Page 15 of Bride on the Dotted Line (Blackstone Center #1)

Nick

Sienna’s plan for the charity gala is simple.

“We enter the ballroom arm-in-arm,” she tells me as we take the elevator down from the penthouse. “Get a few drinks, mingle, play it up for the cameras. Then we have a short but meaningful conversation with your dad’s shareholders, emphasizing how happy we are in our new marriage.”

“We’ll approach them together?” I ask.

“I’ll go talk to them first.” She tugs at a curl escaping her updo, pinning it back into place. Tiny pearls dot her hair, making her head look like the night sky. It’s beautiful. I can’t tear my eyes away.

I shouldn’t have kissed her.

“I can prime them,” she says. “By the time you join us, they’ll be prepared to see that we’re a normal, wholesome husband and wife, and that you’re capable of running the company.”

Capable. The last time I came face-to-face with my father’s shareholders, they made me feel anything but capable.

But things are shifting. It’s been a fortnight since Sienna and I’s wedding, and none of the remaining investors have withdrawn from the company. It’s like Harwood Restaurant Group is holding its breath, waiting for me to debut my new personality.

Let’s hope I can play the part.

Our driver takes us to the Aurora Grand, the ritziest hotel in the city. My nerves are on high alert as Sienna and I walk up the steps to the ballroom entrance. If we don’t impress the shareholders tonight, we might not get another chance.

Guests stream in on either side of us, talking, laughing, and snapping photos. Sienna is at my elbow, looking incredible in a smooth, red gown that flows over the steps behind us. The way the fabric bunches above her ass makes my brain delete itself, and I shouldn’t have kissed her.

“Ready for this?” I ask.

Her gaze slides in my direction. When she’s not wearing heels, she’s only as tall as my upper arm, but tonight our eyes are meeting at shoulder height. “Why don’t you hold my hand, and we’ll find out?”

That little rasp in her voice coils a hot, tight feeling behind my dick. I keep my expression as neutral as possible. I shouldn’t have …

“Okay.” I twine her fingers in mine. “Let’s go.”

The ballroom is decked out in glitzy silver and crystal, shining centerpieces dotting the room.

Massive chandeliers cast ripples of light across Sienna’s face, and elaborate flower arrangements adorn the walls and doorways.

A champagne tower surrounded by bottles stands in the corner next to a long bar.

“Wow,” Sienna says, brows sloping at the huge, burbling water arrangement taking up the opposite wall. “Rich people.”

“Rich people,” I agree with a grin.

We’re fashionably late; the space is already filled with guests standing around in their best gowns and suits. Beneath the din of conversation and the clink of glasses, I catch whispers erupting around us.

“Is that Nick Harwood?”

“The rumors are true.”

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

My pulse is pummeling the inside of my wrist. How long has it been since I entered a room like this with a woman?

After Roderick’s rumors made me the town scumbag, I started going stag tothese kinds of events—I don’t want to tarnish some unfortunate girl’s image.

But tonight, I’m with Sienna, and she owns the room with her signature, confident authority.

People automatically step to the side as she leads us to the bar, and I can’t help but think, that’s right.

She’s with me.

We order drinks, and as we exchange pleasantries with the bartender, I give the reigns I’ve been holding myself in some slack. I lean in and brush my lips against her temple. Her vanilla scent fills my nose.

A camera across the room clicks.

“Nervous?” I say as the bartender prepares our drinks.

She tilts her head into mine. “You wish, Mr. Harwood.”

I hope she never stops calling me that. “Our shareholders are here already.” They’re across the room, sitting around their table with plates of hors d'oeuvres and crystalline glasses of wine. My father is among them, surveying the dance floor with his eyes narrowed.

“Should I go introduce myself?” she says.

My hand skates across her lower back, and I notice that her arms are covered in goosebumps. Maybe I’ll ask the staff to turn up the thermostat. “Good luck. I’ll bring you your drink.”

The camera clicks again, and Sienna winks at me, adjusting the tiny straps of her gown. I watch as she walks away, sashaying around the edge of the dance floor toward my father’s table, hips swaying.

She’s unreal.

It’s not real.

When our drinks arrive, I take a long pull from my whiskey, letting the alcohol pin me back to Earth.

I shouldn’t have kissed her . I’ve been repeating that to myself a hundred times a day, because even though it was our wedding, we were pronounced husband and wife, and we were contractually obligated, I shouldn’t have done it.

