Page 2 of Have To Be Mine

I turned my back on the city to drape myself on the railing and bask in the glow pouring out of the frosted windows of the venue. “Familiar with the place. Love the baklava.”

“You’re the head of logistics for this Greece campaign. Vendors have been calling me, Dash. Vendors. Do you understand how much I enjoy getting calls from vendors at seven in the morning while my son is screaming and my wife is trying to feed him and I am supposed to be drinking my coffee? For a project that isn’t even mine?”

“Not at all, I’d imagine.”

“Producers. Talent managers. The woman from the hotel our team is supposed to be staying at was furious.”

I nodded as he lectured. This was not my first Adrian Blackwell lecture, and it wouldn’t be my last, either. I had long suspected that Adrian kept a folder in his work laptop with a color-coded breakdown of my failures over the past five or so years, organized by most offensive to least offensive. He had an uncanny ability of pulling past events out of thin air and holding them over my head.

“The campaign is three weeks from its most important event and the man who is supposed to be running the operation has been unreachable,” Adrian said. “That is not fine.”

I blinked at him. He wanted me to argue, but it was senseless. Sure, I had missed a few calls but I returned them eventually. It wasn’t my fault he had already jumped in by then.

He moved toward me, his stare hardening. “Something has to change.” He searched my eyes before the tightness in his shoulders eased, and he let them drop. “No more fucking around.”

I held his gaze. He held mine. I wasn’t going to argue.

“Understood,” I said with a shrug.

The vein near his temple throbbed, and I had to stare because it almost matched the beat of the song playing inside.

“I’m serious.”

I gave him an army salute. “You’re always serious. You need more sleep.”

He nodded and chuckled a little. “You’re not wrong about that. So maybe step up a little so I can rest easier, huh?”

He went back inside and I stayed on the terrace for another minute, hands on the railing, the night air cool against the back of my neck.

After Dad died, I took over the logistics side of things, making sure everything was where it needed to be so everyone else could do their jobs. Despite what Adrian thought, I handled my role well. I just wasn’t perfect. And with a job like mine, no one noticed the ninety-nine times things went right. They only noticed the one time out of a hundred when something went wrong.

As the family attorney, Briggs took over the legal department. Sebastian moved from being the face of Blackwell to creating the marketing campaigns I was expected to make happen. And then there was Adrian.

The oldest brother and the CEO of Blackwell Couture. We were all equal partners, but he rightfully took the role of our leader. He’d seen us through every storm the company had faced over the last two years.

But I had been right there beside him. Not that he gave a shit.

I shook my head, declining to wallow in self-pity when there was a party going on right behind me. I pushed off the railing and went back inside.

My pretty blonde was dancing with someone else.

“Fucking Adrian,” I muttered under my breath. Cock block. Oh, well, plenty of blondes in the pond.

I made my way to the bar to get another drink and scope out the remaining prospects. I still had time to turn this night around. Sebastian had a lot of model friends, and some of the women walking around the reception looked like exotic birds in their extravagant outfits. The guests in attendance would have looked at home walking the red carpet of a fancy gala.

As I nursed my new glass of whiskey, my eyes snagged on one woman in particular.

She wore a long navy blue gown. It wasn’t one of our designs but was clearly high end. My gaze swept over every delicious curve the dress showed off. I drank her in fully, appreciating the way the perfectly tailored gown showed off the swell of her cleavage and the way her hips accentuated her narrow waist. Intensely feminine. Less showy than some of the dresses around her but somehow more stunning.

Her long dark hair was styled in beachy waves. Bare shoulders. One hand curled around a martini glass. Her left hand as it happened. And the only jewelry was a ring on her index finger.

The universe was telling me she was the one. For tonight.

I adjusted the bowtie of my tux and strode over to her before some lesser man swooped in and deprived her of a night with me.

“There you are. I finally found you,” I said, meeting her gaze.

Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown that I wasn’t entirely prepared for. They assessed me. Not the way people usually looked at me at events like this, with recognition or interest. This was different. This was the look of someone deciding whether I was worth the next thirty seconds of her life.