by Sierra Rose
Please don’t talk about him in the past tense already, it doesn’t bode well for my love life.
I held his gaze only for a moment, before dropping my eyes with a scowl.
“No, it was Cameron.”
He returned to his coffee in triumph, as I stewed in defeat.
“Ryan’s my new brother’s name,” I added petulantly.
His mug came down.
“What was that?”
Fortunately, at that moment, we were interrupted by Louise—Nick’s housekeeper. Aside from myself and Max, she was the only person in the world with the elevator access code to get up to the penthouse. Originally, these things were supposed to be monitored carefully, and in all likelihood—they would probably all go through me. But after the second week of her buzzing my phone every ten minutes, I had surrendered the information without a moment’s pause.
It was a good thing too. If I hadn’t given up the numbers, there was a good chance she would have simply taken them for herself.
Of all the people that flitted in and out of Nick’s world, she was hands-down the most formidable. On her bad days, she might even give dear old Mitchell a run for his money.
Louise Müller had been a supply-runner and French patriot before marrying her fourth husband after the Second World War. The rigid stringencies of the reconstruction had found a permanent and willing host in dear Louise. Upon moving to Bavaria, she campaigned long and hard against the wearing of brightly colored fabric and the performance of lively music. She was a devout believer in hard work, and fiercely detested any of the superfluous frills society had to offer. (In Louise’s opinion, these ‘frills’ included consistent electricity and heated water. After facing jail, the third time for performing a citizen’s arrest at Oktoberfest (her favorite annual tradition), Mitchell Hunter had scooped her up and sent her here—to reform his wayward son.
At a first glance, you might think that two such extreme opposites would have destroyed each other sometime within the first week, but strangely enough—Louise and Nick had found an odd sort of balance. She was the authoritative female presence he’d never had, and I think she saw him as her life’s greatest challenge. Over the years, they’d developed a precarious truce.
If she was surprised to see us up and about at such an early hour, she certainly didn’t say so. She merely stared pointedly at Nick’s feet, until he lowered them slowly off the counter.
I hid my grin in my coffee. The bastard might be able to best me at a cross-examination, but at least I wasn’t the one taking subliminal orders from their own house staff.
“Did you make a pile of all clothes for the dry cleaners like I asked you?” she snapped in a thick accept, her eyebrows congealing into a single, threatening point.
My head swiveled to Nick with a wide smile.
Apparently, he was taking direct orders now too.
He flushed slightly and avoided my gaze.
“Not yet, I had a really busy...” He faltered under the force of her glare. “I was planning on going to...” Faltered again. “I was actually planning on doing it right now.”
With that, he downed the rest of his coffee in a single swig and hurried upstairs. After placing both our mugs carefully in the sink (under Louise’s watchful eye), I skipped up after him, ready to put my plan into action. I found him in the linen closet.
“So you know what’s so great about this guy? Cameron?”
I leaned against the doorway, watching as he haphazardly threw things into two separate piles on the floor. He seemed to have a system, but there was no rhyme or reason to it.
“The fact that you’ve finally remembered his name?”
I ignored this.
“The fact that I actually want to see him again.” Not exactly true, but it would work for now. “He’s not like all the rest—I think there might actually be something there.”
Nick picked up a sweater, glanced between the piles uncertainly, and ended up simply throwing it in the trash. I fished it out calmly, and he glanced up for the first time.
“Really.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question. “You named the guy after, who I’m only assuming is a fictitious brother, but you think this one’s got relationship potential.”
I nodded with wide, innocent eyes.
“There’s only one problem...he wants to double date.”
Nick paused a moment, then burst out laughing. A tuxedo vest fell from his hands as he turned to me with a rueful smile. “You’re really subtle today, you know that?”
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, eyes as wide as saucers.
“It’s true! So what am I supposed to do here, Nick?” My self-righteous act dropped for a moment as a muscle flared in the back of my neck. Served me right for falling asleep in a hard-backed chair. “Should I just break it off? Walk away from my future happiness?”
Another spasm of pain, and I rolled my head from side to side, trying to stretch it out.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked curiously.
“Or maybe there’s another way,” I continued, kneading the base of my skull with my fingers. “Maybe I can find another couple to come with us. People I know. People I trust. People who owe me for a little incident involving a lobster.”
“Okay, come here.” He laughed, dropping his clothes and pulling me towards him. “This ploy is getting you nowhere, and you look like you’re having a fit or something.” Before I could stop him, he spun me around and starting working on my neck with a set of skilled hands.
My body stiffened up and words failed me, as all of a sudden, we were a lot closer than we usually were. Ironic, I know. Seeing as he’d fallen asleep on my shoulder just a night before.
But somehow...this wasn’t really the same.
“You can try to relax, you know,” he teased softly, fingers rubbing in gentle circles over my skin. “It kind of defies the point when you tense up.”
My cheeks flushed, and I was suddenly relieved we weren’t facing so he couldn’t see.
