Chapter 10
ALEX
Although I would never admit it, I was glad I didn’t offer to come back later and take her out to dinner instead. Giving myself a moment to regroup after watching her sign on the dotted line, agreeing to legally become mine, would’ve been a bad idea.
Frankly, I’d needed the walk, the cold air, and every second between Thayer House and the tiny restaurant we’d ended up in just to get myself under control. Because Jane had undone me.
With just a look, she’d managed to knock the air right out of my lungs, and as much as I hated it, that look was filled with uncertainty. She sat across from me in the dim midday light that was filtering in through the windows, looking caught between bolting out the door and curling in on herself.
Cornered. Conflicted. Still breathtaking.
When my mother had still been alive, I remembered her going through a phase where she’d been obsessed with Carolyn Bessette’s sense of style. I was pretty sure the first time I’d heard the word icon had been from my mother in relation to Ms. Bessette.
And after Mom had passed, I’d been the one who’d wound up having to explain to Charlotte, not even an official teenager yet at the time, who Carolyn Bessette had been. Ironically, Jane had that same old-money dressing sense.
Even though I’d dropped in on her unannounced, she was once again impeccably dressed, just as she had been that first day I’d met her in the cab and then again at dinner. Her dark blonde hair shone like honey, twisted into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck.
Those gray eyes were on mine, but they gave nothing away. The only evidence I’d seen of today being different to her than any other had been the slippers she’d kicked off before we’d left her bedroom, swapping them out for a pair of flat leather boots.
The restaurant was a few blocks from my building, between her place and mine, and quiet enough that no one paid us any attention. I handed her a menu, but she shook her head. “I’ll just have some coffee.”
“You don’t want anything to eat?”
“Nope.”
“Drink? Something heavier than caffeine, maybe?”
“Just coffee.”
I nodded, ordering two espressos and a selection of pastries neither of us would touch when the server came by. Even though I knew it was unlikely she’d even pick at a pastry, it felt like I needed something to offer.
Neutral ground in the middle of two unraveling worlds.
Her hands were steady as she adjusted her scarf and exhaled softly. I sure as shit didn’t feel steady myself, but I was learning very quickly that this woman just might be stronger than me.
“So, uh, logistics,” I said when it felt like the silence had dragged on for a beat too long. “Do you want to get that out of the way?”
“I suppose we might as well.” She shrugged. “When do you want to do this?”
“How do you feel about the courthouse on Monday?”
“Done,” she said without skipping a beat, her tone as level as if we were discussing quarterly reports rather than a lifetime commitment.
She definitely hadn’t been surprised by the suggestion. Our espressos arrived, but as she reached for hers, I finally noticed a slight tremble in her hand. So slight that I wouldn’t have been aware of it if I hadn’t been watching her like a hawk with a stalking problem.
“If you’d like a real wedding—”
Her gaze shot back up to mine and she shook her head, effectively cutting me off. “No. The courthouse is fine.”
For the briefest second, I imagined what she might look like in a wedding gown, but I shoved the thought aside when I felt my cock twitch in response.
Instead, I took in how she fixed her coffee, adding a spoonful of sugar and only a small blot of cream.
The perfect ratio. She stirred once, then set the spoon aside with an ingrained precision that made my chest tighten.
“Alright.” She suddenly looked up at me again. “The courthouse on Monday it is. I’ll be there.”
Relief trickled through me. This had all been really easy so far. I genuinely hadn’t expected it to. I hadn’t expected her to go for it at all, actually. “I’ll handle the paperwork.”
“Of course you will,” she murmured, almost smiling into her cup. “Just let me know if there’s anything else I need to sign or look over.”
As I nodded my agreement, the pastries arrived, but neither of us reached for one. We just sat in silence for another moment, but oddly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just charged. Like the air itself was waiting with bated breath to see which one of us would move first.
“Do I need to go home and pack my things or something?” she asked, half-joking, her tone lighter than I’d ever heard.
I liked it, though. I simply hadn’t expected to see a sense of humor from her for at least a couple years.
“I mean, we’re getting married, right? How does our living situation work when it happens like this? ”
I’d been thinking about this too. Probably too much.
“It doesn’t matter how things usually work in this situation,” I said slowly, holding her gaze so she could see that I meant it. “I’m not even sure if there is any specific way in which it’s supposed to work, but the only thing I care about is figuring out what works for us.”
“Okay.” A flicker of something sparked behind her eyes. Relief, perhaps. “What do you want, then? What would work for you, Alex Westwood?”
“I’d like us to live together at some point,” I said. “Possibly soon, but we don’t need to race back to your place right now to pack your things.”
She blinked rapidly, but she didn’t get defensive. Instead, she just seemed genuinely surprised. Her lips parted in a soft, involuntary reaction that felt like a punch to the ribs.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Soon?”
I forced myself to hold her gaze instead of looking down at those pillowy, parted lips. This wasn’t the time to be imagining things I shouldn’t.
“It needs to look real,” I said. “Sharing a home makes the facade convincing.”
The facade. Right.
That was the script I’d told myself I would stick to and it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth either.
The full truth was that I wanted to wake up with her in the same house. I wanted to talk to her over breakfast, to know what she looked like in the mornings when her hair was mussed and her voice was sleep roughened.
In short, what I wanted but decided not to say, was that I wanted a real marriage. A relationship that meant something even if love never showed up.
She blinked a few more times, seemingly considering what I’d said. Then she leaned back slightly in her chair. “Well, if it needs to be convincing, then I suppose there’s not much of a choice, is there?”
