Page 21 of Bride on the Dotted Line (Blackstone Center #1)

“He’s been amazing,” Sienna says, voice hushed. I stop in my tracks, just around the corner from where she’s sitting. “I’m—yes. I just have to tell someone. I’m in trouble here, Mom.”

The soles of my feet fuse to the hardwood floor. I shouldn’t be hearing this. It’s a private conversation—but Sienna just said she’s in trouble. She hasn’t mentioned anything about trouble to me. If it’s the PI, I’m going to burn down every tabloid in the city.

If it’s something else, I need to fix it.

I can hear Marcella’s voice responding, but it’s low and not on speakerphone anymore. They’ve switched from video to a regular call.

“No,” Sienna says. “He’s been incredible. That’s the problem.”

My wrists go weak under the weight of the salad bowls. I know I’m eavesdropping, but I still lean back against the wall, gazing out the window, all of my senses trained around the corner. She just said incredible . About me.

“I know it’s only been a month,” Sienna says. Cushions shift as she reorients herself on the couch. “But he’s … I’ve never met anyone like him before. Yeah, Mom. I never expected him to be so …”

There’s a pause. Neither of them say anything. I blink against the light—the sun is setting outside, casting the hallway in pink and yellow.

“It’s like he’s …” Sienna takes a deep breath. “He’s thoughtful in ways that sneak up on me. This morning, he went to the market and bought lobster because I said I was craving it. And he’s always making me laugh, even though I’m anxious about everything right now.”

Marcella’s voice crackles through the phone.

“Yeah. It’s been wearing on me—I hate the idea of Dad getting hurt again. But when we’re texting, it feels like Nick listens. Actually listens, Mom. He’s not anything like people say he is. He isn’t even the snobby, entitled guy I thought he’d be. I was wrong, too.”

A heartbeat of silence follows. I shiver, the space between my ribs heating like I waded into a warm bath.

This isn’t teasing or flirtation. She means it.

But … she’s mistaken. I’ve never been the man who is a good listener, thoughtful, funny .

To my past girlfriends, I’ve always been hot, confident, rich.

And hot, confident, rich was good enough for me.

Marcella says something, and when Sienna responds, that little rasp in her voice is back. It’s intensified with an emotion I can’t pinpoint.

“That’s what scares me,” she says. Across the hallway, a fragrant breeze lifts the curtains and sets them back down again. “I’ve never used that word before, not with any of my other boyfriends, but with Nick, I want to.”

My body goes rigid. Sienna’s mother speaks, sentence inflected up like a question.

I stare down at the food I made and am surprised to find I don’t want it anymore.

For the first time in years, there’s something other than hunger churning in my blood; my chest burns with a feeling that’s entirely new, paradoxical, incomprehensible.

I’m light as air.

I’m heavy as fucking lead.

“I think I do,” Sienna whispers finally. “I think I do, Mom.”

I don’t hear the rest of the conversation because my ears start ringing. My skin electrifies. The world seems to tilt—am I genuinely going to fall down right now?

No. Breathe.

I inhale a short breath, exhale a long one, and wait until my heart stops galloping.

That word.

There’s no telling what they’re actually talking about—I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

If I do, I’m going to do something reckless, something with serious legal consequences, like sweeping Sienna into my arms and never letting her go.

Like telling her every feeling that’s been sitting at the back of my mind, waiting to be spoken.

Instead, I straighten my spine— just act normal, Nick, for God’s sake— and somehow manage to walk around the corner into the living room.

“Got to go, Mom. I’ll talk to you later,” Sienna says hurriedly into her phone, shifting on the couch. Her laptop is perched open on her knees, showing another blank e-mail. “Love you too.” She taps the red button on her phone screen and gives me a tiny smile. “Uh—hey.”

“Hey.”

I wordlessly set her lobster salad in front of her, not trusting myself to speak.

She peers over the top of her laptop at the bowl.

The corner of her mouth lifts—this gorgeous, terrifying, unbelievable woman—and my heart swirls in my chest like a tornado.

Her hair is loose over her shoulders, a cascade of black, soft-as-silk beach waves.

“It looks amazing,” she says, closing her laptop and pushing it to the side. Her gaze lands on me, then deliberately floats away. It feels as casual as a house fire. “Are these flowers? Can I eat them?”

“They’re edible,” I tell her.

“Cool.” She uses her fork to dig into the food. All I can think is she has feelings for me. Sienna’s eyes close as she chews, the pinch between her brows softening, that subtle rapture I’m getting to know so well.

“Oh my God, that is so good,” she says.

She has feelings for me.

We eat in silence, watching palm trees sway outside the window. I nibble on a piece of avocado, my brain unraveling. I thought I knew what she wanted, after the gala. I thought she wanted to circle back. My mouth on her neck, her moans in my ear, my hand under her dress.

But that word. That word she wants to say but hasn’t.

It’s almost laughable, what two minutes of an overheard conversation can do.

My thoughts—the thoughts that I’ve been avoiding, the thoughts that have snuck into my heart over the last month, thoughts of protecting Sienna, providing for Sienna, calling Sienna mine—are suddenly there and loud and clamoring for attention.

And of course, I know what they mean.

I shouldn’t say it out loud, though, because it doesn’t matter what I want.

Sienna Hayes can’t love me.

She can’t love me, because doing so would destroy everything she’s built for herself. I’m Nick Harwood. Even if I were CEO of a hundred companies, even if my father didn’t have the ability (and maybe the will) to erase all the progress we’ve made, I couldn’t deserve a woman like her.

Everyone knows I’m not a husband guy . The tabloids knew it when they wrote those fake stories about me; Lena and Mason knew it when they threatened me before we got married; my dad knew it when he suggested a fake marriage in the first place.

It wouldn’t be a real marriage, Son. Don’t be childish.

“Want to go out for dessert?” Sienna asks, setting her fork down. “I’d still like to try gulgula.”

I nod numbly, watching as she pulls out her phone to find gulgula on a map. The movement makes her sweet perfume waft from the other side of the couch. She’s like a goddess in her tank top and sweat shorts; her legs and her eyes and that cute crinkle in her nose and she’s mine. She’s my wife.

But not for long.

I press my hand over my pocket, where the hard frame of my phone is sticking into my thigh.

Six weeks left in the contract, and fuck, I wish I were stronger.

I wish I were better. A different man might be able to resist showing her how much he wants her.

He might be able to shirk her feelings for her own good.

I’m not that man, though. I’m Nick Harwood.

Certainty rises inside me, pain and relief at the same time. The next time she gives me an opening, I won’t be able to hold back. Sometime in the next six weeks, Sienna Hayes is going to feel what it’s like to be wanted. I’m going to give her everything I can, everything she needs.

I’m going to show her what it means to be mine.