Chapter 3
GAbrIEL
From: Devney Wilder
To: Ronan Wilder, Knox Knightly, Gabriel Sterling
Gabriel stared at his computer screen, and his cursor blinked at him.
Devney Wilder. The name still looked strange, two words forced together like two words that still didn’t belong together.
Less than a week married, and everything had already changed.
Ronan, the notorious control freak, had fallen, and his carefully constructed world now included a woman who kept a bedazzled pencil holder on her desk and had once organized a surprise birthday party for the office fern.
Gabriel had been suspicious of her for two days, charmed by her in three weeks, and quietly delighted to watch Ronan unspool around her ever since.
She had been good for his oldest friend.
He liked her. On most days, he was glad she had stayed.
The postscript sat in his inbox like a warning sign on a winding road.
Probably budget questions. Or Ronan was already driving her crazy. A few days into marriage, and the man had probably reorganized her entire filing system, alphabetized her spice rack, and built a spreadsheet to track their household efficiency metrics.
Gabriel closed the email and tried to focus on the Meridian contracts waiting for review. His cursor blinked at him, patient as a held breath, and he wasn’t seeing contract terms. He was seeing brown eyes and a face he had never managed to forget.
At 9:40, he gave up the pretense of working and headed to Conference Room B.
Devney was already there, two cups of coffee on the table like peace offerings.
She looked up when he entered, and her eyebrows lifted just slightly—kind, curious, the expression of someone who had questions and was deciding which one to lead with.
Gabriel’s hand tightened on the doorframe before he made himself let go and walk in.
“Thanks for coming early,” she said, gesturing toward one of the cups. “Two sugars, extra cream.”
Of course, she remembered. He sat and wrapped his hands around the cup without drinking. “What did you want to discuss?”
“The wedding.” Devney leaned back in her chair, posture casual, eyes sharp. “Ronan and I noticed something seemed off with the caterer who dropped the champagne tray. Is there a problem with us hiring her company?”
She was giving him an out. Say yes. Claim a conflict of interest. Professional concerns. Devney would cancel the contract, hire someone else, and Tessa would never have to walk into this building. It was exactly the type of solution Gabriel had built his career on.
“There’s no problem,” he heard himself say.
Devney studied his face. “You’re sure?”
“We dated in high school.” The words came out flat, professional, like he was reporting quarterly earnings instead of excavating ancient history. “Seeing her at your wedding was unexpected. Her food was excellent. Her company is clearly successful. There’s no reason to make this complicated.”
“You dated,” Devney repeated, the way someone might repeat coordinates before launching a missile.
“A long time ago.”
Devney let the silence stretch, and Gabriel watched her decide not to push. For now.
“Okay,” she said. “But Gabriel, if at any point this becomes a problem, I want to know.”
“It won’t.” He stood, coffee abandoned. “I should get back to my office before—”
The conference room door opened, and Tessa walked in.
She stopped in the doorway. The color left her face, and then she pulled her shoulders back and raised her chin a quarter inch—the same way she had lifted it in calculus when a kid two rows back had whispered something about her blazer—and turned to Devney. “I’m early. Traffic was kind.”
“You aren’t,” Devney said warmly. “You’re exactly on time. Gabriel and I were finishing up. Come in.”
Tessa stepped inside. The black blazer fit her like she owned every room she had ever walked into. She set her tablet down at the head of the table, glanced once at Gabriel, and then back at Devney.
Devney’s phone buzzed. “That’s Ronan. Coffee’s taking longer than expected. Knox and Ronan will be here in five minutes.” She gathered her things, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “I need to grab those venue photos from my office. You two can catch up while I’m gone.”
She left before either of them could protest. The door clicked shut behind her.
Tessa crossed to the window and turned, and her gaze met his with the steadiness of a woman who had spent years deciding she’d never look away first.
“Hello, Mr. Sterling.”
“Hello, Ms. Thorne.”
She glanced at the empty chair Devney had left. “Clearly, she knows we have a history. How have you been?”
“Honestly? I was better before Saturday.”
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Fair.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For Saturday. I shouldn’t have—“
“Said my name out loud in front of two hundred people?”
“That.”
“I dropped a tray of Veuve Clicquot.” Her mouth twitched. “I think we’re even on humiliations.”
“I wouldn’t call yours a humiliation.”
“That’s generous of you.” She drew a breath and straightened the tablet on the table in front of her, the motion precise and unnecessary. “Mr. Sterling, I run a successful business, and so do you. We can be in the same room without it being a story. Can we agree on that?”
