Chapter Six
BEC
The city skyline at night was breathtaking.
The lights of the buildings glittered like stars in the sky.
I had lived in this city my entire life.
The streets and boroughs were my very own playground.
I had never driven a car, but had been able to navigate the many busy streets since I was ten years old.
This city was home, but there were days it felt as unforgiving as my father.
My father, William Bly Sr.—my predecessor as CEO of Bly Enterprises—was as cold as the Arctic and as uncaring as the Sahara Desert.
When I was younger, he had perfected the charming businessman persona, complete with a doting wife and well-behaved children.
However, it was all a facade. He was never a father, but rather a semi-present man who lived to incite fear in my mother, brother, and me.
I was grateful the day my brother finally left this world behind, escaping our father’s control, and built his own life out in Oregon.
It also meant my father’s attention was now directed solely to me.
My mother prevented him from perpetrating any physical abuse, but the threats never stopped.
After what felt like the millionth time of him telling me that I could never live up to him, I knew someday I would take over his company and wipe out his presence.
I wouldn’t just live up to him, I would grow to greater heights than he had ever achieved. It was my own act of revenge.
I had spent years preparing for this moment.
While my peers went to parties and football games in high school, I was studying for my SATs.
When my college roommate, Alexandra, went to frat parties, I was preparing for the LSAT.
Even in law school, my entire focus was on being the best…
and I was. I knew I was the best person to take over Bly Enterprises, but I needed to convince the board.
While I had been acting CEO for six months, my probationary period lasted another half year.
If the board didn’t support me by the end of the year…
Well, I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.
The board that determined my future was composed of older men, all my father’s age.
They had been calling me cold since I was a child.
God forbid a teenage girl not want to hug the men who squeezed too tightly.
I had protected myself from them, but it seemed to have ruined my reputation from an early age.
Setting those boundaries wasn’t a choice I regretted, but it had come with unexpected consequences.
I had to convince the board that I was the best fit to take over the company, and I had begun to accept that I would do nearly anything to get there. Including faking a relationship with my bodyguard to prove I wasn’t the ‘Ice Queen’ everyone had dubbed me.
“Do you really think this Rome Cipriani fella is the best bet?” Alexandra asked as she sipped her wine.
After the meeting with Melissa today, I needed a sounding board to help me ensure I was making the best decision about entering into this fake relationship with Rome.
Alexandra had readily agreed to come over, as long as I supplied the wine.
We were sitting on the floor of my living room, blankets and pillows tossed around us, only table lamps lighting the room, casting a soft glow around us.
I shrugged, “I’m not sure, but both my assistant and head of PR think it will work, and I trust those two with my life.”
She nodded. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and her face was clear of makeup. It wasn’t often that I saw Alexandra without her armor, but the moments I did, I felt like I was truly seeing my best friend.
While our lives were often glamorous, they were also very public, which left us with expectations we had to live up to. While she didn’t have a board to win over, she had the public.
“Is your assistant still hardcore crushing on him?” Alexandra asked with a giggle.
I nodded, “I felt bad telling her about this whole fake dating fiasco. She was so sad,” I explained, recalling the awkward conversation. “Once I explained it was purely business, she was okay—even praised the idea.”
“I’ve met him once, and even I could understand the appeal.”
I rolled my eyes, “You seem to be forgetting about your long-term boyfriend that you insist you love.”
Alexandra glared and threw a throw pillow at me. “A girl can look, and Maverick doesn’t mind. Hell, he would probably agree if he saw Rome. He’s cute,” Alexandra mused. “Cipriani, is that Italian?”
I nodded as I flipped through the personnel file I had on Rome.
It was concerningly extensive, but when it came to my brother, he was nothing if not thorough.
“His parents immigrated from Italy when they were eighteen, and Rome was born only a couple of months later.” From the timeline, I concluded it was an accidental pregnancy and a rushed marriage between his parents, but they seemed to be genuinely in love if the photos were anything to go by.
Though there weren’t many of the three of them.
“What’s he like?”
I rolled my eyes just thinking about Rome. “Annoying, loud, flirty, inappropriate.”
Alexandra laughed hard and stole the file from my hands, replacing it with the tabloid of me and Rome. “If he’s so intolerable, why do you still have him work for you?”
“Because he’s good at his job.” Which, in my mind, was reason enough. I didn’t like the majority of my subordinates. I mean, who did? But I could respect their intellect and their ability to do their job well.
Alexandra hummed as she flipped through the file.
I knew what she was reading over. I basically had it memorized with how many times I had read through it.
It went over his childhood, growing up in the Bronx surrounded by cousins, aunts, and uncles.
It went over the death of his father and his mom’s subsequent marriage to her second husband, Mateo Romano.
