Page 14 of Bride on the Dotted Line (Blackstone Center #1)

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’s right 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.”

“You make me …”

“Texts only, Ms. Hayes.”

A loud ding jolts me from sleep, and I find myself tangled in the sheets of my bed in Nick’s guest room, again, panting like I’ve just run a marathon. Sweat beads my brow. My nipples tingle. They could cut through the fabric of my pajama shirt, they’re so hard.

Not good.

Muted city lights shine through the sleek blind over the window, melting into the light from my phone charging on my bedside table. It’s the night before the charity gala, and I’m going to need my beauty sleep. Figures.

I sit up in bed, swallowing hard, and pass my fingers between my legs.

Not good.

My phone says 12:54 AM. There’s a notification glaring from the screen, and my hands tremble, my heart playing a basketball game in my chest.

Nick, 12:53 AM

Night, Sienna. If you need anything before tomorrow, let me know.

I remind myself to breathe. They’re dreams. Just dreams—but my brain is reeling. I’ve forgotten my line, forgotten the role I’m supposed to play, forgotten my own fucking name.

Nick Harwood has gotten into my head.

I imagine him in his bed, only a short walk from where I’m sitting, staring at his phone. Lying beneath those soft charcoal and navy sheets, light seeping in from around those tall curtains. Waiting for me to reply.

Shaking myself, I clear the notification and put my phone on Do Not Disturb. Then I unplug the whole thing and toss it in the bedside drawer.

Fuck a full battery. I’ve got to keep it together.

“I require complete silence for this important announcement,” Lena tells me over the phone the next morning.

I close my eyes, pausing as I lay my scarlet ball gown out on my bed. “Seriously, Lena, you don’t have to?—”

“ I told you so. ” There’s a clapping sound in the background. Is she seriously applauding herself right now? “That feels so good to say, Sienna, you don’t even know.”

“Ugh.”

“I can’t wait to tell Mason you have a crush on your fake husband, who is also our client , by the way.”

“Lena.”

“Mason and I knew this would happen. We had a bet! It’s only been two weeks, so I get a twenty. Your crush is making me rich.”

Sinking my face into my hands, I say, “It’s not a crush, it’s …”

I don’t have any clue how to finish that sentence. An obsession? A fixation?

Running my fingers over the soft silk of my gown, I turn to pull open my closet, looking for a pair of matching heels. “It’s just that … living with Nick makes it difficult to avoid him.”

“Well, yeah,” Lena says. “You live in the same apartment.”

“I don’t mean physically. Like, we have different schedules, so we don’t see much of each other, but when I’m alone here, I can’t help but notice things about him.”

His TV always defaults to the music app.

His bookshelves in the living room are filled with business titles and food travelogues—the food books are dog-eared while the others have gone untouched.

On the mantle, there’s a picture of a younger Nick with longer hair and a devil-may-care grin, his arm around the shoulders of an older woman.

Laurie was beautiful. She had shrewd eyes with Nick’s smile and short-cropped hair.

“He showed me his plans for the restaurant he wants to open,” I tell Lena.

“An upscale comfort food place called Ember & Hearth. He’s got the concept, the menu, everything.

” I can’t help but imagine myself sinking into the coziness he wants to conjure there, the firelight, giving him lingering looks over good wine.

“So, he’s got a passion.” Lena’s tone is teasing. “Other than making you come in your sleep, that is.”

“ Lena. ”

She’s right, though.

Nonna used to say that a house speaks more than a mouth ever could. If she were here, she’d say that beneath Nick’s empty, cold, perfectly decorated and wealthy exterior, there’s a real man with a real life. Real dreams. Someone only a few lucky people get to know.

Fuck.

I want to be one of them.

“I’ve literally never had a sex dream that wasn’t about Chris Hemsworth,” I say. “This is probably because I read like eighty articles about Nick giving women the best nights of their lives, only to disappear afterward.”

Lena tuts. “You’ve really got it bad if you’re trusting the tabloids, girl.”

“I’m not, but …” My mind turns those stories over with an intensity that scares even me. “I’ve had crushes before. This is something else.”

There’s a pause. I can almost see Lena thinking, one finger rubbing her chin. “When we were in college,” she says, “you used to walk right up to the hottest guy at the party and ask him if he wanted a date. Remember that?”

“Obviously,” I say. “What’s your point?”

“My point is: this contract is huge. You wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t. Get to know Nick professionally all you want, but don’t let this opportunity go to waste just because you’re horny and incapable of following rules.”

Ouch. “Asking a stranger directly for a date isn’t breaking the rules,” I tell her, pulling a pair of deep red stilettos out of the closet and holding them against the ends of my dress. “It’s just skipping all the formal stuff. If anything, it’s a loophole.”

Lena cackles. “And you, Sienna Hayes, are the queen of loopholes. Like how you and Nick texted all weekend before we even finalized his PR plan. If it’s words on a screen, it doesn’t count, right?”

When I don’t say anything, Lena laughs again. “I knew I saw you smiling at your phone, you sneak.”

I don’t have it in me to deny it anymore.

“Get through the charity gala tonight,” she advises me. “It’s the most important night of the contract. Take it one day at a time, and after this is all over, you can work out your frustration on the first stud you meet at the bar. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say, and for a moment, it even feels possible.