Page 4 of Bride on the Dotted Line (Blackstone Center #1)

Nick

Is this Sienna?

Sienna

And you are?

Thought you gave me the wrong number for a second, PR girl.

Wouldn’t think of it.

Ready to do business?

I stare at her last text, surprised at how badly my thumbs want to tap out a reply.

Ready to do business?

This whole thing feels like some kind of elaborate joke. The type only my father can afford.

I pop a mint in my mouth as my driver pulls up to the Harwood family estate.

I spent the evening after Sienna and I’s meeting working on a pot of beef bourguignon—my mother’s old recipe; no use trying to improve on perfection—and I only had one swig from the bottle of vintage Pinot Noir I opened for the sauce, but if Victor Harwood catches even a hint of alcohol on my breath, I’m fucked.

Yes, I’m aware he treats me like a fourteen-year-old, but it’s been that way since I was a kid. My father’s jaw has always tightened when I speak. His eyes have always scrutinized me like I’m a walking catastrophe. In a way, I’ve turned out to be exactly the man he expected me to be.

According to the tabloids, at least.

I thank my driver and walk into the mansion where I grew up.

The house is outrageous: fifteen bedrooms, a pool, and a minigolf course; a kitchen that would make any home cook salivate; a ten-car garage and still too many vehicles to fill it.

The house doesn’t look anything like it did when I was a kid.

It’s gone through multiple changes and remodels since Mom passed—new floors, new siding, new windows—and now it looks just like Victor Harwood himself.

Cold, clean, and calculated.

“I was expecting you earlier,” Victor says as I push open the door to his study. He’s sitting behind his desk, staring at a stack of papers. “When will you stop with this culture of lateness?”

My father is a short, stout man, but he carries himself like he’s eight feet tall. Even when we’re standing side by side, he finds a way to look down at me. His study looks like the waiting room at a luxury office, sparsely decorated, severe, and large enough for our voices to echo.

“I’ll stop being late when the city finally fixes the construction mess on the road here,” I say. “Do you know how much work it takes to get to this side of town? If I were you, I’d be lining a few pockets.”

He peers at me. “I heard you were also late for the meeting with your new PR manager today. Was it also a lot of work to run across the street?”

Ah, so Sienna e-mailed Alvin after our meeting. The family lawyer is like an ever-leaking faucet of information poised right over my father’s ear.

“I plan to apologize next time I see her.”

“Nearly an hour!” my father continues, pretending he didn’t hear me. “Ms. Hayes is a principled young lady, Nicholas. Observant, as well. She thinks that if it took you an hour to get to your meeting, you were probably drunk out of your mind, drooling on the floor of your penthouse.”

“Really?” I deadpan.

“She said so in her e-mail.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Right.”

I wasn’t even close to drooling on the floor of my penthouse earlier this afternoon. I got caught up in the kitchen working on a new recipe. And fuck me for not being excited about the seventh PR meeting my father has forced me to attend since July, I guess.

Not that it matters. I don’t believe for a second that Sienna would insult me in her e-mail that way. Sienna Hayes might be strangely terrifying, irritatingly pretty, and a hardass, but she’s a professional. My dad’s just concocting a story to try and punish me.

There’s no point in arguing with him.

“Before, Son, you used to respect me. You’d sneak out here and there, go to parties with your little friend Roderick, but at least you were always at the places you were meant to be. Now you just do as you please.”

“I’m an adult, Dad.”

“Explain to me, then, how a grown man like yourself is planning to take over the family business when you’ve done nothing in your life but mess around with women, nightclubs, and drinking.

” Victor slaps a hand on his desk, rattling the quill sitting inside his old-fashioned inkwell.

“Give me one achievement to make me think that you’re not deliberately trying to ruin this company that I worked my ass off to build. ”

I don’t say anything. He’s not wrong about the women, night clubs, and drinking, but I could list off a hundred other things I’ve done.

Taking care of Mom when she was sick, finishing my degree, doing my time in the restaurant industry.

Even the menu that I’ve been working on for years, tasting, perfecting, wouldn’t impress him at this point.

Because somewhere around the time Roderick poisoned the world against me, my father decided I was good for nothing. Everyone did.

(Well, almost everyone. There’s a phone number currently etched into the skin of my wrist. I pull my cuff down over the numbers as best I can, keeping them from my father’s sight.)

