Chapter 2
MANDY
Play it cool. Play it cool. Play it cool.
While this might be the first time I ever set foot on a private jet, I didn’t need the attendant staff or the pilots knowing that truth. For all they knew, this type of luxury experience was my bread and butter.
Economy? Me? Never.
Did I like the free pretzels so much that my mouth was watering for them now?
No! Of course not. I was classy, just like my best friend, Cleo Blackwell, who settled into one of the first seats near a window and set her Blackwell Couture designer bag down in the empty seat beside her.
I took a deep breath and seized my chance to soak it all in before we left the runway.
Cleo and Callum Blackwell’s family jet was all cream leather and dark wood paneling.
Everything had been polished to a high shine, and it smelled like lemons and eucalyptus onboard.
A TV was mounted on one wall with a full-sized freaking couch on the opposite wall.
The couch had throw pillows monogrammed with the letter B, and a blanket had been casually draped over the back.
“Sit down anywhere, Mandy,” Cleo said. “Except in the cockpit. The pilots get annoyed.”
I sank into one of the six buttery leather chairs and put my laptop bag on the floor.
Cleo’s seat was directly across from me.
Callum sat on the couch, his eyes glued to his phone screen, his brows drawn in a scowl.
Business, I assumed. Despite being creative, he had always liked being involved in the financial side of things.
Cleo was way more about the designing part.
The brother and sister had grown up flying on chartered planes and vacationing in the Maldives.
They’d had birthday parties on yachts in the South Pacific, attended galas on the arms of celebrities, and been gifted millions of dollars for no reason other than an accountant found extra money in an account and someone needed to claim it.
“Excited?” Cleo asked with a bright smile.
I ran my fingers over the armrests and caressed the stitched edges. “That’s one word for it. I definitely feel like throwing up.”
“Don’t be stressed. They’re family.” Cleo leaned forward and stretched her arm out to put her hand on my knee. There was so much dang space in this place. “You’re going to love them.”
“They’re Blackwells.”
“We’re Blackwells,” she said with a laugh.
“You’re Cleo.”
“And Callum,” he added like I might have forgotten him.
“I mean, I know you guys. I don’t know them.”
“It’s a business deal,” Callum said. “You’re with us and that’s all they need to know.”
I snorted and buckled my seatbelt. Ten minutes later, we were in the sky and leaving the Los Angeles sunshine behind.
The flight attendant brought sparkling water with fresh raspberries and a whole charcuterie board overflowing with a selection of aged cheeses, specialty crackers, cured meats, and fresh grapes.
We moved to sit at the table in the rear section of the plane and brought the charcuterie with us. We had business to discuss before we landed in New York City.
“I’ll get my laptop,” I said. “I want to make sure all our bases are covered.”
While my best friend and her brother argued about who snatched the gouda, I opened my laptop and pulled up the file. I was used to their bickering. The three of us had been working together for the last couple of years and if they weren’t bickering, I would be seriously concerned.
Cleo and I had met in design school, and although I didn’t know shit about designing fashion, I could put together a color palette like I was born to do it. And if you asked my mother, that’s what she’d tell you, word for word. Born to do it.
As a little girl, I’d loved playing Barbies, and every single play session ended in a wedding to Ken in his black and purple suit, and Barbie in her tulle ballgown and veil.
I’d drawn floral arches on paper, cut them out, and taped them to my bedroom wall for Ken and Barbie to say their vows in front of.
I’d curated a ceremony full of A-list guests, consisting of, but not limited to, my collection of Beanie Babies, Bratz dolls, and other Barbies.
By the time I was ten I’d planned and executed at least four hundred successful pretty-in-plastic weddings.
Born to do it.
Now, as a twenty-five-year-old wedding planner in Los Angeles, the stakes were significantly higher. But the flower arches were much, much better. And my ambitions? Well, they were higher than a frat boy on a Friday night.
I was going places. We were going places. Me, Cleo, and Callum. I functioned as a great resource, sending my clients to them for their dress designs, and they hooked me up with their rich and powerful connections who were in need of someone like me.
We just had to get through this one hurdle in New York.
“Stop spiraling,” Cleo said, without looking up from the notebook in her lap.
“I’m not spiraling.”
“You’re freaking out. Don’t freak out. My cousin is a serious man, but he’s not as bad as people think.”
I frowned. “Great, now I am freaking out. I didn’t think he was bad at all. I had zero thoughts about his personality. And now that’s all I’m going to be thinking about.”
Cleo smiled, her green eyes lighting up with laughter. “He can be intimidating.”
“I’m intimidating,” Callum said as he used a straw to drink his sparkling water.
Cleo and I stared blankly at him. She popped a piece of cheese in her mouth.
He looked back and forth between us. “What? You’ve never seen me in a boardroom.”
Cleo ignored him. “We’re going to walk in there, give our pitch, and Adrian is going to love everything so much and totally trust us. All we’re going to have to do is sign the papers. Then I’m taking us all to dinner somewhere with a very long wine list.”
“Adrian isn’t going to be there,” Callum said. “Remember? His wife just had the baby.”
“Right. So one of the brothers is filling in.” She grimaced but quickly smoothed out the cracks in her expression and shook her head, her black hair shimmering in the sunlight pouring through the window at her back.
“Doesn’t matter. The deal is done. We’re just making it official.
This is going to work. Our cousins didn’t get rich by passing on good deals, and this is an amazing deal.
Our wedding line is huge on the west coast. We are a one-stop shop for all wedding needs.
That’s what people want. We can eliminate the need for twenty vendors. We’re streamlining the whole process.”
