Chapter 13
JANE
The restaurant Alex took me to was the kind of place where the lights were low, emitted from crystal chandeliers, and the waitstaff seemed to float rather than walk. A quiet hum of conversation filled the air, not loud, but polished.
If wealth had a sound, this would probably be it. It’d been a couple years since I’d been in a place like this, but as much as it should’ve been a treat, I found my mind wandering to Wyatt’s favorite burger joint.
I wondered if Alex had ever eaten at a diner like that. Then I looked around the fancy room again, the walls lined with art and thousand-dollar bottles of wine, and almost snorted. Definitely not.
“How did you even get us a table here on such short notice?” I asked, glancing up at him and trying not to get distracted by his strong profile.
“I have a standing reservation,” he said, as if it was obvious, and I supposed it should’ve been.
I chuckled under my breath, my head shaking. “Unbelievable. Other people probably have to wait eighteen months for a table, and you just make them keep one for you.”
“It’s close to the office, which makes it a convenient spot. And they have great bread here.”
The moment the hostess saw us, she greeted him by name and escorted us to his table without even looking at a seating chart. Naturally, I wondered why a single guy needed a standing reservation at a fancy restaurant, and my brain supplied a picture of him bringing other women here. Regularly.
My stomach rolled with that unjustified jealousy again, but I didn’t ask or say anything about it.
The thought simply lingered, trailing behind me like perfume as I took my seat at a small, intimate table.
It was set against a wall of windows overlooking the city.
A bottle of champagne was brought over immediately—no menu needed apparently—and Alex nodded for it to be opened.
“Are we celebrating?” I asked, smoothing the napkin over my lap.
He didn’t blink. “Naturally.”
A celebration of what, exactly, neither one of us said. Not the fact that we were married or the fact that our arrangement was finalized. Not the fact that my life had just shifted on its axis so violently, I still felt off balance.
But even so, the champagne was poured. He lifted his glass. I lifted mine. We sipped, but for a few long minutes, there was nothing but silence between us.
Finally, I set my glass down and inhaled. He’d said we needed to talk about our future, and that was exactly what I was about to do. “Alex—”
He beat me to it. “Before you say whatever you’re about to say, let me start. Please. If you don’t mind.”
I blinked a couple times, then waved at him to go ahead. “Oh. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Go for it.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on the crisp white tablecloth, his fingers steepled and his gaze locked so intently on mine that it was like the dining room around us just faded away. It was an oddly intimate posture for someone as controlled as he normally was.
“You’re my wife, Jane,” he said, his voice steady and calm. “I know we didn’t go about things in the traditional way, but I want you to know that it means something to me that we’re married.”
My throat tightened, but not in a romantic, swoony kind of way. It was more in a what fresh complication is this way.
He continued before I could respond. “I will protect you. I will be loyal to you, but I also understand you didn’t exactly choose this arrangement. Not freely.”
That was the understatement of the decade.
“So if you want to continue to see other people,” he said carefully, “I only ask that you keep it as private as possible.”
I choked. Literally choked. Champagne fizzed up my nose and I started coughing so hard, the couple next to us shot me alarmed glances. Alex immediately reached across the table, his hand warm against mine.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, his brow furrowing. “It just felt like a natural place to start, considering we’re married now after being engaged for less than an entire weekend and that we didn’t date at all.”
When I finally got enough air into my lungs, a laugh burst out of me, unexpected, bright, and embarrassingly genuine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like that. Maybe before the Thayer empire started collapsing. Before my life became a strategy document.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping the corners of my eyes. “It’s just you’re, uh, you’re very earnest.”
His brows drew together slightly, like he was offended but was trying not to be.
“I haven’t been with anyone in over a year, Alex.
” Wow, that’s humiliating to say out loud.
“As for relationships? It’s been far, far longer.
I eat and breathe business. That’s it. Being loyal to a husband I barely know isn’t going to be an issue.
If anything, I was about to give you that exact same speech. ”
His eyes warmed in a way that made my pulse thrum, and suddenly, I became excruciatingly aware of the implications of my own words. I had basically just admitted that I hadn’t had an orgasm since my graduate studies.
Fantastic.
Because now, Alex was looking at me like I’d just confessed something he intended to fix out of sheer principle. Heat curled low in my stomach, a kind I hadn’t felt in an embarrassingly long time. I shifted in my seat, hoping it wasn’t obvious.
“Good,” he said quietly, picking up his glass and looking almost smug. “Then we’ll get along.”
Would we? As I stared back at him, I realized that maybe that was the problem. We were shockingly similar. Same tastes. Same expectations. Same relentless drive. Same ability to bulldoze through obstacles without blinking.
Have I inadvertently met my match?
The thought was both dangerous and unsettlingly attractive.
“I’ve been thinking about your living situation,” he said after a server had come by to take our order.
I tensed instantly. “Oh.”
“You’re not obligated to move in with me,” he said evenly. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
I frowned. “I assumed it was just something that was going to have to happen at some point.”
“It’s not.” He set down his glass after taking another sip of his champagne. “Your priority is your youngest brother. I understand that. I have younger siblings too.”
My chest softened in a way I didn’t expect. He didn’t know even a fraction of the truth, but the fact that he wasn’t demanding anything soothed me, easing some of the sting that had been grating at the insides of my veins ever since my mother had told me what she and Douglas had decided.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
He gave me a small nod, then took another sip of champagne. “However, there is something coming up I’d like you to join me for.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, genuinely curious about what this marriage would look like. What his expectations of me would be. “Such as?”
