Savage Mr. Sterling (Brutal Billionaire Bosses #3)

Chapter 1

Penelope Miles

I curse my inability to gauge social norms as I hesitate a few paces inside the door.

Audrey said today’s wedding rehearsal was a casual affair with a few minutes of mingling, a quick tour of the venue, an overview of events, and a laid-back dinner.

I won’t be staying to eat. Hell, I tried to arrive seconds before the tour began to avoid the mingling, but the trek was a lot shorter than I expected, and I couldn’t force myself to slow my pace.

Even in a nice section of the city in broad daylight, I can’t be the smallest, easiest, and slowest target on the sidewalk, so since I can’t change my stature or my aura, I walk faster than everyone else.

I glance down at my jeans and high-top sneakers—with an inch and a half of height hidden in the sole—and consider turning around and going home before anyone notices me, but Hilary calls my name in greeting.

I cringe. Everyone here looks so polished and put together. No one else is wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but at least my long coat adds a bit of sophistication to my outfit. It’s my favorite article of clothing since it’s so versatile, and apparently it’s supposed to make my legs look longer.

All I see when I look in the mirror is the stumpy little runt my brother always says I am, but at least I’m not scrawny anymore.

I return Hilary’s greeting and reluctantly step deeper into the room.

A bit of my angst fades as I join the group of familiar ladies near the windows.

Although I don’t know everyone by name—I wasn’t very outgoing from the start, but my experiences in high school made me even less apt to approach someone or initiate small talk—I can identify every woman in the room by their face.

The newest lady joined Brook’s self-defense class over six months ago, while the core group of us have been going for over five years.

I stumbled into Mr. Carter’s gym by pure coincidence six or seven years ago, and since the old man never allows injustice under his watch, I consider it the only safe place in the world besides my bedroom.

As more people filter into the room, I check the exits but avoid the urge to dart toward them by taking a deep breath and slipping deeper into the group of women.

Audrey, the bride of the wedding for today’s rehearsal, has helped me regain what little confidence I have, so I can’t let her down.

She wants me to be one of her bridesmaids, so I’ll tough out the next few weeks and disappear back into my safe, boring routine once she’s married.

Despite my best efforts, the room becomes too stifling once the groomsmen arrive. With less than a handful of minutes before rehearsal begins, I mumble a lame excuse to Hilary and back toward the side exit.

I turn, bump into a brick wall that wasn’t there a second ago, bounce, squeak, and pinwheel.

My ring flies off my finger and skids underneath the table.

I apologize to whoever I bumped into without lifting my head—my cheeks burn too much from mortification to show my face—and drop down to retrieve my ring. My clumsy fumbling pushes it just out of reach on the other side of the table leg.

With my heart in my throat and my stomach churning, I lower onto my forearm and scoot the tiniest bit forward. I close my fist around the ring and sigh in relief.

When I push up to crawl backward, my sleeve halts me. I tug. It doesn’t budge. With panic closing my throat, I pull harder, but the table leg pins my sleeve firmly to the floor.

“Are you getting trapped under tables now, pipsqueak? It seems like a downgrade from closets.”

I know that voice.

Dread turns my body to stone. I can’t move.

Only Sebastian Sterling, the boy who saved me from my first taste of being bullied as an awkward twelve-year-old girl in advanced placement classes—and the youngest freshman in our school’s history—could own such a naturally deep, gravelly voice.

He was the senior heartthrob who made me feel seen and protected only to abandon me after his graduation, and now he looms behind me—a socially inept twenty-seven-year-old woman—as I kneel with my sleeve trapped under the table.

He’s also my brother’s best friend, but after they graduated and left for college without so much as glancing back to check on me, I avoided them like they had the plague.

Family gatherings, social outings, even in-person classes when I started attending the same college as them—I used every trick in the book to never, ever run into them.

I managed to stay away from them for fifteen years. Fifteen years.

Yet this is how I fail?

I close my eyes, curl my hands into fists, and take a breath so deep my ribs hurt.

I’d hoped to never see him again, but if I had to, I wanted it to be with my head held high and my successes so grand he regretted leaving me behind. This is the last thing I want.

I tug my sleeve harder and whack my head against the table leg.

“Hang on, sweet pea, let me help,” Sebastian says.

For the briefest of moments, my heart melts at his low, affectionate rumble, but fear ices my veins as his gigantic body crowds my already limited space. The walls close in. They’ll crush me. I can’t breathe.