I nodded. She was right. The deal was essentially done. The language she just used was exactly what we had pitched. It worked. I knew it worked because we’d been using the model over the last year. We just needed a little capital to expand on what we had. Blackwell Couture was the perfect partner.
The flight was over before I knew it, and a car picked us up.
It dropped us near the Blackwell Couture offices.
The noise of the city surrounded us. Horns blared and the smell of meat cooking drifted down the street from a food truck at the corner.
Cleo and I sniffed at the air like stray dogs while Callum checked the time on his watch.
He nodded at a high-rise office tower up ahead. “Let’s go. We can worry about food later.”
When we stepped into the lobby of the office tower, the sounds of the city snuffed out, and in its place was calm serenity.
A water-feature wall gargled like a stream, classical music played on speakers I couldn’t see, and a friendly woman at a front desk instructed us to the elevator that would lead to the appropriate Blackwell offices.
Cleo was already on the move. I followed behind, my sensible heels clacking against the floor.
I had freshened up before we landed, determined to look like a woman ready to close a million-dollar deal.
Did I feel the part? No. But the Armani pantsuit fit well, the heels sounded bad ass, and my perfume hid the scent of my anxious sweating from the flight.
We were shown to a conference room with a view of the city that made me stop walking for a moment.
I’d been to New York plenty of times for work, but I’d never stood in a room quite this high up and watched it all happen beneath me.
A sea of concrete and glass spanned out to the horizon, where gray skies met gray ocean.
“Mandy,” Callum said pleasantly.
“Coming.” I pulled myself away from the window and took a seat at the long conference table, which was already set with water and coffee and a spread of pastries. Each dish had a cute little place card in front of it to announce what it was.
Cleo poured herself a coffee. Callum reviewed something on his phone.
I straightened my blazer again. The dusty pink silk blouse I wore under it was sleeveless, which meant the jacket stayed on.
I wasn’t about to be flashing skin in a very important meeting.
I opened one of the bottles of water and drank. The last thing I needed was coffee.
The door opened and a man walked through with a head of dark hair and a cocky grin.
I knew who he was before he even tipped his head in my direction.
I’d never seen one of the New York Blackwell brothers in person, but I’d seen my fair share of them in online articles or on socials, and I could confirm that I’d never seen a single picture that did Dash Blackwell justice.
He walked over to Callum, who got to his feet, and the two of them clasped hands and pulled each other in for a one-shoulder bump.
Then Dash turned and grinned at his other cousin. “You look good, Cleopatra.”
“Say it again and I will castrate you,” Cleo said with a pretty smile.
Anyone who knew Cleo knew you never called her Cleopatra if you valued your life—or testicles. Her parents clearly had a sense of humor. Cleo did not. And if you even dared to mention her black hair and green eyes were very Cleopatra, she’d pluck your eyeballs out.
Dash turned to me after the cousins’ reunion. His eyes raked over me and I tried to look the part of dignified businesswoman, not squirming fangirl.
“Mandy Carter,” he said in a smooth voice. “I’ve seen your work. Good to meet you.”
He didn’t bother introducing himself, because why should he? Everyone knew who he was. Everyone knew who all the Blackwells were. He did, however, offer me his hand, and he shook mine gently as I managed a polite smile.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Blackwell.”
His grin widened. “Dash.”
Dash was still shaking my hand when a shadow filled the doorway. The big man took a quick assessment of the room before entering, and I couldn’t control my eyeballs. They followed his every move as he marched into the room like he was ready for battle.
He wore a three-piece suit that had very clearly been customized to fit his body.
Not a single strand of chocolate hair was out of place on his head.
His jaw muscle worked, sharpening a tendon in his neck and demanding my attention.
I stared at the cut of his jaw, wondering how someone could win the lottery of genetics and legacy family billions.
I heard Dash chuckle softly before I realized I was squeezing his hand. I quickly dropped it.
Dash went to greet his brother, who quickly moved on to welcome both of his cousins to the office.
Briggs, the ominous force in the room with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, noted how long Cleo’s hair had gotten since the last time he saw her, and then followed up by telling Callum he was just as ugly as he remembered.
Callum laughed easily, and Cleo shook her head at them before turning and gesturing to me. “Briggs, I’d like you to meet my best friend and the best business partner Callum and I have ever had. Mandy Carter.”
I mustered a charming, hopeful smile and stepped forward, extending my hand.
But Briggs just blinked slowly at Cleo. “Best friend? Cleo, you’re clever enough to know you should never go into business with friends.”
Cleo flicked him in the shoulder. “That’s the kind of thing men with no friends like to say.”
Briggs chuckled. Dash nodded.
And I just stood there like an idiot with my hand dangling in the air, waiting for Cleo’s devastatingly handsome older cousin to effing shake it and spare me from my humiliation.
But he didn’t shake it. He didn’t shake anything.
He just looked from my outstretched hand to my eyes. “Before we get started,” he said. “I have one question.”
Oh gosh. What was he going to ask me? Was he going to make sure I’d done my research on his company? Was he going to ask about what kind of agreements I’d signed to protect the Blackwell name in this business deal? Was he going to ask why I’d picked out such a killer Armani suit?
Briggs looked me right in the eyes. “Why should you be involved in this deal at all?”
I blinked. He was talking to me. What?
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I let my hand fall to my side and searched his merciless blue gaze. Was he messing with me? Testing me? Checking to make sure I had the grit to make a deal like this?
It didn’t matter. Because in a matter of seconds, I came to the only possible conclusion.
Briggs Blackwell was an asshole.