“You’ll have space,” I said immediately, surprising myself with how badly I wanted her to want to move in together rather than just doing it for the sake of appearances. “You’ll have privacy. Autonomy. Whatever you like to eat in the fridge and—”
“It’s not that.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but then she averted her gaze, studying her espresso cup as she turned it in a slow circle on the saucer. “You’ve been pretty honest with me so far today, I think, and so, I’m going to return the favor.”
“You don’t want to move in together?” I guessed out loud, disappointment unfurling deep inside in a way that stung a little more than I might’ve thought. “That’s okay. I—”
“It’s about Wyatt,” she interrupted and my heart almost slammed to a fucking stop until she added, “my youngest brother.”
Oh, thank God. As soon as she’d said another man’s name, I’d assumed there was a boyfriend. There were very many things I did well in my life, but sharing wasn’t one of them.
Now that she’d said he was her youngest brother though, I remembered having read about a Wyatt in the paperwork we’d compiled. What I didn’t understand, however, was why she was mentioning him in the context of the two of us living together.
“He’s only seventeen and I’m, uh…” She trailed off, her cheeks flushing to a slightly rosy hue when she looked up again. “I’m not ready to leave him, Alex.”
Wait. What now? “Leave him how?”
“He lives with me,” she explained quickly, that flush spreading to her neck. “In the brownstone. It’s the house we grew up in.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not wanting to accidentally trigger the trauma they’d all been through by being insensitive, but… “Does your mother not also live there?”
“Oh, no. She does.”
I felt the corners of my eyes tighten despite how hard I was trying to keep my expression cool and unflappable. Or something like that, but I was flapped. In fact, I was very flapped. And very confused.
“Forgive me for asking, but why are you worried about leaving him if your mother is there?” So fucking odd. “Are you two just close or—”
“No,” she said cutting in with a quiet sigh. “I mean, we are close. Obviously. We still live together and all that, but it’s just that he’s still in high school, and in terms of the support he needs, she’s mostly absent.”
My eyebrows shot up, but when her eyes hit the window like she’d rather be looking anywhere else, I leaned forward. “Hey. Look, you’ll get no judgment from me. I’m the oldest kid too and Douglas wasn’t always available either, so I get it.”
I might’ve been imagining things, but I could’ve sworn I saw just a fraction of tension ease from her shoulders. Then she slowly brought her gaze back to mine. The expression in her eyes was different now, the tiniest flicker of curiosity in them.
“Yeah?”
I scoffed down a laugh I hadn’t been expecting. “Absolutely, yeah. Before my mom passed, it was okay. She was there. Most of the time, anyway, but after? I won’t lie. Our house was mostly one big shit show.”
She laughed, blinking hard like she was surprised about it, but I definitely saw some of the tension leave her shoulders.
“It looks like we’ve finally found something we have in common.
Absent parents. You’re lucky your mom was there.
Mine has always been like this, but it’s worse now.
After everything that happened with my dad. ”
Her jaw tightened and I leaned back, trying to absorb the reality of what our marriage would mean for her. She wasn’t thinking about optics, shared spaces, press releases, or even boardroom power shifts.
She was thinking about a seventeen-year-old kid and whether he would have clean clothes and someone to make sure he had warm meals if she wasn’t there. The silence that settled between us was suddenly awkward, strained despite the moment of connection.
“This doesn’t have to be immediate,” I said finally. “Living together. We’ll figure it out.”
Something flickered across her beautiful face, relief mixed with caution. Like she was afraid to trust me but was kind of starting to want to. I’d take it.
As far as I was concerned, progress was progress and this was progress. We finished our espressos, and eventually, she rose, smoothing the front of her coat with a practiced, graceful ease.
“Okay, then,” she said almost primly, as if she wasn’t sure how to act now that she’d confided something personal in me. “I’ll see you on Monday. For our wedding.”
“Monday,” I echoed, rising as she gathered her purse and watching as she left the cafe, disappearing into a flurry of snow as if the city had swallowed her whole.
My original plan for the day had included checking in on things at the office, and though I’d gotten sidetracked—severely—I still intended on popping in for at least an hour.
It was even more important now actually. Zach and Nate were probably over there, busting their asses trying to push this acquisition through without knowing things had taken a bit of a different turn. I would be an asshole to let them keep working when it wasn’t necessary anymore.
Still, I briefly considered letting them keep going. But in the end, I needed to tell someone about this anyway, and since Trent was in Texas and Jameson suddenly had half a million kids and was in San Francisco, it was going to have to be Nate.
As I’d expected, I found him in his office at Westwood and Sons’ HQ, hunched over a screen and scrolling through what appeared to be mountains of paperwork.
“You’re here early,” he said without looking up.
I frowned. “It’s almost two.”
“It’s also Saturday. That means it’s early. By approximately two days.”
I chuckled, but it faded into a groan as I scrubbed both palms over my face and lowered myself into the chair on the other side of his desk. When I’d woken up this morning, I’d been single.
In the space of about six hours, I’d gone from finding out I was betrothed, to getting engaged, to having my wedding set up for less than forty-eight hours from now.
Nate finally glanced over at me, his eyes sharp as he scanned my face like he could read the incredulity in it—and he probably could. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Zach can back off. It’s done.”
Nate’s spine shot straight, his blond eyebrows rising as he blinked at me. “The Thayer acquisition is done? How?”
“It’s no longer necessary.” I exhaled harshly, running a hand through my hair and knowing that once I said this out loud to my brother, it was suddenly going to become very, very real.
“My wife will soon be the CEO of Thayer Steelworks. We’ve got them, Nate.
The prenup is signed, so tell Zach to back off and come with me.
We’re going out. It looks like tonight is going to have to be my fucking bachelor party. ”