Chapter Four
I look out over the grand ballroom and breathe a sigh of relief. The wedding went off without a hitch. Well, without any hitches that wouldn’t be perfectly normal for a televised ceremony. Luca was resplendent in his military uniform. Anika looked every bit the queen in her custom-made gown. There was a formal coronation right after the wedding ceremony, and now my bestie is on the glittering dance floor with a crown on her head.
The last week has been something of a whirlwind, to say the least.
“You look relieved.”
I turn slightly and Reid Dorsey is standing next to one of the pillars that decorate the grand ballroom and give the whole place a Baroque feel. Though I suppose it isn’t so much a feel as when the palace was built. He’s gorgeous in his obviously tailored tux—no rentals for this guy. He looks perfectly comfortable in a European palace, like a superhot James Bond, except instead of government secrets he’s looking for designer ones. I am not so comfortable, but there’s a reason for it. “I’m glad I managed to make it through the ceremony without tripping or a wardrobe malfunction.”
“Everything went well,”
he concedes and looks out over the ballroom downstairs where it appears much of Ralavian aristocracy is mingling with a whole bunch of reality TV stars. It’s an interesting image. “I will say I had my doubts, but it seems to have worked out.”
Naturally he didn’t think we could do it. I’ve been here for a week. I heard the Dorsey brothers were coming, but I managed to avoid them for the most part. Not that I don’t stalk the man on his socials. I’ll admit that I occasionally look him up because that is what one does. Know thy enemy. It’s how I know my enemy spent a couple of days in London with his brother before coming to Ralavia for the ceremony. From what I can tell the Dorsey brothers’ socials are all done by Jeremiah, but I was almost to the point of giving this dude another chance. In London they did some charity work, and I know they filmed segments for Anika. But now I know nothing has changed. “Didn’t think a girl from Hell’s Kitchen could handle a royal wedding, did you?”
He finally looks my way, a confused expression clouding his face. “What? Why would you say that?”
“You said you were surprised.”
“I meant by how easy the filming was. The director did an excellent job of getting what he needed while letting the ceremony be the ceremony,”
Reid corrects me. “I suppose I’ve done enough television that I think every director is willing to put the project over personal feelings, but this one seems to understand history was made here today. He was more respectful than I imagined a television director would be. I’m glad he’s going to be working on our show. Though the head of production is a grumpy man. Extremely competent but grumpy.”
Patrick. I kind of like Patrick. He’s been through some things, and he doesn’t prevaricate. He reminds me of a lot of the people I work with in construction. They mostly tell it like it is, and you don’t have to worry about backstabbing.
Except in the boardroom. And from my family. And my mom.
It’s been oddly drama free being here at a royal wedding.
“Why do you think I don’t admire Anika? Excuse me. Her Majesty, Anika.”
He says the last with a hint of a smile that draws his sensual lips up and lights his eyes. “I assume you meant her. She’s a girl from Hell’s Kitchen, too, you know.”
I wish the man wasn’t so gorgeous. “I guess Ani, Ivy, and I spent most of our lives being lumped together, so when you don’t like one of us, we think you don’t like any of us.”
The hint becomes a full-on sunshine of the world amusement smile. “Oh, I bet that’s a lot of fun with Ivy Jensen around. Not that I don’t find her charming. I do, but I can see where she would intimidate a lesser man. And her mentor. I was introduced to Ms. Foust and now she calls me Hot Designer and my brother Gay Designer, and she wanted to know what kind of underwear I favor.”
“That sounds like CeCe,”
I agree. “The good news is these days she spends an enormous amount of time with Lydia Marino, and she’s a good influence. For the most part. Though I heard they went to Monaco and hit a bunch of casinos last weekend.”
“Is she the one with the Lower Manhattan accent who told me I should eat more? Very Italian grandmother?”
I nod. “That is Lydia to a T.”
And he’s answered all the questions I didn’t even want to ask. “So it’s only me then that you don’t think is competent.”
He winces. “The cookies didn’t last long. I told my brother I should send you something more substantial. Like a brisket.”
