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I think so. Hopefully they won’t call me a dumbass again.

Please, Nick. They have journalistic integrity. They called you a “dumba**”.

Of course. My mistake.

Don’t worry. They’re more interested in the image than the details. It’s the shareholders we should focus on. Just bring the same energy from the wedding to our conversation with them.

You make it sound so easy.

It’s not. But it’s manageable.

And after it’s done, you get to go to Fiji and forget all your troubles for a week.

Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.

It’s my job, Mr. Harwood. All you have to do is trust me.

I do.

I tell myself it’s just the novelty of the situation—having Sienna here, in my place, her presence lingering in the hallways, her bedsheets rustling in the guest room.

But it’s a lie. And that’s the problem.

If I let myself think about her—if I let myself get used to that warm feeling, that excitement, that new kind of hunger—then what happens to the cold, analytical version of me who is supposed to take over Harwood Restaurant Group?

After a week of living with Sienna, there’s only two things I know for certain.

I don’t know shit about faking love, andI shouldn’t have kissed her.

Chapter 14

Sienna

I shouldn’t have kissed him.

Maybe, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be dreaming about him every goddamn night.

It’s always the same dream: I’m at the wedding again, but there’re no guests and no officiant. Nick is standing before me in the suit he wore to Café de Mario, his eyes reflecting the courthouse lights like deep, black pools. I could drown in them. He’s holding my hands between us, thumb rubbing circles into my palm, and that small touch is sending big waves of feeling up my arm. Heat and pleasure.

“Do you take me?” he says quietly.

He doesn’t specify whether he means as my lawfully wedded husband, but dream-Sienna is too focused on the amazing sensation working through her body to care.

“I do.” I sigh, eyes going half-lidded. Nick exhales, and his circles on my palm widen, deepen. My nipples harden into points. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.”

“Do you take me?” I ask him in return.

Nick does a rumbling, throaty sound that has my knees weak. “I do.” He lets his head fall close to mine. I can feel his whisper in my hair. “All of you.”

He’sright there. A little shift forward and I could slot myself into his arms, find out how it feels to be held by him a second time. “All of me?”

“Everything,” he says, and with expert smoothness, he lifts our entwined hands above my head. I don’t have time to register the wall behind me before he’s pinned me against it. He uses one hand to hold my wrists while the other travels down to play at the curve of my waist. “Everything.”

“Nick.” My legs shake as his mouth lowers to my ear.

“Tell me how I make you feel.”