My cheeks heat, pleased with her praise, which seems to delight her further as she glances up at me, but she lets me keep my dignity.
“This gives us a great starting point and we’ll make sure everything is to your taste too, Serena. What kind of color scheme are you thinking of?”
There’s dead silence in the room as my new fiancee simply stares back at her, unable to form a response. It’s a freaking color. She’s not exactly putting her on the spot.
I glance down at my shirt. “How about blue?” I suggest. One color’s as good as the rest.
“Great!” Mackenzie chirps cheerfully, looking relieved. “Serena, how do you feel about blue?”
“It’s fine,” she shrugs. “Maybe silver too? I attended a benefit last month that had a lot of silver and it was beautiful.”
“Blue and silver. Perfect.” Mackenzie writes it down in the notebook in front of her.
She turns to the next page, starting in about caterers and live music and dress fittings, her professionalism giving way to enthusiasm as she continues on. Serena contributes little to the conversation, withdrawing more and more with each new topic, but I find myself getting caught up in it, debating with her about whether a Chiavari or Louis XVI style chair would look better, if the tablecloths should be cotton or satin.
Mackenzie has an opinion about everything and reasoning to back it up. This fabric wrinkles too easily, that kind of music won’t set the right tone for the guests, these types of decor will harmonize together. Planning this all is actually sort of… fun. Her eyes sparkle as she gushes about a wedding she worked on years ago where they transformed the inside ceremony space into a garden, those pink lips curling up as she recounts the thousands of flowers they brought in, her voice full of excitement recalling the beauty and grandeur of how it turned out.
I mentally shake my head, realizing how wrapped up I’ve become in watching her. I should be focusing on Serena, my… bride.
I swallow down the bile that rises, glancing over at the waft of a woman next to me, so washed out it’s almost like she’s translucent with her pale skin, white-blonde hair, and cream colored dress. If I squint hard, I’m pretty sure I can see through her to the table and chairs against the windows.
No, my eye shouldn’t be wandering anywhere else.
Despite how much it wants to.
Chapter Four
Mackenzie
At some point during the consultation, I give up on trying to engage Serena, who’s just sitting there all mopey picking at her nails. I understand this arrangement isn’t ideal for either of them, but at least Gabriel is helping with decisions.
And he’s surprisingly… committed to it. I can’t tell if it’s a way to prove his dad wrong or to make good on his comment earlier that he’s on my side, but it’s for sure not due to any warm feelings toward Serena. Every time she shrugs a non-reply, his irritation with her becomes more and more visible. I admit, her behavior is annoying, but I’m not in any position to give her a dressing down. Despite being hired, my employment still seems tenuous.
I set up meetings for us to visit vendors for catering, cake, wedding attire, venues, and a whole laundry list of other tasks until we’ve got everything scheduled. A sense of accomplishment races through me as I check them off in my planner, reveling in that familiar thrill. The disorder and uncertainty of my business in the past few months as I’ve struggled to get enough events to pay off my debts has taken a toll on my mental state, and for the first time in a long while, I take a full breath. Everything will be okay.
I glance at the clock on my phone, seeing we’ve been at it for an hour and a half already. “We could decide on flowers now,” I suggest. “If it’s okay with both of you, we could use what’s available here in Diana’s shop. She has a great selection.”
“Sounds good with me,” Gabriel says, standing and stretching, his back audibly popping. He’s not in a suit today, but his blue polo and gray slacks bring with them a different aesthetic, revealing even through his shirt a toned upper body and arms more muscular than I was expecting. Biceps are my one weakness, and his are thick with muscle.
No, bad Mackenzie. No looking. He’s the groom in the wedding you’re planning.
Serena stands too, slinging her designer bag over her shoulder. “I actually have to get going.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want to wait to decide on flowers?”
“No, no,” she waves absent-mindedly at me, already turning toward the door. “Anything you pick is fine.”
She’s halfway out before I remember to ask, “What about your bouquet?” Brides always have an opinion about that.
“Whatever you choose is good,” she calls out, the bell over the main door ringing a moment later as she exits.
Gabriel sticks his hands in his pockets, giving me a wry smile. “You’d almost think she’s not excited about this.”
I duck my head to hide my own grin, squeezing out from behind my desk to go into the flower shop. I walk ahead of him, feeling his eyes on me. It’s not an unpleasant sensation, I’m just… aware of it, a tangible thing.
“So if we’re going with blue and silver, our options are more limited than they’d be with other colors, but we’ll definitely still make it work. We can dye anything or use floral sprays to create what we want.”
He stops at an arrangement of sunflowers, mums, and daisies, bending down to sniff. “What about hydrangeas or hyacinths?”
I stare at him. “How do you know about those?” Seriously, what straight man knows off the top of his head what flowers are naturally blue?
He grins, explaining, “My mother was a gardener. She loved to grow flowers. That’s how I know you smell like-” He steps into my personal space, bringing his face slightly toward my neck, close enough to feel his body heat. “Gardenias.”