I roll my eyes and turn to go. I don’t have to deal with this man yet. I still have a whole day until I have to get on a plane, head back to the city, and start the prep work on Banover Place, including the initial design meeting I was informed happens next week. I don’t have to deal with him today.
A big hand cups my elbow. “Hey, I was joking. I seem to screw up with you a lot. Can we talk so we’re not at each other’s throats when it comes time to get to work? This project is important to me. And by at each other’s throats, I mean you at mine since I would like to point out the only real thing I’ve done is been kind of a dick when I thought you weren’t listening about a guy I don’t know and certainly didn’t know was you, hit on you unabashedly, and sent you cookies.”
“And what have I done?”
I ask. “I haven’t exactly come at you.”
“You charmed my brother and now he’s one hundred percent Team Harper. He hasn’t stopped talking about you. I’m pretty sure he’s stalking you on your socials. So I’ve been told about a hundred times that I’m an idiot and should beg your forgiveness. Which I tried to do via sugar cookie.”
He’s so much easier to ignore when he’s not charming. “Ordering cookies is begging?”
“When you’ve got the sweet tooth I do it feels like it sometimes.”
He looms over me, and that’s not easy because I’m not exactly a short girl. “Harper, I was irritated that day. I admit I did something foolish. I promised a friend of mine I would hire him the next time I found a show for us. That’s entirely my fault, and that particular day I was feeling guilty about it. Lenny has been a friend for a long time. He was something of a mentor growing up.”
“You knew a construction guy growing up? I kind of thought you were one of those Upper East Siders who lived in a private school bubble.”
“It’s good to know I’m not the only one who can stereotype.”
I take this with a shrug. He’s not wrong. He heard construction and thought big burly man. “So no bubble?”
“On the contrary. There was definitely a bubble, just not the way you think.”
“Jeremiah mentioned you learned to cook at a young age.”
I can’t help but think about what his brother told me. He didn’t go into details, but I can fill some in. “I was surprised by that.”
Reid chuckles, though it’s not an entirely amused sound. “My brother’s been talking.”
He looks around and snags two glasses of champagne as one of the servers walks by. “All right, we’re doing this, we’ll do it right.”
I’m surprised when he takes me by the elbow and starts to lead me toward the balcony overlooking the back gardens. I explain because this place has multiple balconies—one of which the wedding party stood on and waved at the crowd that filled the palace grounds mere hours before. But now it’s night and the balcony is quiet, silvery moonlight coating the marble and making the whole place feel…romantic.
Danger. There should be a bunch of red flags unfurling right now. “We’re doing something?”
He lets the French doors close behind us and we’re alone, the glitter and sounds of the band fading into the background. “Yes, I’m going to tell you things about my upbringing that I’m not proud of, and you might find some sympathy for me since the cookies didn’t work.”
Did he think they were magical cookies? “I forgive you. There. Now we don’t have to do whatever this is. We don’t have to know each other to work together.”
A brow rises over his eyes. “But wouldn’t it be more fun? Come on, Harper. Give me a chance. If it helps, you should know I have educated myself on your business, and I even went into one of the apartment buildings your company built. It’s solid work that will give families homes for years. It’s good work, and I don’t mean that in a design fashion. You build places people need.”
Yep. I wish he’d stayed elitist. “Fine.”
“Excellent. Like I said I looked into you. Your company is family owned? I can’t figure out if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re awfully young to have a whole family’s financial success on your shoulders.”
“Well, according to my mother, it was never supposed to happen at all.”
Bitterness wells inside me. “My father wanted a son. He got me and nothing else. I sometimes think he pretended I was a boy, but then Mom recently pointed out that he intended to train whoever I married to run the company. Unfortunately, he died before I could lure the true heir into matrimony, and he left me the majority of the stock and all the bills. So if you’re trying to figure out if it’s good or bad, it mostly sucks.”
Reid winces. “I’m sorry to hear that. I was considering the fact that it might be nice to be so important to those around you. I’m being na?ve, aren’t I? In my head, I was viewing it as everyone looks up to you because you run the company.”
