Chloe
A few days later, I find myself shut in my office, unable to focus on MediaSphere’s projections no matter how hard I try.
My mind keeps wandering over and over back to Tristan Thorne. My soon-to-be husband. That doesn’t get any less weird to think about, and I keep gravitating to the thought like it’s a car crash.
Over the past few days, I’ve replayed the entire will reading in my head at least a dozen times, along with my moment alone with Tristan.
I’ve known him since I got my MBA, but I’ve never spent a ton of time with him one-on-one. For the most part, our only conversations have been our clashes—the times when we’ve exchanged barbs over the years, or our business-related confrontations.
There was something about being in that room with him, alone, his fingers on my chin, that made my heart race. I’m not entirely sure I liked it.
Worse, I’m not entirely sure I didn’t.
I sit back in my chair, frustrated. I’ve been staring at this balance sheet for the past half hour with zero progress. I can’t seem to keep my thoughts at bay long enough to get through my work.
This is almost never a problem for me. For my entire life, I’ve been driven. Focused. More than anyone else I knew. I’m not an easy person to distract.
But Tristan Thorne…
Unable to help myself, I open a new browser tab. I type his name into the search bar and press Enter.
It takes a few seconds of scrolling through news articles before I find his social media pages.
His Instagram is the first one I click on.
In his profile picture, he’s at a show of some kind, his face cast in pale blue light.
He smiles at something out-of-frame, like this is a candid shot and he was caught unaware.
I scroll down, going through his pictures.
In plenty of them, he’s dressed up for events, many of them black tie.
He looks effortlessly handsome. Confident.
Like a god walking among mere mortals. Like he knows it too.
He draws the eye in every group photo, and every time I look at his smirk, I can’t help but feel rattled. God, he’s so smug.
There are pictures of him at some charity gala, posing alongside his brothers.
Pictures of him surfing, a look of concentration on his face as he navigates frothing waves that glisten in the sun.
His hair is wet, slicked back from his face.
He’s grinning, but it’s not the careful, professional smile I’ve seen before.
This is a wilder look. Intense.
I didn’t know he surfed. To be honest, I didn’t know that he did anything except schmooze and grate on my nerves.
I keep scrolling through his feed, frowning as I try to piece all of these pictures together like I’m solving the puzzle of Tristan Thorne. Then, most of the way down, I stop.
I’m deep in the past now, years ago. His feed from this time is dominated by photos of him standing beside an absolutely gorgeous woman.
She’s tall, only a few inches shorter than he is, and has the build of a model—narrow, her shape elegant and willowy. Her eyes are alluring. In every image, she’s dressed to perfection.
His hand is on her shoulder. His arm is around her waist. They’re a couple.
A spike of something almost like jealousy rises in me. I check the tags on the posts to find her name. Iris Burnham. Whoever she is, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
Prettier than you, a voice in my head tells me. I swallow hard, trying to push down the wave of envy and hurt.
I take a deep breath, glaring at the screen in confusion. Ostensibly, I shouldn’t give a shit if I see some old photo of Tristan with an old flame—if this really is an old relationship rather than an ongoing one that I don’t know about yet.
I tell myself that it’s just the wedding arrangement. I don’t want an affair to sully my reputation. It would be embarrassing, being married to a man who sleeps with other women on the side.
That’s not it, though. That rationale doesn’t quite cover the extent of my emotion. Even if this is an ex, and even if she doesn’t threaten my professional standing… I don’t like seeing her arms around his shoulders.
I don’t like seeing his hand on her waist.
Before I can get any deeper into this rabbit hole, a voice—a real one—grabs my attention.
“Chloe? You busy?”
It’s my sister, Genevieve. I quickly close out of the tabs, shutting my laptop and setting it aside for good measure. The last thing I need is for Genevieve to know I was stalking my future husband online. I’d never hear the end of it.
“No,” I say. “Not busy. What’s up?”
Genevieve, hovering in the doorway, smiles. She’s one of the few people in this building with keycard access to this office. She didn’t need to alert me to her presence, but I’m glad she did.
She flounces across the room and plops down on the couch a few feet from my desk, putting her heels up on my glass coffee table. Rather than chastise her, I just roll my eyes. I’m used to this sort of behavior from her.
“So, how are you doing?” Genevieve asks, reaching to pluck a mint out of the bowl I keep on a side table.
I scoff. “How do you think?”