My hand drifts up to rub at the spot behind my ear I put perfume on this morning, conscious too of his own scent - some kind of expensive cologne that smells heavenly.
He moves away, seemingly unaffected by my proximity. “She would have loved this place,” he continues, glancing around. “It reminds me of her.”
I’m not sure whether I should admit I did some in-depth digging on him last night after being so caught off guard yesterday. I discovered his mother died after a battle with cancer.
After a moment’s hesitation, I say, “I read online that she passed away. I’m sorry.”
He turns toward a different flower arrangement, focusing on that. “It was a long time ago.”
There’s an awkward pause and I hastily clear my throat, continuing, “I saw that your father named a cancer wing at the children’s hospital in her honor.”
His lips tighten. “Yep, he did.”
“And that picture of you there the other week-”
He twists toward me, those blue eyes intense again. “What?”
I take a step back, confused at his sudden change in demeanor. “Weren’t you there for a photo op or something?”
I immediately sense I said the wrong thing when his eyes go as frosty as his dad’s. “You think I’d go visit them just for publicity?” He turns away, jaw clenched. “You know what? I’m done for the day. Whatever flowers are fine.”
“Wait.” I grab the sleeve of his polo, stretching it out slightly. Oh God, that was probably expensive, wasn’t it? It’s one of those with the little alligator symbol over the left side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, honest.”
He ignores his sleeve, staring at me until his gaze eventually dials down to a normal level. “Where’d you see that picture?” he finally asks.
“Um…” I rack my brain. I was on a lot of different sites last night. “The Manhattan Herald, I think.”
“Manhattan fucking Herald,” he murmurs to himself, pulling out his phone. “I can’t get away from them.”
I don’t mention the other article on their site I read about him. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s why he got stuck in this arrangement to begin with. �
�Why wouldn’t you want that picture up? It seems like good publicity.”
“It wasn’t a stunt,” he says, irritated as he brings up the image on his phone from the site. “And it’s one thing to take a picture of me, but not of Kaia.”
I lean a little closer, studying the screen. Now that I think about it, of course it wasn’t taken as part of a photo op. It’s grainy and photographed from a distance, with his body half turned away from the camera as he sits on the end of a small girl’s bed, smiling at her.
“You know her?” I ask, my heart twinging seeing the smooth shape of her head, all her hair gone. She’s too young to face something like that.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “I go every Friday to visit.”
Mr. Bishop’s secretary said Fridays were the only day Gabriel wasn’t available for meetings.
“What do you do there?”
He sighs, crossing his arms over that broad chest. “Talk to the kids mostly. Get to know them, engage with them. Give them something else to focus on. It’s the least I can do. Mom always said that was what she wanted most when she was in the hospital or getting her treatments. Just someone to take her mind off things.”
So was he that person for her? I keep the question to myself.
“Does your dad go to visit too?”
He scoffs. “He hasn’t been there since the ribbon cutting. The only reason he agreed to donate the money in the first place was because I told him it would make the company look good and there’d be a charitable tax write-off.”
I reach out to a rose in the arrangement in front of me, stroking its velvety soft petals. “You were the one who convinced him?”
He nods. “After Mom died, once I got my head back on right, I wanted to do something in her honor. Something she’d be proud of.”
“Does anyone know you’re involved with this?”
He eyes me warily. “No.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs, the same way Serena did all morning. “I don’t want it… tainted. Those kids, they’ve been through hell and back. They shouldn’t be sucked into any Manhattan Herald shit. Besides, people see photos of someone like me there and they automatically assume it’s staged. As if I’m just there to make myself look good.”
A flush creeps over my face. That’s exactly what I thought.
“No,” I deny. “There’s nothing fake about that picture. The lighting is bad, it’s too far away. You don’t even seem aware it’s being taken.”
“Well, then they’ll think I paid someone to take it. Just a PR stunt. No one as privileged as me, who has as much money as I do, could possibly care.” He doesn’t appear angry anymore, just… frustrated. As if he’s had those very accusations thrown at him. “Stuff like this, the things that really matter, I keep out of the public eye.”
God, what a life. “So you have to hide your real self because no one will believe it’s true?”
His gaze stays steady on the flowers, not answering my question.
I touch his shoulder lightly, just enough to get his attention. “Gabriel, I’m sorry.” I stare at the floor, guilt churning in my stomach for… I’m not sure what. Assuming he wouldn't go to visit sick kids on his own? Not visiting them myself? Letting my tongue get me in trouble again?
He glances over and catches sight of me, then rubs at the back of his neck. “Aw, shit. I brought the mood down, didn’t I?”
A laugh escapes me and I quickly cover my mouth with my hand. “No, it was my fault. I had no idea about any of that.”
He stares at me, silent for a moment. “Why would you?”
He’s right. I know next to nothing about him. Except one thing that’s becoming increasingly clear is that my initial impression of him is wrong. The spoiled playboy I assumed he was isn’t quite meshing with this man who doesn’t want anyone to hear about the charity work he does. Who so obviously misses his mother. Who took the time to fill out that consultation list for me when no one else did.