“Sorry, it’s just...” I tried to squirm away. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense.” He caught me by the shoulders and pulled me back, slapping away my hand when I tried to intervene. “Now I’m serious—relax.”
I tried. It wasn’t the easiest thing.
“Relax,” he commanded again, using that same authoritative tone.
A moment later, I didn’t have a choice.
A warm tingling sensation radiated out from my neck, shivering down the rest of my skin. Like there were little magical lights coming out of his hands. His body—much warmer than mine, and still only wearing a towel from his shower—hovered just an inch or two behind my back. I could feel the heat from it on my bare shoulders as he leaned in to press harder.
“Oh my gosh,” a little moan escaped my lips as my head fell forward, “how the hell are you doing this? Did you take a class or something I don’t know about?”
His fingers laced up through my hair and I could practically hear the smile.
“Anya.”
Of course. His flawless, visa-less, statuesque ‘Pilates’ instructor. The one who’d showed up out of nowhere on his doorstep—hailing from somewhere in Eastern Ukraine. Her accent was so thick, that for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. But she and Nick had always found a way to see...eye to eye. A minute after meeting her, he put her on the payroll.
“Ah yes, Anya.” A little smile snaked up my face as his hands continued working. “Is this one of those Pilates moves you two have been working on? Taking the hands-on approach?”
“Practice makes perfect. I intend to be a Pilates master one day.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you do.”
We didn’t talk for a while, simply stood there in silence as his skillful hands effectively erased all the tension from my fretful neck. An occasional shiver would rocket down my spine whenever he leaned in too close, but other than that, it was remarkably soothing.
But no mat
ter how skilled his magical fingers might be...there was some tension they couldn’t coax away.
“Nick...we really do have to talk about what your dad said.”
Still standing behind me, I felt him sigh. His voice tightened with a hint of frustration, but his hands never lost their rhythm.
“We really don’t.”
“It’s just...he has a good point.” I stepped free of his hands and turned around to face him. In the close confines of the linen closet, we were both remarkably close. Close enough that I could see every dot of water still clinging to his lashes from the shower. Every cloud of steam that rose off his bare chest. “There’s a lot riding on this merger for the company.”
His eyes narrowed, but I knew him well enough by now, to know that none of the anger was directed at me. It was rarely, if ever, directed at me.
“And why should my social life have anything to do with my father’s company?”
It was a naïve question. One that both of us knew he didn’t really mean.
To start, it wasn’t his father’s company—it was the family’s company. Meaning that one day, like it or not, it was going to be his.
On that note—image and perception were everything. Nick had grown up in the spotlight long enough to have learned that lesson better than anyone. Long enough to see the wisdom in what his father was saying now.
Of course, that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“How are you not on my side with this?” he demanded quietly. “A fake relationship? He really wants to bank his big merger on me having a fake relationship with some random—”
“I’ve snuck you into palaces pretending to be a foreign prince. Last summer, you claimed to have ‘unique diving experience’ just so an insurance company would let you explore those underwater caves. You once snuck into a royal polo match under the guise of being the Duke of Sorbinshire—which I swear, Nick—I think is a completely made-up place.”
“...you wouldn’t be wrong.”
“The point is, this isn’t about the truth of the matter. You’ve played so many parts in the past, I know for a fact this doesn’t bother you now.” I hesitated, knowing I was approaching a line that even I was not permitted to cross. “This is about your father.”
His eyes flashed, and another chill ran down my spine. One that felt entirely different from the warm, tingly ones that had done so before.
“Listen to me very closely Abigail, you may have worked for my family a few years now, and for families like mine before. But that does not mean, even for a moment, that you have any idea what it’s like to be a part of one.”
I flinched back, stung by every word. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d called me Abigail. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“This part of my life—this one part—should have nothing do to with my father, or his company, or his damn board of directors. This one part should belong to me.”
A chilling silence rang out between us. One that was broken only by the sounds of Louise bustling around in the kitchen, putting our old dishes away.
But as moving a speech as it was, as much as I believed he wanted to mean it, as much as the words cut to my core...I was Abigail fucking Wilder.
“That’s bullshit.”
His eyebrows lifted dangerously, and he opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to the punch. His turn to lecture me had passed. It was my turn now.
“We’re talking about you fucking a beautiful girl for the next four months, and letting the press take pictures of you eating breakfast together afterwards. Face it, Nick, it’s probably exactly what you would have been doing anyway. The only difference now is, one: you’re going to have to hide the rest of the girls you’re fucking at the same time; and two: your father is actually going to approve.”
Despite the massive height difference between us, I pulled myself up as tall as I could.
“And let’s be honest here, you’re not worried about trying to secretly balance your different women—you’ve had more practice than anyone I’ve ever seen. What’s really going on here is that you don’t want your father to approve—even if you know it’s the right thing to do.”
This was why I was at the top of the PR game. This was why his family had hired me.
