Chapter 3
Jordan
“I’m her plus one.”
Natalie stiffens under my palm, but I keep my hand where it is.
Her sister looks at my fingers on Natalie’s waist like they offend her. Wesley Hart looks at them like he knows better than to say what he is thinking, which is the first intelligent thing I’ve seen from him since I opened my office door.
I know his name. I know hers too. I had Natalie looked into after her interview because my mother has a habit of arranging fate when she gets bored, and Natalie Mullen looked too much like a woman designed to ruin my concentration. I expected to find my mother’s fingerprints somewhere.
I found no sign of her involvement. What I found instead was Wesley Hart, a former boyfriend and former friend who now had the nerve to stand in front of Natalie with his arm linked to her sister.
That was enough.
Lydia Mullen tilts her head, smile still in place. “I would know if my sister were dating someone like you.”
Her eyes move over me with slow, curious interest, lingering long enough for Natalie to notice. I feel the reaction in Natalie’s body before I see it on her face, the quick tightening at her waist, the small flash of jealousy she tries to bury.
I pull her closer.
Lydia’s interest means nothing to me. Women with practiced smiles have looked at me like that for years, measuring the suit, the money, the name on the door. Lydia is only different because she is standing too close to Natalie while making Natalie feel small.
Natalie gives herself away in a hundred small ways.
Every flicker of hurt, every flash of temper, every soft pull of attraction she tries to smother before it reaches her face.
I deal with polished people every day, men and women with careful smiles and clean lies, but she tells the truth before her mouth can protect her.
I enjoy that more than I should.
She is twenty-four. I am thirty-eight. She works outside my office, answers my calls, knows my schedule, and looks at me like she has no idea what she is doing to my control. Any one of those facts should be enough to make me take my hand off her waist.
I keep it there.
“I didn’t realize we had to ask your permission,” I say.
Lydia’s smile holds, though the shine goes out of it.
Wesley shifts beside her. “We just brought the invitation.”
I look at him until he stops talking.
A man can learn plenty from what another man does under pressure. Wesley’s shoulders draw back, his jaw tightens, and the confidence he brought into my building starts looking like something he bought with his clothes.
Natalie once cared about him. That is the only reason I leave the thought where it is.
Lydia clears her throat. “It’s for the wedding weekend, actually. Rehearsal dinner Friday, ceremony Saturday, brunch Sunday. Everyone is staying at the Everpine Hotel near the venue, so we needed to finalize rooms.”
Natalie’s hand closes harder around the envelope.
Now I understand why they came in person.
They wanted the weekend lodged in her head before she left work. Three days of family, questions, forced smiles, and Wesley standing beside Lydia while Natalie was expected to sit alone and swallow every insult they served her.
My jaw tightens.
People like Lydia dress cruelty in good manners and expect everyone else to play along.
I have no interest in playing.
“She won’t need a room from you,” I say.
Natalie’s breath catches.
Lydia blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“I’ll reserve the presidential suite.”
For the first time, Lydia’s smile slips all the way. “Good luck with that. Wesley and I tried to book it months ago.”
I take my phone from my pocket.
I send one text to the Everpine’s general manager with the dates and the only room I want.
Presidential suite.
Wesley lets out a small laugh under his breath. “That’s probably a little late.”
I ignore him.
The reply comes less than thirty seconds later.
Confirmed.
I turn the screen toward Lydia. “Done.”
Her face goes still in the way spoiled people go still when money, charm, and timing fail them all at once.
Wesley’s laugh dies.
Natalie makes a tiny sound beside me. Her hand catches my sleeve for one brief second, fingers curling into the fabric before she realizes what she’s doing and lets go.
She lets go too late, because I already felt the way her fingers curled into me.
Having her this close is already testing the control I spent the last hour rebuilding, and that small, unconscious touch nearly finishes what began in my office this morning.
This morning still sits under my skin.
Her hands on my chest. Her mouth open. Her eyes dropping to my towel like she wanted to look away and could not make herself do it. I got dressed, buttoned my cuffs, sat behind my desk, and forced myself through contracts while my cock stayed hard and my mind kept putting her back in front of me.
If she had looked at me like that for another second, I would have bent her over my desk, pushed that yellow dress up her thighs, and shown her exactly how hard she made me.
Instead, I let her leave.
Now my hand is on her waist, and my body remembers every inch I did not take.
Lydia finds her voice first. “That seems excessive.”
“For a weekend wedding?” I ask. “No.”
“For Natalie,” she says, and the second the words leave her mouth, she knows she made a mistake.
Natalie tightens under my hand. This time I feel embarrassment with it, the old kind, worn smooth by repetition.
My father would have hated that.
He had no patience for people who used good manners to hide bad character.
He built Richmond Corp with straight deals, hard work, and the kind of temper that made dishonest men think twice before sitting across from him.
When his heart gave out, the company became more than an inheritance.
It became the last living thing he left behind.
I was still in uniform when my mother called me home.
Four years in the military had taught me discipline, obedience, and the clean relief of direct orders, but duty did not end when I left the service.