“Can you tell me about Kaia?”
We walk around the shop looking at flowers as he tells me about an eight year old girl who wants to be a teacher when she grows up, loves fairy tales, and desperately wishes for a horse of her own, despite living in the city. A girl who’s had a rotten hand dealt to her, but is dealing with it the best she can.
A ghost of a smile crosses his mouth. “The kids there bring things into perspective, you know?”
“Of course.” I push open the door to the small area in the back where Diana keeps the flowers not ready for display and head over to the floral sprays and dyes. I take a moment before asking the next question. “What happens when… have any of them ever…”
“Not made it?”
I nod.
He lets out a heavy sigh, bracing himself against the edge of the counter. “I’ve been fortunate that every kid I’ve gotten close to has left the hospital in remission. But the wing has enough beds for two hundred children, so I don’t know all of them really well, especially if they’re only day visitors for their chemo and aren’t admitted long term.”
He picks up a metallic silver spray, one that I plan to use on roses for Serena’s bouquet, and glances at the back of the can. “I offer to pay for funeral expenses for any that aren’t so lucky. Some families take me up on it, some don’t. Maybe they feel like it’s charity,” he shrugs, the solemnity surrounding him so different from the rakish attitude he sported at the bar two nights ago.
My hand reaches out halfway toward him before I realize what I’m doing, and I quickly snatch it back. “That must be incredibly difficult to deal with.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“Why don’t your brothers help?”
He shakes his head. “They’re busy with actual work.”
I frown. “Nonprofit work is still work. Even if you’re not getting paid.”
“Nonprofit?”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. You meet with the kids, with their families. Offer them financial assistance. And it’s all in connection to the wing your family donated. If you haven’t started one already, you should.”
He turns to me, both serious and earnest. “But I don’t have any money.”
Now I pause. “Aren’t you a billionaire?”
He rolls his eyes. “My dad is. I assume I’ll inherit something one day, but who knows?”
“So how do you pay for the… funerals?” I whisper.
“I charge it to one of his credit cards.”
“And he doesn’t notice?”
“That money’s a drop in the bucket for him. He’s not missing it.”
“You sound like some Robin Hood figure.”
He grins, the first true one I’ve seen from him in the last hour. “Should I get some green tights? One of those vest tunic things? Cap with a red feather?” He squints. “Or is that Peter Pan?”
I laugh, then suddenly remember what we’re supposed to be doing. I take the can from him and spray a white rose until it’s gleaming silver. “What do you think?”
He takes it from me and the stem shifts in my hand, catching a thorn. “Ow!” I stick my thumb in my mouth, the copper taste making me wrinkle my nose.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” His fingers encircle my wrist, tugging until my thumb pops free, and bends down to look at it. “I didn’t even think of thorns. Here.” He grabs a paper towel off the counter and folds it quickly to apply pressure to the cut. His hand is warm against my own, something about those long, dextrous fingers making my stomach flip disconcertingly.
I follow the line of his arm up past his wrist to a sinewy forearm, up further to that bicep, flexing subtly as he concentrates on his task.
I break away, the paper towel fluttering to the ground, unexpectedly breathless. “I’m just going to wash this out. I’ll be right back.”
I squeeze into the minuscule bathroom in the corner, turning on the sink to let cool water flow over my thumb, glancing in the mirror at my flushed cheeks. Good Lord Mackenzie, ge
t it together. He was innocently touching you. There’s no reason to get all flustered.
Yes, it’s been a while since a guy touched you, but that doesn’t mean you get to notice this one. He’s off limits.
“Mackenzie?” his deep voice passes through the door. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, fine.” It comes out squeakier than I’d like, but it’ll have to do.
I turn off the water and pat it with another paper towel, pasting on a smile as I exit. “Why don’t we finish up the flowers?”
He looks down at my hand where I’m clutching the makeshift bandage to my thumb, and I carefully peel it back to show him I’m fine.
“Yeah, sure.”
We decide on a combination of dyed and sprayed flowers to create a bouquet for Serena, with hues running the gamut from dark navy to a pale dusty blue, with metallic silver as an accent. The same color scheme is echoed in the arrangements we choose for decorations throughout the ceremony and reception halls, but without a venue picked out, we’ll have to wait to make final decisions.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks as we enter my office.
“It was a scratch. See, all better.”
He lightly touches my thumb, studying the thin red line that’s already starting to scab over, and I hold still, afraid to even breathe with how close he is. If I do, I’ll catch wind of that cologne again. Or maybe it’s just something uniquely Gabriel.
He lets go of me, seemingly satisfied. “So what’s next?”
“Well, your dad asked if I could take some pictures of you and Serena planning the wedding, but I obviously can’t do that if she’s not here. So we’ll have to do that another day. Other than that…” I shimmy around between the desk and chair to sit down, looking over my planner. “I have notes of every vendor we want to meet with, and I’ll set up appointments for those in the next week. Once they hear that magic Bishop name, we should be able to get in fairly soon.”
“So that’s it then?”
Resisting the Billionaire Page 4
