Chapter 2 - The Bride He Was Supposed to Choose
Harper did not answer.
Sebastian took the phone from her hand.
His expression hardened as he read the messages.
“Dante.”
The security chief looked into the rearview mirror.
“Turn around.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“We’re already going there.”
“Not the main residence. Lake property.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“Understood.”
Harper reached for her phone.
Sebastian kept it.
“That belongs to me.”
“So does the target painted on your back.”
“You don’t know that I’m the target.”
“I know someone photographed you inside a locked fitting room.”
Harper’s stomach tightened.
She had not thought about that.
“Celeste?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“How?”
“Because Celeste would threaten me directly.”
Despite herself, Harper almost laughed.
Then Sebastian enlarged the photograph.
His thumb stopped.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward Dante.
A reflection was visible in the mirror behind Harper.
Part of a man’s face.
Dante swore.
“You recognize him?” Harper asked.
Neither answered.
“Sebastian.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“A man who should not be in Chicago.”
“That clears up absolutely nothing.”
Sebastian handed the phone to Dante.
“Find him.”
Dante passed it to another guard.
Harper crossed her arms.
“Tomorrow is your engagement announcement.”
“There may not be an announcement.”
That startled her.
“The Commission gave you a deadline.”
“I know.”
“And you told Bianca—”
“I told Bianca nothing.”
Harper stared.
“But the dress.”
“Her father sent it.”
“The dinner?”
“Political.”
“The ring appointment?”
“I canceled it.”
“You made me reschedule it three times.”
“I enjoyed watching Conti become irritated.”
“You are impossible.”
Sebastian looked toward the rain-dark window.
“I never promised to marry her.”
That should not have relieved Harper.
It did.
The realization annoyed her.
The lake house was smaller than Sebastian’s estate only by billionaire standards.
Security surrounded it before they arrived.
Harper entered still wearing crimson velvet.
Sebastian removed his rain-soaked overcoat.
Without it, the tailored black suit made him look even more intimidating.
Harper noticed.
She resented herself for noticing.
Dante entered minutes later.
“Photo came from Victor Salvi.”
Sebastian became still.
Harper knew the name.
Salvi had once worked for the Valerio organization.
Six months ago, he had disappeared with several million dollars and information about shipping routes.
“Why is he interested in me?”
Dante looked at Sebastian.
There it was again.
That silent communication men used when they had decided a woman should be protected from information she clearly needed.
Harper pointed between them.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Dante asked.
“The eyebrow conversation.”
Dante almost smiled.
Sebastian didn’t.
“Salvi believes hurting you would influence me.”
“Would it?”
Silence.
Harper’s heart gave one heavy beat.
Sebastian walked toward the windows.
“Yes.”
One word.
No hesitation.
Dante quietly left.
Coward.
Harper stared at Sebastian’s back.
“You cannot say things like that.”
He turned.
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow you may announce another woman as your fiancée.”
“I told you—”
“You told me you didn’t promise Bianca anything. You did not tell me what you intend to do.”
Sebastian walked toward her.
Harper held her ground.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Make me decide your life.”
“You’ve been deciding it for two years.”
“I manage appointments.”
“You manage everything.”
“That is because without me you would schedule three meetings in two countries at the same time.”
“You fixed it.”
“I always fix it.”
“Yes.”
His voice softened.
“You always do.”
Harper swallowed.
Sebastian stopped inches away.
“Fourteen women.”
She tried to sound professional.
“Yes.”
“Do you know why I rejected them?”
“They wanted something.”
“That was only part of it.”
“What was the other part?”
His eyes dropped briefly toward the crimson velvet.
“Every time I sat across from one of them, I compared her to someone else.”
Harper stopped breathing.
“Who?”
A knock sounded.
Sebastian closed his eyes for half a second.
“Boss,” Dante called. “We have company.”
The moment shattered.
Bianca Conti entered ten minutes later.
She wore cream silk and diamonds.
Her father, Lorenzo Conti, followed her.
Bianca’s gaze found Harper.
