“Try it, little mouse,” I growl, leaning forward just enough to let that coconut scent mixed with her sweet perfume hit me like a wave. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, brushing against mine for half a second.
Images flash through my mind—her back against this marble, that pink fabric bunched around her waist, her head thrown back as she moans my name. The lobby suddenly feels twenty degrees hotter.
I grip the pillar behind me until my knuckles whiten.Ezra’s. She’s Ezra’s.
Her hand connects with my chest, five hot points of pressure, and I feel every single one of them. “Touch me again, and I’ll show you exactly what three years of Krav Maga look like,” she hisses as her nostrils flare and pupils dilate despite the lobby’s brightness.
I take half a step back, feeling the corners of my mouth lifting involuntarily. My heart hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to follow her hand.
“Noah,” I say, extending my hand even as my gaze drops to the papers clutched against her chest—the same dossier that’s been burning a hole in my bag since yesterday. “And you are?” Though I know who she is, I want to see if she knows who I am, knows what I do.
“Done with you,” she snaps, spinning on her heel while straightening the papers in her hands.
Her sundress catches the wind from outside the lobby, fabric clinging to the curve of her ass with each step. My mouth goes desert dry. I swallow hard, twice, but can’t tear my eyes away. My fingers twitch at my sides, an electric current running from my palms straight to my groin. The willpower of a grown man is nonexistent at this point. In fact, it’s so weak, it’s embarrassing.
Ten steps away, she freezes as if sensing my internal thoughts. Her shoulders rise with a deep breath before she pivots back, narrowing her eyes to blue slits. Then she storms toward me, papers clutched white-knuckled in her fist. Her eyes narrow as recognition finally flashes across her face. A punch to my ego—apparently not everyone knows me even in elite society. So much for being an eligible bachelor of New York.
“You’rehisbrother.” Not a question, rather an accusation. She slams the contract against the pillar beside my head, so close I have to inch to the right to avoid it being smashed into my face. With her finger jabbing at a clause circled in thick black marker, she orders, “Sign this.”
My gaze drops to where her sundress cleaves to her collarbone, damp with sweat. The scent of coconut sunscreen hits me again, and the circled clause becomes the last thing on my mind.
“Sign,” she repeats loudly, shaking the stack again.
Deliberately slow, without moving my body from the pillar, I take the papers, scanning the circled text.Twelve-month opt-out. Clean break. No strings.
“Planning your escape before the wedding?” I lean closer, lowering my voice. “Having second thoughts about Ezra?”
Her jaw tightens. “Just. Sign. It.”
I flip through the pages slowly, glancing up at her pulse hammering on the side of her neck that keeps drawing my attention for some unexplainable, primal reason.
“Interesting.” I tap the page where her personal details are listed as if she were livestock. I read this contract at least a dozen times on the flight here and can rehearse it by memory. “Says here you’re obedient. Mellow.”
She exhales through her nose, a quiet “Typical douchebag” barely audible.
“Then why marry him?” My voice turns coarse as I lean closer because I like torturing myself.
Her jaw tightens. Those big, blue eyes don’t blink. “Sign the damn clause, or I walk before the vows.”
My fingers twitch at my sides. The pillar’s cool marble presses against my back, acting as a source of gravity fighting the magnetic pull of her presence. My tongue darts out to wet my lower lip.
“Leave it,” I say, the words scraping my throat. “You’ll get a response after I look through it. If I do.”
She inhales sharply, her tiny nostrils flaring with obvious anger. Her knuckles whiten as her fists tighten visibly, and she spins with her sundress flaring around her thighs.
“You’re a dick,” she tosses over her shoulder.
“You’re a brat,” I call after her, my gaze locked on the sway of her hips.
The lobby’s digital clock glows 4:30 p.m. Sixty minutes until dinner, and Ezra is nowhere in sight. My fingers cradle the contract—the corners of the pages are curled from her iron grip. The clause she circled feels like a neon sign:one-year escape clause, no strings attached, zero alimony.She’s planning her getaway before the ink dries on the vows.
I scan the contract again. Airtight, except for her escape clause—a time bomb that could detonate our entire corporate defense strategy if she walks after a year. There’s no way to say if the shares will be pulled away along with her escape. We can put it into the contract, but no one knows if her father won’t start a legal battle over that when the deed is done, and by the time we win that war, our company will be lost to the board.
Even after she’s long gone, her cocktail scent lingers in the air, pushing away every other smell of the tropical island. I shouldn’t be thinking about her parted lips or the curve of her hips beneath that sundress. I press my spine against the cool marble pillar again in hopes it will chill my excited mood.
She’s Ezra’s, not mine. Yet I’m fixated on my brother’s fiancé to the point that I’m ready to follow her through this lobby just to see how far I can push her. Consequences be damned.
I drop the contract on a side table next to me with a crack, tugging at my hair while the lobby bustles around me—bellhops with luggage, complaining guests, laughing children. Everything is too fucking loud.