He does not understand my life. “More like everyone comes to me with their hands out. My cousin thinks he should be the one at the helm, and he’s dragged my mother into it. She thinks as long as I’m working I won’t ever fulfill my purpose as a woman.”
“Let me guess. Grandchildren.”
I nod. “Is your mother the same?”
“Oh, my mother left when I was six. I barely remember her as anything more than a walking ball of perfume and anxiety. My brother was an infant. He doesn’t remember her at all.”
“She just walked away?”
“From what I’ve heard from aunts and uncles, she got tired of playing mommy.”
Reid takes a sip of champagne. “She didn’t walk away. She took the private jet and her affair partner, who happened to be her personal trainer. One of my core childhood memories is hearing my father tell the lawyer if Jeremiah didn’t pass his paternity test, he would be sending my brother to child services.”
Yes, I’m feeling sympathy. “Sorry. That’s awful.”
“Needless to say while my father valued his sons having his DNA, he didn’t care about us much past that,”
Reid continues. “He hired a nanny who took care of us when she wasn’t sleeping with my father. When he got tired of her, he hired in a new one.”
“It sounds like chaos.”
“It was. And then when I was fourteen, Marilyn Jennings became our housekeeper. She took one look around and realized she had to take care of us, too. She was the mother figure we needed. And we got a father figure, too. Her husband. They lived in the servant’s quarters, and I started spending a lot of my time there. Jer, too. Her husband taught us so much of what we know. He was a contractor.”
And now I know why it’s important to him. “Lenny.”
He nods. “Lenny. Marilyn died five years ago. Cancer. He was a mess. My brother was something of a mess, though I won’t go into that. It’s his story. I came up with the idea of the show as a way to give us all purpose. Up until then we’d done design work for fun mostly.”
“You were one of the most sought-out designers in all of Manhattan.”
He’s underselling himself. It isn’t like I didn’t look him up. Know thine enemy and all that. Though right this second he’s not feeling like the enemy. He’s feeling like someone I might enjoy knowing.
“I graduated from an Ivy League, and the first job I took was with my aunt, who is one of the divas of the Upper East Side.”
He grimaces slightly. “I think she’s thrown down with CeCe once or twice. I’m glad we have different last names. My aunt was a Housewife before there was a show. She can bring the drama when she wants to, and she usually wants to. However, she’s extremely influential. Jeremiah was already showing great signs of being a truly talented artist. So when we redid her brownstone, naturally a major magazine wanted to do a story on it. It’s pretty much the definition of privilege, and I know it.”
“Uh, I inherited a whole company. I know it’s not the same level, but I do understand.”
I like to be fair, and it seems like Reid and Jeremiah hadn’t had it all golden. “We work with what we’re given. I like that you want to help your friend. I hired him, you know.”
“For which I am eternally grateful,”
he says with a gallant bow. “Seriously. Thank you. I am hoping this goes well and we can think about starting something new.”
I have some questions. When I researched what happened with the show, I found nothing except speculation. It happened after the accident—which sounded even more serious than Jeremiah told me. Reid spent some time in the hospital and in physical rehab. “What happened with the last show? It seemed to be going so well. I know all my friends loved it.”
One of the things that made the show work was the banter between the brothers. Reid was the serious one and Jeremiah the heartfelt artist everyone loved. Sunshine and the grump. The hot grump. The charming-when-he-wanted-to-be grump.
I have to wonder if some of it was for the camera. A way to highlight their differences and bring some interesting conflict to the show. Reality TV isn’t so real, as I learned.
He turns to the gardens, looking out over the night. “Appearances can be deceiving. Again, not my story to tell.”
He turns my way. “Is there any way at all that you would like to dance with me?”
It’s a huge mistake. I don’t like this guy. Except I kind of do. If I wanted to keep hating him, I shouldn’t have talked to him. “Sure. Why not?”
When we enter the palace again, I give my glass to the waiter picking up empties and let Reid take my hand. I follow him down the grand stairs and into the most romantic setting I’ve ever seen.
Not that it’s going to tempt me. It’s just a dance. Nothing more.