Genevieve chuckles, then pops the mint into her mouth. Her voice is muffled by it as she says, “Oh, come on. It’s really not all that bad.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one getting married off like we’re in the Middle Ages, or something.”
“At least he’s hot,” she points out.
My stomach flutters at the comment. I don’t respond, turning my attention to the window.
“In all seriousness, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise,” Genevieve sighs. “Family obligations, and all that.”
I hum in quiet agreement. “MediaSphere needs it.”
My sister nods reluctantly. “I wonder if the old man even knows he threw us a life preserver.”
Despite what I said to Tristan at the gala, MediaSphere has been struggling in recent years to keep up with Thorne Enterprises.
We weren’t about to sink, as Genevieve suggested, but it was taking everything we had to stay afloat.
When Tristan told me about Thorne’s upcoming expansion, it struck me as a serious threat.
But now, thanks to his father, their rising tide will raise our ship. In that regard, I guess MediaSphere owes Julian Thorne.
I just wish he hadn’t asked for this.
“Partnering with Thorne will be a boost,” I say.
“No kidding. This’ll be the best thing for our stock in years. And it’s not even a merger, so Dad doesn’t have to get his panties in a twist about losing the family business.”
A grudging smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Still, I wish it didn’t have to be like this. You know you wouldn’t be looking forward to the partnership if it meant you had to get married.”
She raises an indignant eyebrow. “To Tristan Thorne? All due respect, Chloe, but I think I’d suck it up.”
I click my tongue, but before I can retort, she interrupts.
“Besides, it’s only for three years, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
My phone buzzes on my desk, cutting me off. I glance at the screen and see a text from Tristan.
TRISTAN: We need to go ring shopping.
There’s a twisting feeling in my stomach, a brief resurgence of that weightless sensation I felt when he touched my jaw.
I type out a response, ignoring Genevieve’s stare.
ME: Why now? Seems kind of soon.
TRISTAN: The wedding is sooner than you think. The date has been set.
TRISTAN: We need to get the ball rolling.
This, I knew. The wedding will be a big affair, of course.
All weddings in our echelon are, and it’s what people will be expecting.
A simple courthouse arrangement would raise eyebrows.
Even so, wealth makes it possible to pull a lavish event together quickly, and everyone is eager to have it done so that the business side of the partnership can move forward.
Everyone except me, anyway.
ME: I’m busy.
TRISTAN: Then make time.
ME: Just pick out a ring yourself.
TRISTAN: I can’t do that.
ME: Why not?
TRISTAN: I told you. This isn’t just for show.
I sigh. Maybe that promise is going to come back to bite me, after all.
ME: Fine. I’ll help choose the stupid ring.
TRISTAN: Glad to hear it.
ME: Meet me on Rodeo Drive in a half hour.
“So…” Genevieve drawls teasingly as another text from Tristan comes through confirming that he’ll be there. “Who exactly is blowing up your phone?”
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“Oh, it’s him! I thought so. You got this look on your face…”
I stand up, gathering my things. “I have to go.”
“But I just got here,” my sister complains, tucking her feet up onto the couch. “I want to know all the details. You still haven’t told me how the will reading went.”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I say, although in all honesty, I have no intention of ever having that conversation. “I have to go.” I bite my lip and sigh. “I have to meet Tristan.”
Her eyes light up at that, and she grins. “Ah, I gotcha. You have to make time for your fiancé.”
I roll my eyes, shrugging my purse onto my shoulder as I turn for the door. “Yeah.”
“In the middle of the work day, though?”
“This is work,” I mutter. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
I can hear her giggling as I step out into the hallway, closing my office door behind myself.
Glad she’s enjoying herself, I think bitterly. I know Genevieve isn’t trying to be malicious, but it must be so easy for her to see the humor in this situation when it doesn’t directly involve her.
Oh, well. I’m sure I’d feel similar, if our roles were reversed.
I send a quick text to my driver, asking for a car to meet me at the building’s entrance, and head for the elevators.
As I lean against the back wall of the elevator, staring at the mirrored ceiling, I let out a long breath. The alone time here, descending ten floors to the lobby, is much needed. After talking to Genevieve, I always feel like I need to decompress.
I’m good at my job. The corporate world fits me like a glove—or, rather, I’ve molded myself to fit into it. But no amount of training can help me fit in with my own family.
