The Neglectful Billionaire Husband in Her Romance Book Club

Prologue Daisy

Prologue

DAISY

The elevator doors open onto polished concrete floors and enough glass to make me feel like a zoo exhibit. Meridian's executive level smells like money and fresh espresso, two things I've never had enough of and probably never will.

I don't belong here. My Target flats stick slightly to the floor with each step, and the folder in my hands is damp at the edges from my grip.

Inside it: eighteen months of correspondence, the lawsuit filing, and a photograph of my mother standing in front of her rose garden three weeks before she died.

The first assistant, a woman in cream silk with a headset curling around her ear, rises from behind a curved reception desk like I've personally offended her ancestors.

"Excuse me. This floor is restricted. Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I say, still walking.

"Ma'am—"

"It's Daisy."

I pass her desk. The conference room is straight ahead, floor-to-ceiling glass walls offering a perfect view of my father's destruction being plotted in real time.

Six lawyers sit around a table that probably cost more than my car.

At the head, standing with his back to me, is a man built like he was assembled from replacement parts meant for someone bigger.

His suit jacket strains across shoulders that don't make sense on a CEO.

Dark hair, slightly too long, curls at his collar.

Adam Smith. Thirty years old, according to the research I did in my car outside. Net worth somewhere between "obscene" and "cartoonish." Reputation: cold, brilliant, and completely uninterested in anything that can't be quantified on a spreadsheet.

The second assistant appears at my elbow, younger, face pink with embarrassment. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry, but you really can't be back here. Security is on their way—"

I push open the conference room door.

Every head turns. The lawyers freeze mid-sentence. Adam Smith stays facing the window for a long moment (power move, I think, the bastard) before slowly pivoting to face me. Dark brown eyes. Jaw that could cut glass. Expression of absolute nothing.

"Who," he says, voice flat, "are you?"

"Daisy Williams." I set the folder on the table with a slap that makes one of the lawyers flinch. "Dale Williams is my father. You're suing him into the ground, and I want to know why."

The senior-most lawyer, a gray man with a gray suit and gray soul, clears his throat. "Mr. Smith, should I call security?"

"No." Adam's gaze hasn't left my face. It's unnerving, being studied like a bug under glass. "Ms. Williams. Your father is being sued because his truck caused significant damage to a Meridian warehouse facility and injured two of our employees."

"His truck," I say, "failed an inspection that should have been caught by your own fleet manager. He was a contract driver. Your company maintained those vehicles. The brake failure wasn't his fault, and you know it."

Adam moves around the table. He's even bigger up close (six foot five, at least) and there are dark lines of ink visible at his wrists where his sleeves have ridden up. Tattoos. On the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. My brain files that under "unexpected" and moves on.

"The maintenance records," he says slowly, "indicate otherwise."

"The maintenance records were falsified by your fleet manager to cover his own negligence.

The same fleet manager you quietly let go three months after the accident.

" I open my folder and pull out the photograph.

"This is Annie Williams. My mother. She's standing in front of the house she and my father have owned for thirty-two years.

The house where she made me breakfast every morning and read me stories every night and died in her sleep last spring while I held her hand. "

I set the photo on top of the legal documents.

"Your lawsuit will take that house," I say.

"It's all he has left of her. It's all I have left of her.

So when you and your army of suits sitting here decide to destroy my family over a brake line your own people failed to maintain, I want you to look at her face and understand exactly what you're taking.

" My voice wavers on the last word, and I hate it, hate showing weakness in front of him.

"The rose garden was hers. Dad still waters it every Tuesday because that's the day she did. He talks to her while he does it."

The room is silent. Adam picks up the photograph. Studies it the same way he studied me: like he's cataloging every detail for later analysis.

"Everyone out," he says.

The gray lawyer sputters. "Mr. Smith, we're in the middle of—"

"Out."

They file out. I stay planted where I am, because I didn't drive ninety minutes and storm past two assistants and potentially commit some kind of corporate trespassing to leave before I've made my point.

When the door closes, Adam walks to the window and stands with his back to me again. The city skyline stretches out beneath us, all glass and steel and money.

"Your father drove for us for eleven years," he says.

"Without a single incident."

"And yet."