My father’s legacy was slipping through hands that cared more about access than stewardship, and my mother was too soft-hearted to see every predator before he got close.
So I came back.
She tried to hold it together after he died.
She tried to hold herself together too, usually by believing the next man who promised forever would mean it.
New rings. New husbands. Honeymoons that ended with lawyers.
Spa trips after divorces. Men who mistook her soft heart for an open wallet and walked away richer than they deserved.
She still believes love makes people better.
I stopped believing that too many years ago.
Sabrina made sure of it.
I loved her. She loved what came with me: my name, my money, and the life my father’s company could give her. She was beautiful, elegant, convincing, and empty where it counted. I learned the cost of a polished smile before I was twenty-five, and I have had no patience for pretty cruelty since.
So when Lydia looks at Natalie like Natalie is worth less because Wesley chose someone else, I do not see a sister.
I see a woman who needs to learn where the line is.
“Tread carefully,” I say.
The words come out low, and she hears everything inside them.
Wesley steps forward half an inch. “You don’t need to talk to her like that.”
I shift my gaze to him.
He stops.
“You brought my woman an invitation with no plus one, made a show of her being single, then acted surprised when she had a man standing beside her.” My voice stays even because anger does more damage when it does not need volume. “You are both done here.”
Natalie goes very still at my woman.
So do Lydia and Wesley.
I said exactly what I meant.
Lydia recovers with the kind of speed that tells me she has had practice losing and pretending otherwise. “Fine. We’ll see you both this weekend.”
“Yes,” I say. “You will.”
Wesley looks at Natalie. “Nat, if you feel pressured…”
My hand slides farther around her waist, pulling her closer.
“Use her full name.”
His eyes snap to mine. “She always liked Nat.”
“I don’t know if she did,” I say. “She doesn’t seem to like it now.”
The color leaves his face.
Natalie’s breath breaks softly beside me.
I have plenty more I could say. Wesley has given me enough material, and I know how to take a man apart with words when I feel like wasting them. I leave it there because Natalie is standing beside me, and this is still her wound, even if every possessive instinct in me wants to end the source.
Lydia takes Wesley’s arm. “Come on.”
They walk to the elevator. Wesley looks back once, and I hold his stare until the doors close.
Only then does Natalie step away from me.
I let her go, though my body does not appreciate the loss.
She turns with the invitation clutched in both hands. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes too bright, and anger is fighting embarrassment across her face.
“What was that?”
“A fix.”
“A fix?” Her voice drops when she remembers the office around us. “You told my sister you’re spending the weekend with me in the presidential suite.”
“Yes.”
“And you booked the presidential suite.”
“Yes.”
“You called me your woman.”
I hold her gaze.
Her blush deepens when I do not deny it, and the anger in her face tangles with something softer, something she is trying very hard not to let me see.
“That was all for them,” she whispers.
“I thought you needed help.”
Hurt flickers across her face. “This kind of help only makes it worse.”
“How?”
“How do you think I’ll look when I show up alone after all that? And now I won’t even have a room because Lydia will think you handled it.”
“You won’t show up alone.”
She stares at me. “So you’re going to pretend to be with me for an entire weekend? You, the man who hates wasting time, will spend a weekend with my family because I need it?”
Because her sister enjoyed hurting her. Because Wesley said her name like he still had rights. Because I want her in my suite, in my bed, under my hands, and I am done pretending my only interest is protection.
I give her the part I can say in a hallway full of listening employees.
“Because I said I would.”
“That’s all?”
“No.” My gaze drops to her mouth before I drag it back to her eyes. “But it’s enough for now.”
Her lips part.
Good.
Let her feel it too.
Then her eyes narrow. “Do you even know about our history together?”
I let a beat pass.
Too long.
Her fingers tighten around the envelope. “Do you have like a file on me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes, I keep security files on employees with access to my office,” I say.
It is true enough to stand on and false enough to taste bitter.
I do not lie often. Lies are sloppy. They create loose ends, and loose ends get people hurt.
But telling Natalie I had her checked because she looked like the exact woman my mother would plant under my nose is a conversation that does not belong here, with half the floor pretending they are working.
“You know about Wesley?” she asks.
“His name came up.”
She looks down at the invitation, and some of the fire goes out of her.
I like her angry better than wounded.
“Natalie.”
She looks up.
“I don’t care what he was to you.” My voice lowers. “I care what he thinks he can do to you now.”
Her breath catches.
My office phone starts ringing. I ignore it.
“You’re sure you want to come with me?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“And the room?”
“It’s handled.”
Her blush turns hot enough to make my control bite down hard.
I step back.
Her voice is softer now. “Thank you.”
I look at her, still flushed, still shaken, but standing straighter than she was before. That matters more than it should.
“Don’t thank me yet. We still need to make them believe it.”
Her eyes widen. “What does that mean?”
“It means we start practicing being a couple tonight.”
Before she can turn that startled little breath into an argument, I go into my office and close the door behind me.
My palm still remembers her waist. My cock still has not settled.
Tonight, she learns how convincing we can be.