For my entire life, I’ve felt as though I was striving to meet a standard that was impossible for me to meet.
The mold of a Dawson is more difficult to achieve than the mold of a businesswoman.
Genevieve never seems to feel that way, so it’s been hard to open up to her.
She’s a more brashly confident person than I am, someone who fell easily into her expected role. We’re different.
The elevator doors slide open with a chime, and I step out into the lobby of MediaSphere’s headquarters.
I catch more than a few curious stares as I cross the marble floor and hear a few whispers pass between my coworkers.
I don’t look anyone in the eye. I’m sure that word has spread, and there’s plenty of gossip to go around, but I can’t let it be my problem.
Today, my problem is Tristan Thorne.
God… why did it have to be him? Any other Thorne brother, and this whole arrangement might have been easier to swallow. Sure, an arranged, corporate marriage was going to be difficult to navigate no matter what.
But I know Tristan. We have a history—a contentious one. He gets under my skin in a way that none of his brothers do. For as long as I’ve known him, I’ve been head-to-head with him, striving to beat him. I don’t know how to settle back and be on the same team as him.
The driver is waiting for me outside. I climb into the back seat of the plushly upholstered sedan, grateful for the tinted windows that hide me from the world. My driver glances back at me from the front seat.
“Where are you headed, Ms. Dawson?”
“To meet my fiancé,” I answer, forcing out the last word through a tight throat. “Downtown.”
Tristan is already there when we pull up at our arranged meeting spot on Rodeo Drive, dressed in a button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
His tattoos are exposed, giving me another look at the artwork winding around his arms. In the sunlight, I can see the details more clearly: fine geometric lines woven between twisting vines, with sharp thorns breaking through the dark ink like fractured glass.
He’s not alone either. There’s a woman with him. A pretty, curvy woman, almost a full foot shorter than him with a heart-shaped face and large blue-green eyes. Her wavy blonde hair bounces as she speaks, as though her body can’t contain her exuberance.
As I open the car door, she stands on tiptoe, and he leans down to let her kiss his cheek.
And just like that, there it is again, that same burning feeling in my chest that I felt when I saw Iris Burnham on his Instagram feed. A feeling that, if I’m being perfectly honest, might be jealousy.
I step out of the car, and Tristan locks eyes with me. As if he can read my thoughts, he smirks.
Now that I’m out of the car, I can see that they’re not alone, which is some small relief from the flash of resentment and suspicion. Two of his brothers are with him, so he’s probably not on a date. Probably.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a nod. “Care to introduce me to your friend?”
“Of course,” Tristan says smoothly. “Chloe, this is Ivy. And my brothers, Beckett and Dominic, who you’ve already met. Ivy, this is Chloe. My fiancée.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Ivy exclaims. This is more enthusiasm than I was prepared to encounter, and it’s difficult to match her energy, but I do my best to smile.
“Same here,” I say.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Have you?” That raises one of my eyebrows. When would Ivy have heard about me? Our engagement is brand new, and came out of nowhere.
“Unfortunately, I was just heading home,” Ivy says, oblivious to my surprise. “But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around!”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “Of course.”
“Bye, guys!” She waves over her shoulder as she leaves. I notice Beckett, the younger of Tristan’s two brothers, watching her for a long time as she walks down the sidewalk.
“You don’t have to be worried about her, you know.”
Tristan’s voice catches me off guard, and I turn to him, defensive. “What?”
He’s grinning at me. “Were you jealous of her?”
I can feel heat in my cheeks, and glare at the ground, hoping he won’t see the flush. “No. Of course not.”
It’s a bald-faced lie. I know I wasn’t entirely able to hide my reaction to seeing her.
“Sure,” he says, although I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “Well, whatever the case, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Ivy’s older brother Jackson is a good friend of ours.”
“We all basically see her as a sister,” Dominic adds.
Privately, I’m not sure that’s true. I saw the way Beckett looked at Ivy as she walked away, and I somehow doubt that he thinks of her as a sister. But I keep that thought to myself. After all, I’m not officially a member of the family yet, so this sort of observation is best kept quiet.
“So,” Tristan says with a quick glance down at his phone, “are you ready to go ring shopping?”
At the reminder of why we’re here, my stomach twists with nerves.
But I have to do this. We both do.
I meet his gaze when he looks back up at me, doing my best to hide the nerves rattling around inside me. “Let’s get it over with.”