“I still can’t believe you hired an outside company for this,” I tell him. “It’s a waste of money, Dad, and kind of embarrassing.”

Victor spears me with a frown before hoisting himself out of his chair, walking to a cupboard, and pouring himself a tumbler of gin. Outside the study’s giant windows, the sun has set completely, lights glittering around our turquoise-blue swimming pool.

“There is another way, but it’s not a solid consideration yet,” Victor says lowly.

I don’t like the sound of that. I turn to him, folding my arms.

“Yes?”

“Our partners would feel more comfortable doing business with a man who appears sensible and grounded. Your current lifestyle clearly doesn’t represent that, and, as I’ve told you numerous times, there isn’t much time before I retire. We must focus on appearances.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“A marriage, Nicholas.”

The world goes still for a moment. I would think this was a joke, but my father doesn’t make jokes—he buys them.

“Find a fine young woman,” he says. “One who would be good for the media. We can make arrangements. It would be the perfect way to demonstrate your good sense, and when the shareholders arrive for the charity gala at the end of the month, you could introduce them to your new wife.”

“Dad … I don’t have a girlfriend.” I have a dry spell, in fact. Some would say that’s the exact opposite of a girlfriend. “How do you expect me to meet someone in time for the gala?”

Victor scoffs. “It wouldn’t be a real marriage, Son. Don’t be childish. Once you’ve gained control of the company and have your reputation intact, you will get quietly divorced. It’ll be easy. Your mother would approve.”

Easy. At times like these, I like to close my eyes and imagine my financial statements.

All those zeroes. Enough to walk away from my father whenever I like.

Yet every time I get close, he brings up Mom.

My dad might be running the show now, but she started Harwood Restaurant Group. This is her legacy.

But a fake marriage?

Your mother would approve.

My old man watches me from behind his gin.

Sometimes I think he can tell when I’m missing Laurie Harwood, because he gets that look on his face like he’s missing her, too.

When that happens, it’s my cue to leave.

If I don’t, the excruciating feeling that rises between us bends and twists me so hard I feel like I might break.

“Think about it,” Victor says, sitting back behind his desk. He rifles through papers. “Work with Ms. Hayes. Do what she tells you. And for the love of God, Son, be on time. ”

“Whatever you say, Dad.”

I know better than to say goodbye or try for an affectionate handshake. I turn and walk out of the study without another word.

Back at my penthouse, I pull the pot of beef bourguignon from the oven and taste it. It’s excellent; the sauce is rich, hearty, and flavorful, with meat so tender it practically melts.

I stand at the counter and eat three bowls.

Hungry, hungry, always hungry.

Afterward, I head to the gym. Lifting weights helps me when I’m trying not to think.

I do bicep curls, and I don’t think about being heir to the company my mom started.

I bench press, and I don’t think about Roderick, or the fact that my ex-best friend is the reason the world thinks I’m shitty and pointless.

I deadlift, and I don’t think about the numbers on my wrist, and how I’ve felt them there all evening, like some kind of pleasant burn.

In the shower, I scrub at Sienna’s handwriting. I put my face under the scalding water, and I don’t think about her warm, olive skin, the way her eyes narrowed at me during our meeting, or how it felt to hear her say, I’d believe you, Mr. Harwood.

She’d be the first in almost three years.

Turning the water off, I glance at my reflection in the mirror. Sienna and I have almost nothing in common—it doesn’t take a genius to acknowledge my privileged position is a rare one. Not everyone gets their life handed to them the way I have.

And yet, when I looked into her eyes today, I saw myself. There was the same frustration there. The same dedication. Ambition.

Hunger.

Maybe we’re both predators underneath, scenting the air for a way to sate our needs. Good thing I’ve been around long enough to tell when someone smells blood on me. I don’t know why, but Sienna Hayes needs my father’s money.

That’s fine. She’ll fix my problem, I’ll fix hers.

I pad out of the bathroom in my bare feet, a towel wrapped around my waist. My phone is where I left it, wedged between two cookbooks laying open on my bedside table.

My penthouse overlooks the spread of the city.

If I look out the window and to the left, I can see the glittering spire of 77 Blackstone Center in the distance.

My thumb slides across the screen of my phone. I only hesitate for a moment before I open my texts.

Nick

Better hope your plan works before the charity gala, Ms. Hayes.

My father’s going to kill me if it doesn’t.

I press send, praying that Sienna Hayes is just as ravenous as I am.