“Yes, but you can call me Gabriel. We were friends once.”
“Okay, good.” She picked up her tablet. “Then let’s run a meeting, Gabriel.”
The door opened. Knox walked in first, Ronan a step behind, Devney bringing up the rear with an armload of folders.
“Sorry, sorry,” Devney said. “The printer ate my venue photos. Twice. I think it has a personal vendetta.” She made quick introductions. “Ronan, Knox, this is Tessa Thorne of Thorne Events. Tessa, my husband Ronan, and our CFO Knox Knightly.”
Knox extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. That lemon ricotta canape? That was you?”
“That was me.”
“My condolences to the rest of your career. Nothing else will ever quite measure up.”
Tessa shook his hand and let the corner of her mouth lift. “Then I should probably retire on the spot. Less embarrassing for everyone.”
Ronan offered a shorter handshake. “Pleasure.”
“Likewise.”
Tessa moved to the head of the table and opened her tablet.
She walked them through the August dinner first. A tasting menu for fifty including line-caught tuna crudo with citrus and micro greens; a summer vegetable risotto with local corn and zucchini blossoms; duck breast with cherry gastrique and roasted fingerling potatoes.
She projected each course on the screen with a brevity that made the food the star.
“For dessert,” she said, pulling up the final image, “a deconstructed lemon tart. Meyer lemon curd, Italian meringue, almond crumble, candied lemon peel.” She paused and looked directly at Gabriel, and one small smile broke through. “Better than Headmaster Gideon’s wife’s version. I promise.”
Devney burst into laughter. Knox leaned forward with the expression of a man who’d just been handed a gift.
“That’s right,” Knox said. “I heard you two went to school together.”
“A long time ago,” Tessa said.
“Different lifetime,” Gabriel added, knowing the second the word headmaster left her mouth that he was never living this down.
Knox steepled his fingers. “Tell me more about this headmaster.”
“Knox,” Gabriel said.
“I like context.”
“You like ammunition.”
“Same skill, applied differently.” Knox turned back to Tessa. “Were they good? The headmaster’s wife’s tarts?”
“They weren’t,” Tessa said. “Which I told her once, with disastrous honesty, when I was sixteen. I’ve been trying to make a better one ever since. Some redemption arcs take time.”
Gabriel laughed and looked between Ronan and Devney. “Shouldn’t you two be on a beach somewhere? Drinking out of coconuts?”
“We postponed the honeymoon,” Ronan said. “Devney wants to see the Northern Lights. We’ll be heading to Iceland in September.”
“Well, now I’m invested,” Knox said, not bothering to look away from Gabriel.
Tessa moved on. She walked them through the September investor event.
Two hundred guests, three stations, a champagne tower she had designed herself for a Beauchamp anniversary the previous fall, and the dietary cards she’d pioneered because dietary needs deserved real attention, not an afterthought.
She named venues. She listed contacts. She answered Ronan’s question about cost per head before he finished asking it.
She didn’t look at Gabriel again.
He watched her, and he couldn’t stop. The way she gestured with one hand while the other held the tablet steady.
The way her chin lifted when she meant something exactly.
She had become what she’d said she would become and watching her present it in his own conference room pressed a weight onto his chest that he couldn’t name and didn’t want to.
The meeting ran forty-five minutes. Devney closed her folder and stood. “This all sounds perfect. Send me the revised proposal, and we’ll move forward.”
“You’ll have it Wednesday morning.”
Tessa shook hands with Devney, then Ronan, then Knox. When she came to Gabriel, she met his eyes for the first time since the others had walked in. She didn’t soften. She didn’t look away. She raised her chin that same quarter inch and put her hand out.
“Gabriel.”
“Tessa.”
She took her hand back, picked up her tablet, and let Devney walk her to the elevator.
The door clicked shut behind them.
Knox turned to Gabriel immediately. “Sterling. You looked at her like you’d lost something important.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Ronan closed his laptop. “We have never heard of any Tessa.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“She’s going to be here constantly now,” Ronan said. “Site visits. Tastings. Coordination meetings. You looked like you were barely breathing through that presentation. And when she made the lemon-tart joke, you looked at her like you had just remembered how to breathe. Which one is it?”
Gabriel stood. “It’s handled.”
“Is it?” Knox asked.
“Let it go.” Gabriel pulled open the door. “I have work to do.”
He left before either of them could say more.
His phone buzzed seconds later.
Knox: Take a cold shower and remember why we signed that oath.