“Penelope?”

Thick, warm, callused fingertips touch my cheek and angle my face toward the richest brown eyes in history. Concern lifts his thick eyebrows, and a curse leaves his handsome lips.

“You’re okay, sweet pea. I’ve got you,” he rumbles.

My soul cracks wide open, but the years of pain and humiliation festering within are too horrible to express, so I stare in numb silence as he realizes my sleeve is stuck. He solves the issue by pushing the underside of the massive table with his shoulder and lifting the leg off the floor.

With surprising gentleness despite the brute strength needed to lift the table, he curls his fingers around my forearm and pulls me out from underneath.

He picks me up by my shoulders and sets me on my feet as though I weigh nothing.

My head spins. I sway.

“Breathe, Penelope.”

Sebastian’s deep, gravelly voice ends my mental spiral.

I push his gargantuan hands off my shoulders and stumble away. The small gemstone on my ring cuts into my palm as I clench my fists. I catch myself on the table, roll my shoulders back, and lift my gaze.

Up and up. Past his wide waist and impossibly broader shoulders to his corded neck and neatly trimmed facial hair until I finally reach his dark brown eyes.

My words dry up on my tongue.

I turn and flee.

As I push open the side door, I catch his troubled expression in my periphery and know from experience he has no intention of letting me escape.

I can’t do this.

I need to get far, far away.

He steps toward me.

I dart down the hall, but even as the door shuts between us, certainty barrels through me.

Once Sebastian Sterling sets his mind on something, he never relents, and I’ve landed dead center in his crosshairs.

I’m screwed.

Audrey, the bride-to-be and only reason I agreed to be here today, stands in the hall near the bathrooms.

Nervousness and uncertainty pile on top of the panic coursing through me, but I join her and stumble through a greeting.

“Can I talk to you?” I ask.

“Of course. What’s wrong?” she answers.

The concern in her eyes clenches my stomach.

“Nothing, I just…”

She doesn’t believe me.

Urgency pulses through me. I can’t stop my eyes from flicking back toward the dining room door.

Audrey’s face pales.

I’m ruining her day.

“I don’t think I can be your bridesmaid,” I blurt.

I cringe. She’s going to hate me now. She’s going to see through me and realize I’m just a selfish, weak little nobody who doesn’t deserve her friendship.

Somewhere deep down inside me, I knew I was just fooling myself into thinking I’d found somewhere I belong.

I’m not good enough for anyone to want me.

It hurts, but if Sebastian is a groomsman, then I can’t be a bridesmaid. I can’t risk him getting close and realizing how much of a failure I am, and I certainly can’t risk him finding out the truth.

“What? Why?” Audrey asks.

As I glance down the hall again, the door opens.

Sebastian’s massive frame stoops through the doorway.

Audrey’s sound of distress yanks my attention back toward her. She clamps a hand over her mouth and darts into the bathroom.

I stare at the swinging door in shock. Instinctual fear holds me immobile as Sebastian stalks toward me on silent feet. Incredulity spears through me. Large predators shouldn’t move so quietly.

Michael never moved with such stealth. He always made sure I knew he was coming. He wanted me to shake in terror as my schoolmates snickered in delight.

The sound of retching echoes from the bathroom.

Audrey needs help, but if I get any closer I’ll join her in hugging the toilet, so I spin toward the front entrance to the dining hall—away from Sebastian—and dart forward.

Thick fingers close around my forearm. I jerk to a stop. My ring skitters across the floor.

I forgot it was clutched in my fist. Forgot to put it back on my finger. Forgot who it belonged to and what it symbolizes.

I forgot my promise.

Too terrified and angry to move, I stare at the simple gold band and single gemstone as it slides to a stop on the white-and-gray marble flooring.

Sebastian releases my arm and takes a long, single stride toward it.

His giant dress shoe gleams in the light.

I swallow and stand frozen as he squats and picks up the ring I’ve worn ever since my friend gave it to me fourteen years ago.

Pinched between his fingers, it looks small enough to fall off a child’s finger even though the only way for it to stay on mine is for me to keep my finger slightly curled.

As he stands, the world shrinks. He looms over everything. His impressive suit spans the horizon. The top of my head barely reaches the bottom of his ribs. His gigantic body fills my vision as he closes the distance between us and offers me my ring on his palm.