“But like it or not, this company is about more than just you, Nick. There are thousands of people working in dozens of different countries all around the world who rely upon the Hunter Corporation to make their living. You’re looking at one of them now. It may be all fine and good for you if this merger goes up in smoke—but it won’t be that way for the rest of us.”
My voice rose in volume as I stretched on the tips of my toes.
“So why don’t you get over yourself, pull it together, and use that insatiable libido of yours to do something good for a change!”
Okay...that last part might have been pushing it.
Whatever Nick was thinking, it was impossible to say. He simply stared at me in a state of mild shock, lips parted speechlessly, probably wishing he was wearing something with a little more gravitas than a jellyfish towel. For a split second, a flicker of what looked like genuine respect flashed through his eyes. But before he could say a word, the door crashed open.
“There you are!”
Both Nick and I jumped in our skin, like guilty school children caught holding hands, as Louise-the-Bavarian-storm-cloud burst into the room. She paused a moment, upon seeing the two of us standing so close, before her eyes narrowed in even greater judgement.
“I ask for the dry-cleaning ten minutes ago.” She whipped an accusatory finger into the air—jabbing it in between us. “If you two are finished with whatever unfug is going on in here, I do not like to ask twice!”
Unfug wasn’t good. Unfug meant mischief in German. Nick and I had learned a long time ago, that whenever Louise said unfug—it was a bad sign.
And so, the three of us dispersed. All heading in separate directions.
Louise—muttering what sounded like profanities in every language east of Poland.
Nick—muttering about being trapped in a house with vengeful women.
And me—muttering about needing to find some clothes to replace my wilted dress.
“You can wear some of mine.”
I looked up in surprise, to see Nick watching me with a surprisingly gentle expression. A hint of that signature twinkle had returned to his eyes, and in a moment, all was forgiven.
It was quick. Especially given the heat of the argument. But it wasn’t all that shocking.
The two of us had been through too much together to be derailed by a simple fight. It would take more than words in a linen closet to drive a wedge between us.
My lips curved up in a tentative smile that was graciously returned.
“Yours? You think we’re the same size, do you? Or gender?”
He flashed me a rueful grin, before heading off down the hall.
“Wear some of Gemma’s,” he called over his shoulder. “She won’t mind.”
Chapter 8
Ten minutes later, I was standing in the skimpiest cocktail dress I had ever seen. The kind of dress that just might fall off in a gentle breeze. Give up and surrender without putting up a lick of fight. Two wide silk straps cut at a diagonal down the front of it, leaving triangular cutouts through which you could see my back and hips. The shoulders were also bare, and save for a delicate little zipper holding the whole thing together—it was hanging on by a prayer.
“Gemma,” I muttered under my breath, “why did it have to be Gemma?”
Gemma Arlison was an ironically-named diamond heiress who Nick had dated off and on for the better part of two years. She had become a regular fixture at the house (along with about half a dozen others), and as such, she still had leftover clothes in several of the closets.
Things had finally ended for good when Nick saw for himself what the rest of us had been telling him for months. The girl didn’t have a brain. Just very, very large breasts. (He had a habit of
confusing the two.) They had split, as amicably as was possible, and not two weeks later—she had married a billionaire oil tycoon from Texas. I think Nick was actually hurt.
To be frank, I really didn’t have the giant curves to pull this kind of dress off. While her ample bosom had stretched the fabric to its limit, the silk hugged comfortably around me, clinging like a second skin. A shimmering sapphire kind of skin that exactly matched the color of my eyes.
“Why couldn’t he have dated the kind of girl who would wear an entire dress?” I groaned, rotating in front of the bathroom mirror in dismay. The huge cutouts revealing wide portions of my ivory skin were particularly troublesome. Especially considering it was winter in New York. “Maybe she also left a coat in here...?”
Sure enough, an ankle-length trench coat was hanging just inside. The kind that was tailor-fitted to make me feel like I was in a designer version of the Matrix. There was even a pair of sparkling Louis Vuitton stilettos to match.
I swept up my fountain-curled hair when I was done, securing it in the kind of tendril-draping up do it did so well, and touched up my makeup from the night before. When I was finished, I stepped back to survey the finished product.
“Not bad. A little fucking formal for a day at the office, but not bad at all.”
By the time I wandered back downstairs, I was actually feeling quite confident indeed. At least, I was until I ran into Nick in the kitchen.
The second he saw me, a very peculiar expression flashed across his face. He dropped his eyes immediately, but couldn’t manage to hide his smile.
At once, my stomach was sick and my hands were clammy.
Oh gosh—I looked ridiculous! Why hadn’t I just asked to run home so I could change into my own clothes? You know—something that required more fabric than a scarf?!
“I know, it’s not...” I blushed and looked down, sweeping a stray curl back out of my face. “Clearly, it’s not something I would usually—why are you making that face?!”
“I’m sorry,” he bit his lip with a grin, “it’s just...I’ve taken off that dress many times.”
Many, many times.