The memory of her lips on mine haunts me. It’s a fucking ghost, paying rent in my head, making me have insane ideas. Thoughts about protecting her, providing for her, being the only person that sees her first thing in the morning or knows how she sounds when she comes apart at night.

I’ve never had thoughts like that before.

I’m losing my goddamn mind.

I watch her shaking the shareholders’ hands across the room. Her smile is confident, her posture perfect. She doesn’t need my protection, my attention, or me. I’m going to secure my father’s company so that our contract can be fulfilled, and her family can pay their debts—that’s what she needs.

And as for what she wants?

I don’t know. I’m trying desperately not to analyze the fact that she kissed me first, or the fact she’s been giving me furtive looks behind my back over the last two weeks, eyes flitting away when I turn to her.

Because if I think for one second that Sienna Hayes wants something from me—something other than what’s outlined in our contract—I won’t be able to stop myself from breaking all the rules to give it to her.

“Nice pull, Nick,” someone says from behind me, yanking me out of my thoughts. “Where’d you find her? Sienna, right?”

I know that voice.

The noise of the ballroom muffles, leaking away like I put my head underwater. My grip goes so tight on my whiskey I’m afraid the glass will shatter.

“Lionel.” Roderick’s younger brother looks just as smarmy as he did when we were teenagers. He’s never grown out of his perma-sneer or his lack of dental hygiene. He sticks his finger in his ear, twisting it as he looks me up and down.

“Good to see you,” he says. “I never thought I’d see the day you had a ring on your finger.”

If he means to insult me, it’s not working. I’m aware I’m not a husband guy .

“What are you doing here?” My tone is flat and hard. The burn in my belly isn’t just from the liquor anymore. “You didn’t bring Rod here, did you?”

Lionel snorts, slurping from a champagne flute. “Of course not. He doesn’t have a death wish.”

“Why, then?”

“I came to make amends.”

The whiskey is gone. I set the empty tumbler on the bar and signal the bartender for another. Sienna’s wine is sitting next to me, moisture beading on the glass.

“You can try,” I say.

Gaze veering over the ballroom, Lionel gives me a thin smile. “You and I both know your father is retiring. Yes—I’m aware. Our families were close, once, Nick. You really think I don’t ask people about you?”

I stare at him, my vision bleeding red. For years, Roderick was my father’s choice for CFO of Harwood Restaurant Group, with Lionel coming up for a board position behind him.

Rod is amazing with money, but he is also a lousy, cheating bastard, and after he weaseled a few lies into the press about me, he thought he could gain control of the whole company.

Lionel was in on all the fun, of course. I’m not about to give him too much credit.

“Get to the point.”

He smirks. “What Roderick did to you was short-sighted and idiotic. I’m embarrassed that you’re still feeling the consequences all these years later.”

Lying doesn’t look good on him. “And?”

“And I hope that when they induct you as captain of Harwood Restaurant Group, you won’t pass me up when you’re choosing your crew.”

The splendor of the gala seems cheap and gauche all of a sudden.

I close my eyes, attempting to contain the fire in my chest. When Mom was alive, the company’s board was filled with people who loved restaurants, culture, and culinary experience.

After she died, my father ushered in a wave of Rodericks and Lionels, people who don’t care about food and worship the bottom line.

Our board members expect me to approach business that way, too.

My chest cools. I don’t know if I can deliver, but at least I know damn well I won’t be hiring Lionel.

“I’ll keep you in mind,” I say dryly. I must be a better liar than he is, because he smiles a piano full of teeth at me.

“Fantastic. And then, when we’re working together, you can tell me how to find a piece like her.” He gestures with the top of his head across the dance floor, where Sienna is standing at the center of a semi-circle of shareholders. His eyes glint. “Unless you’re sharing?”

Something inside me snaps. I’ve put up with a lot of shit from Roderick and Lionel over the last three years, but hearing his oily voice call Sienna a piece brings all my energy to my clenched fists.

“Don’t ever, ever , speak that way about my wife.” I step closer to him, dropping my voice so only he can hear. “Don’t look at her. Don’t think about her. Next time you say her name, you’ll choke on it.”

Lionel flinches, lifting his palms. “Touchy, aren’t you?”

“Try me.”

At that, Lionel backs off with a forced chuckle, mumbling about needing another drink. I watch him, fuming, until he disappears into the crowd.

Alone again, I take a long breath in, then out. Sienna doesn’t need me to defend her from creeps like Lionel. But if that interaction taught me anything, it’s that hell will freeze over before I stop trying.

In other words, I’m fucked.