there should have been Cs? It conjured up too many visions of the E-Z Mart she’d had to shop at as a kid. That had been anything but “easy.”

  By the time she’d walked in to work, she was feeling better, and it wasn’t just the promise of good doughnuts. It was one of those beautiful spring days with only freckles of clouds in the sky, a miracle after two weeks of not seeing the sun. It made her think it must have been a sign, a sign that things were looking up. That if they were changing, maybe they were changing for the better.

  She paused in front of the room and checked her face in her phone’s camera. No blotchy patches: check. No red eyes: check. Her team needed her. They needed more funding. They needed to find out exactly which updates to make and how to get them done so the five of them could keep working on Helix for the next year. She’d be strong for them. So she took a deep breath, cleared all nonwork thoughts out of her head, and walked in the room.

  Her first vision was of that glorious cardboard Top Pot box on the table and of her project team perched around the room chatting. “Hey, guys! Whoever brought these, you are the best!”

  She grabbed a chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting out of the box and took a bite. Dessert disguised as breakfast was just what she needed. These were her people, her project, her safe space, her postmortem mecca. One hour of happiness would push away all the feelings of the past twelve hours.

  “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Seems like everyone is here.”

  Stephanie, her project manager, looked at her watch. “Actually, there’s one more . . .”

  “Really? Who else is coming? Maria?” Emma asked her, trying to think of who outside the project team would want to attend their postmortem.

  But Stephanie just did some kind of weird gesturing at her face in response. “Uh, Emma?” Her words were interrupted by the door opening.

  A man with a messy flop of wavy hair met her eyes. Emma blinked. His eyes were actually gray. A color that she hadn’t known existed in the eye palette. “Hello,” she said, more like a question than a statement. And then she realized why Stephanie was gesturing. Emma’s hand came up to her lip; she had a giant glob of chocolate frosting on it.

  “Hi. Is this the Helix postmortem?” He stepped forward and stuck out his hand to Emma. “I’m Rishi. I got the invite forwarded to me.”

  The fingers of Emma’s right hand were now smeared with chocolate, so she stuck out her left one, and they did the most awkward handshake in history—when his right hand cupped her left one, it was as if she were expecting him to kiss the back of her hand. “Hi, I’m Emma. Nice to meet you?” Apparently every sentence was coming out like a question this morning to this mysterious stranger at her meeting.

  She studied his face, trying to conjure up her diagnostic superpowers. His eyes were lit up. His hand was tapping at his side. He looked at the rest of the team and smiled a little, then back at her. He had a nice smile. One of those sort of crooked ones that seemed like it was winking at you.

  Evidence of a little nervous excitement, perhaps? Maybe rumor had gotten out about how well Helix had gone from ideation to product in record time, and this guy wanted to hear all about it. Of course, Emma thought her software was amazing. It had been proved to accelerate literacy rates for all their users—from children with challenges like dyslexia to refugees who didn’t speak English when they moved to the US. Naturally Emma and the team were proud, but did that mean other people were intrigued? Did Helix have fanboys? That’s what she needed. Someone to actually be all aflutter at something she’d helped create, as opposed to acting like she was a terrible person because of one simple word she couldn’t say to Jeremy. They had T-shirts left from the launch, right? She’d totally give him one, just to thank him for making her feel better about life.

  “So, Rishi, are you interested in the Helix project?” She settled on his face again, trying to place him. Her stomach was doing something a little squirmy—likely calling out Doughnuts, please!—and it was making her restless. Her body seemed to be extra alert at this fanboy prospect. Probably latching on to any potential good news she could get today. Anything that wouldn’t make her feel like a monster who’d stomped on her boyfriend’s heart.

  She pushed herself back on the conference table to sit on it, crossing her legs oh so demure
ly, channeling the kind of woman who didn’t smear chocolate all over her face like she was two. “I haven’t seen you around the office.”

  “Oh, I’m here for a few weeks wrapping up a project for our customer-relationship app. I’m based out of Bangalore.” He looked at the floor and then back up at her. Those eyes were an assault on the senses when they flashed at someone like that. She leaned back on the table, like she needed some distance from them.

  “So, I guess our little project has been making waves over in the Bangalore office? And with the app developers, no less?” She smiled at her team. They should have been proud that all their work was being heralded around the company, globally and cross-functionally. The developers in the app division were their own breed, while the leadership in the desktop division still clung to their laptops as the source of truth. Everything was merging, but so far Helix had proved successful as it was.

  The fact that an app-developing stranger had come to learn more must have meant Helix was making waves across the company. And that was what she needed today. To know that all the hours, sweat, frustration, joy, and pain and the extreme amounts of caffeine that her body had absorbed over the past two years had been for something good. For something that would make her parents and grandmother proud. That they could look down on her and see exactly how far she’d come from the tiny town she’d grown up in. That all the hardships her grandmother had struggled through were worth it. Emma was on the path to success. She’d done it for them. She’d done it for herself. And if things with Jeremy were coming to an end, then it would still be okay, because at least she’d have this.

  Rishi grinned, the right side of his cheek pulling harder than his left, and looked at her team with his eyebrows raised. Was that nervousness? Around her? Too sweet. She could’ve hugged this guy. “Oh, um . . . no. Actually, I’d never heard of the project, but they’re developing an app for it. I think it—”

  “Wait, what?” The Pomp and Circumstance playing in her head abruptly halted its fanfare and wheezed out. “I’m sorry, an app for Helix?” She didn’t mean for her voice to make that choking sound that mirrored a pubescent fifteen-year-old boy’s. But if they were going to be building an app for her project, then she would have been told. Her manager, Maria, would have asked her to help with it.