"And yet your company's negligence caused one, and instead of taking accountability, you're trying to bleed him dry." I cross my arms. "My mother died in that house. Taking it means taking it with me standing in the doorway. And I don't move."

He's quiet for a long moment. When he turns, his expression has shifted, still unreadable, but there's a calculating edge to it now, and my stomach tightens.

"Are you seeing anyone?" he asks.

I blink. "I'm sorry?"

"Are you currently in a romantic relationship?"

"Where the hell do you get off—"

"It's relevant."

"It's none of your business." I snatch my folder off the table. "This was a mistake. I thought maybe if you saw us as people instead of line items, something would change, but you're exactly what everyone says you are."

"Which is?"

"Cold." I meet his eyes. "Dead inside. The kind of man who'd let my father lose his home over something that wasn't his fault because admitting your company screwed up would cost you a fraction of what you spend on ugly modern art.

" I gesture at a painting on the wall that looks like someone threw up primary colors.

"That thing probably cost more than my father's house, and you hung it in a conference room. "

A muscle jumps in his jaw. It's gone before I can identify it.

"Ms. Williams." He moves toward me, and I hold my ground even though my heart is hammering. "I have a problem. You, unexpectedly, might be the solution."

"I'm not interested in being your solution."

"Hear me out."

"No. We're done here." I turn for the door.

"Klaus Brandt," he says.

I stop. Everyone knows that name. Klaus Brandt is the German patriarch of Brandt Freight, the largest logistics company in Europe. A partnership with Meridian has been rumored for years.

"What about him?"

"He's old-fashioned. Believes business partnerships should be between family men. Men with stability. Roots. He asked me, three months ago, if I was married. I told him I was engaged."

I turn back slowly. "Were you?"

"No."

"So you lied to a potential business partner about having a fiancée." I keep my voice even, like we're discussing quarterly numbers.

"Yes."

"And now?" Dread starts a slow crawl up my spine.

"Now he's flying in for the signing in six weeks, and he expects to meet my wife."

I stare at him. The absurdity of it (this cold, calculating man standing in his glass tower with his ugly art and his falsified maintenance records, asking me to play pretend wife for business reasons) is almost funny. Almost.

"You're insane," I say.

"Probably."

"You want me to marry you."

"I want you to enter into a five-year arrangement. Legal marriage, public appearances when required, separate lives otherwise. The lawsuit is withdrawn and the debt paid when we marry. At the end of five years, quiet divorce; your father keeps his house."

"Five years," I repeat.

"Yes."

"As your fake wife."

"As my legal wife. The distinction matters for Klaus's purposes."

I laugh. I can't help it. It bubbles up from somewhere hysterical and spills out into the silent room. He watches me with no expression, which somehow makes it funnier.

"You're serious," I manage.

"I don't joke."

"No, I don't imagine you do." I wipe my eyes. "Thank you for the most insane thing anyone's ever said to me, Mr. Smith. I'll be going now."

I make it to the door. My hand reaches the handle. A door slams somewhere in the hallway. Loud and sharp and sudden.

I flinch so hard I drop the folder. Papers scatter across the floor (legal documents, letters, my mother's photograph sliding under the conference table) and I'm frozen in place, heart slamming against my ribs, every muscle in my body locked in the old familiar terror that I thought I'd beaten. Cole.

It's not Cole. Cole is in prison. Cole has been in prison for a year, was sentenced to eight years and, according to the release date I was given, has seven more to serve. But my body doesn't know that. My body only knows the sound of a door slamming and what comes after.

"Ms. Williams."

The voice comes from my left, and I can't turn, can't move, can't…

Adam Smith steps into my peripheral vision.

Slowly. Deliberately. He positions himself between me and the door, not touching me, not even looking at me directly.

Just... standing there. A wall of a man blocking the exit like a human shield.

He doesn't ask questions. Doesn't demand explanations. Just waits.

My breathing comes in shallow gasps. I count them the way my therapist taught me (one, two, three, four, hold, one, two, three, four, release) until my heartbeat starts to slow.

Until my fingers unclench. Until I can see the room again instead of a cheap apartment with thin walls and thinner excuses.

"I'm fine," I say. My voice is embarrassingly unsteady.

He nods but doesn't move.