Then the crimson gown.
Then Sebastian.
Understanding—or suspicion—flashed across her face.
“How charming.”
Harper straightened.
Bianca smiled.
“Your secretary is playing dress-up.”
“Assistant,” Harper corrected.
Bianca looked at her as if furniture had spoken.
Sebastian’s voice became cold.
“Careful.”
Bianca turned toward him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Lorenzo intervened.
“Tomorrow’s announcement cannot be jeopardized by personal distractions.”
Harper hated the phrase.
Sebastian seemed to hate it more.
“There will be an announcement,” he said.
Bianca smiled.
“Good.”
“I didn’t say what announcement.”
Her smile vanished.
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“The Commission expects unity.”
“The Commission expects stability.”
“Marriage provides it.”
“Not necessarily.”
Lorenzo glanced at Harper.
“Unless you have another candidate.”
Silence filled the room.
Harper wanted the floor to swallow her.
Bianca laughed.
“You cannot be serious.”
Sebastian said nothing.
That was worse.
Bianca’s face hardened.
“She is an employee.”
“She has a name.”
“She has no family.”
Harper flinched before she could stop herself.
Sebastian noticed.
His expression became lethal.
“Leave.”
Bianca blinked.
“Sebastian—”
“Now.”
Lorenzo grabbed his daughter’s arm.
They left.
At the doorway Bianca looked back.
Not at Sebastian.
At Harper.
The hatred in her eyes was unmistakable.
Dante closed the door.
“Tomorrow just became complicated.”
Sebastian poured himself a drink.
Harper walked toward him.
“What was that?”
“Bianca being Bianca.”
“No. You.”
He drank.
“Explain.”
“You didn’t deny it.”
“Deny what?”
“That I’m another candidate.”
Sebastian set down the glass.
“Would that be so terrible?”
Harper laughed once because the alternative was screaming.
“You are my boss.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re supposed to marry for an alliance.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I alphabetize your threats.”
“I know.”
“I have seen you throw a man out of a meeting for touching your coffee.”
“He put sugar in it.”
“That is not the point.”
“What is?”
Harper opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Sebastian stepped closer.
“The point, Harper.”
“That you cannot suddenly look at me because I wore one dress.”
His face changed.
“You think this started tonight?”
She stared.
Sebastian reached into his inner jacket pocket.
He removed a folded piece of paper.
Harper recognized it.
Her resignation letter.
The one she had written eight months earlier after receiving an offer from a technology company.
She had never submitted it.
She had thrown it away.
“How do you have that?”
“You left it in the conference room.”
“I threw it away.”
“Yes.”
“You took it out of the trash?”
“I prefer ‘recovered.’”
“That is deeply disturbing.”
“You didn’t leave.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I know.”
“Why keep it?”
Sebastian looked down at the paper.
“Because for twenty minutes I believed you were gone.”
His voice was quiet.
“And those were the longest twenty minutes of my year.”
Harper forgot every clever response she had ever learned.
Then the house alarm screamed.
Dante rushed in.
“Down!”
Sebastian grabbed Harper.
The windows went dark as steel shutters dropped.
Security flooded the hall.
Dante pressed a hand to his earpiece.
“Someone breached the east gate.”
Sebastian pulled Harper behind him.
A guard entered carrying a small black box.
“Found this outside.”
On top was Harper’s name.
Dante opened it carefully.
Inside lay a diamond engagement ring.
Bianca’s engagement ring.
Beneath it was a photograph.
Sebastian picked it up.
His face went white.
Harper took it from him.
The photograph showed her father.
A man Harper had buried twelve years ago.
He was standing beside Lorenzo Conti.
The date stamped beneath the image was from three weeks earlier.
Then someone knocked on the locked front door.
Three slow knocks.
Dante checked the security camera.
His face changed.
“Harper.”
She looked at him.
“There’s a man outside.”
The knocking came again.
May you like
And through the speaker, a voice Harper had not heard since she was seventeen whispered her childhood nickname.
“Birdie?”