“A gala,” he said. “It’s this weekend.”
“A gala,” I repeated flatly. “Of course.”
“It’s a MME,” he added, amusement suddenly shimmering in those deep green eyes.
“MME?” I asked.
He smiled just slightly, that infuriatingly confident curve of his mouth that always made wings flutter in my stomach. “A Mandatory Marriage Event.”
A laugh escaped me. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
“I hate you,” I muttered without any heat to the words whatsoever. “A gala. Shit.”
“You don’t hate me,” he said, and damn it, he was right.
We were still strangers. Still a business arrangement. Still a dozen unspoken truths away from anything real. But as he poured us each another glass of champagne, I couldn’t shake one consuming, unsettling thought, that this really might not be the disaster I expected.
In fact, it might just turn out to be something else entirely.
“MME?” I repeated, skeptical, but again, I really was curious about his expectations. “How many of these are there going to be and what exactly do they entail?”
“I’m not sure, but I anticipate there will be occasions to which we would be expected to show up together, hence, a Mandatory Marriage Event,” Alex said casually, like this was a term normal couples used.
“I suspect it’s mostly going to be you, me, a bunch of other rich people with money to pour into whatever foundations they think make them look like better people. ”
I snorted. “Charming.”
“For us, this particular gala will be the first public event for our relationship. It’s also an opportunity for word to spread about the convergence of Thayer Steelworks and Westwood and Sons. I’m hopeful that will put pressure on our target board members to leave their seats.”
I felt a furrow forming between my eyebrows, convinced I was misunderstanding him. “Why does it matter if they leave? You have two votes now. Our seats take the board from seven to eight. Even numbers. That’s better leverage. My mom will always vote with us too.”
“Yes, but it might not be enough if the board is stacked against us,” he said, swirling the champagne in his glass. “If the current members stay, we still won’t have a majority. Don’t want that.”
“You’re making it sound like them resigning is inevitable,” I said. “That’s pretty optimistic.”
“It’s strategic,” he corrected, leaning back. “Once those seats vacate, and they will, I’ll move one of my brothers into that empty seat. Or one of your brothers, if they’re interested. Zach would be lethal on a board like that. He’d fucking love it.”
I stared at him, my fork stalling halfway to my mouth. “You’ve thought this far ahead?”
“Obviously.”
I set the bite of my appetizer I’d just speared back down slowly. “Okay, and you’re telling me this because…?”
“Because it affects you,” he said simply. “It affects us.”
There it was again. Us. We.
He kept saying it like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we were a seamless unit instead of two people thrown together by circumstance and desperation. It was confusing as hell. He wasn’t treating me like a pawn.
“What exactly do you have in mind if we get a majority?” I asked.
“We’d retake the board,” he said without skipping a beat. “Stabilize Thayer Steelworks. Rebuild what your father let rot and then we’ll move forward.”
“We,” I echoed softly. “You really keep saying that.”
His brow lifted and amusement flickered in his eyes again. “Should I not?”
“I’m not sure.” I pushed a piece of asparagus around my plate. “I’m not used to being part of a team.”
“You’ve been running a collapsing empire by yourself,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to.”
The words hit harder than they should have, landing deep inside my soul in a place that was so raw after the last few years. I cleared my throat. “You don’t have to pretend this is anything other than what it is, Alex.”
“It’s business,” he agreed. “That doesn’t mean I can’t treat you with respect. Like a partner should be treated.”
Partner. That word rang through me like a struck bell.
“What about the gala?”
He smiled. “We show up. We look very married. People gossip. Rumors spread. Our shared empire becomes a reality in the eyes of everyone who matters.”
“Shared empire,” I repeated, giving him a flat stare. “You don’t think you should’ve eased me into that kind of phrasing?”
“No.” He took another sip of champagne. “You’re smart. You can handle it. Besides, I know you already knew what you were getting into.”
I leaned back in my chair, studying him while I chewed a piece of fish I’d stuck into my mouth just to buy myself some time. This infuriating, calculating, too calm man was not talking at me or laying out some master plan where I was expected to be a silent accessory.
He was including me like I had a voice and he expected me to use it. It was disorienting, to say the least.
“I thought you’d be more of an asshole,” I said before I could stop myself.
Alex just about choked on his champagne. “Excuse me?”
Heat crawled up my neck at the stunned look in his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. Okay. Well, I did. You just have this look about you—”
He set down his glass, coughing once. “Jane.”
“Yes?” I squeaked.
His lips twitched into a smile. “Thank you for the glowing review.”
“Oh my God.”
He laughed and something inside me loosened at the sound. When the moment had passed, he smiled at me again. “I’m not a saint and I’m definitely not doing all of this out of altruism, but I’m not here to make your life harder either.”
“Fine,” I said slowly. “I’ll go to your Mandatory Marriage Event, but if anyone at this gala asks how we met, you’re doing the lying.”
He smirked. “I assumed I’d be doing most of the lying in this marriage.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Alex.”
“Well, not you, my dear wife.”
After another beat of trying to look serious, I lost the fight and laughed again, because Alex Westwood really wasn’t the villain I’d prepared myself for.
He was treating me as the partner I’d always wanted to be in a relationship.
Whether it be the marriage I never thought I’d be in or even just as a girlfriend in high school, I’d always envisioned being wanted in a relationship for more than just my face, my vagina, and my hand around someone’s arm.
He was giving me exactly that, as if it came more naturally to him than breathing. It was dangerous because it genuinely made me feel that if I didn’t watch myself, this very well might end up becoming real.