There were pages upon pages of his years as an Army Ranger, and every detail of his comings and goings since his retirement from active duty.
When I had first dived into the pages, I had hoped to find a flaw with Rome that would give me reason to fire him. There was none. On paper, Rome was perfect.
Which somehow made him even more annoying.
“Do you have a comment?” I asked after a few minutes of Alexandra smiling as she flipped through the file.
She smirked, but didn’t answer.
I sipped my own wine, and my gaze fell back on the skyline outside my penthouse windows.
I loved my apartment, but after Rome’s comment, I was starting to see it in a new light.
It was all clean lines, modern furniture, shiny surfaces, and not a hint of my real life on its walls.
It looked like a showroom the majority of the time, but it helped me to uphold the image of a successful businesswoman.
It’s all I had ever wanted to be, but I did wonder if I had lost myself in the process of getting here.
Or if I had never found myself in the first place, and instead had been forcing myself into a mold made for someone else.
“Should I repaint?”
Alexandra looked at me, confused, “You spent three months selecting the perfect shade of black for your walls. I will not suffer through that again.”
I huffed a laugh, “There’s no color in here. I was thinking I should decorate, or at least buy some pillows to liven up the place.”
“Did you hit your head or something?” Alexandra joked. “Maybe Rome really did drive you crazy.”
I waved off her comment, “Ignore me. I’m going through a phase.”
She shrugged her shoulders and refocused on Rome’s file, “So how do you plan on convincing everyone of this relationship?”
I took a sip and shrugged, “Melissa has a whole plan. We didn’t do anything to cause the rumors, but the press was convinced anyway. I don’t think it will be too hard.”
“It helps that he’s so easy to look at,” Alexandra explained as she held up a picture of Rome that she pulled from the file.
I plucked it out of her hands to get a better look.
It was of Rome’s Ranger team. There were four men standing tall, dressed in camouflage, with various weapons swung over their shoulders.
They were all covered in dirt and no one was smiling, but there was a light in Rome’s eyes.
I saw that light in every photo I had seen of him, as if there was a permanent happiness that followed him around.
The next few months, or however long Melissa had planned, while faking dating Rome, were going to be interesting, to say the least. I could barely tolerate him, and now I had to pretend to be in love with him. At least he could charm the socks off anyone; the board was bound to be swayed by him.
The position I was forced into made me feel out of control. The board believed I was too cold and uncaring to do my job. The fact that my solution was Rome only added to the problem. I wished that my work ethic and the financial reports were enough to prove my abilities, yet they still needed more.
I knew if Will were in my position, he wouldn’t face these issues.
The board wouldn’t question his abilities if he had produced the same results that I had.
He wouldn’t need to enter into a fake relationship to prove to a bunch of old men that he wasn’t cold and uncaring. The double standard was infuriating.
“It isn’t all bad… I’ll probably see you more now,” Alexandra insisted. I raised an eyebrow in question. “You’ll have to go to more of the networking events. Maverick and I attend most of those, too.”
I couldn’t help but groan. “You know I hate those things. Come to think of it… so do you! So, why do you even go?”
She took another sip of her wine, “Maverick and I have an agreement. He comes to my things and I go to his.”
“Rome is going to hate Maverick.” I chuckled just thinking of the two.
Where Rome was playful, Maverick was serious. Where Rome was quick to a smile and a joke, Maverick had smiled twice in the entirety I had known him. I wasn’t positive if he had ever made a joke. The two were like oil and water.
Alexandra laughed along with me, “Maverick doesn’t like most people here, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the feeling is mutual.
At least something will be entertaining at these parties.
That charity gala at the museum downtown is this weekend; you should come.
Get your sea legs for this whole fake relationship thing you're getting yourself into.”
I sighed, knowing it was right for me to go. I had been invited to hundreds of these events, but only attended a handful. The press would eat it up if I made an appearance. Having Alexandra there would only increase the attention, which in this case would be beneficial.
It was a strange transition. For so long, I had avoided being caught by the press. Now, I was orchestrating the run-ins.
“I’ll come, but only if you’re there,” I eventually relented.
Alexandra squealed, “This is going to be so fun! We can get ready together, drive together, and walk the carpet together. Maverick would love to see you. He’ll probably try to get a scoop on how your business is doing…
but excited to see you nonetheless. I’ve also been meaning to chat with you about some of my investments for my new business. This is going to be so fun…”
Alexandra continued to make plans for the night, but I started mentally making my own.
I would need to find a dress, research the attendees so I knew who would be best to network with, and prepare Rome.
He would need a suit, maybe even a haircut—definitely new shoes.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to convince him to leave his guns behind for the sake of fashion, so a tailored suit that took that into account would be beneficial.
I may not like the man, but I knew Rome would be delicious in prada.