Even as I coaxed her into a response, a thought danced at the edge of my consciousness. I was letting her walk out the door with Lakewood, who had brought her fucking hot chocolate.

  Did she not like coffee? If she did, why didn't I know her coffee order? More importantly, why the hell wasn't it in Pierce's dossier? He was usually more thorough than that. Her lips parted in a surprised gasp, and I took advantage, sliding my tongue into her mouth.

  There was nothing more satisfying than hearing that little moaning whimper she made at the back of her throat. As the kiss deepened, I tugged her closer, my body pressing against hers. I could feel the heat emanating from her, and it only fueled my desire. I wanted to consume her, to make her forget about Lakewood and everything else in the world. I could feel her body respond to my touch. Her hands made their way into my hair, pulling me close.

  Reluctantly, I tore my lips from hers, my heartbeat racing too fast. And I whispered, "I'll see you at lunch, Ness."

  Chapter 14

  Gwen

  He had no idea.

  That's all I could think about the entire walk to work with Lance. Atticus had gotten me off this morning and he had no idea.

  Did you want him to have an idea?

  Yes.

  No.

  Maybe.

  Ugh. It had just felt so… intense and visceral and real. And he really had been asleep and horny.

  I knew what this was, but why was I disappointed that he had no idea how he’d touched me in his sleep?

  Lance prattled on about communication strategies for the team and how we had to try some new sake bar around the corner, and how maybe now I could actually take a goddamn break.

  But I was too busy, too focused on the horror show of my life.

  My husband-to-be had gotten me off this morning. Spectacularly. Worse, he'd been asleep when he’d done it.

  Imagine how good he’d be fully awake?

  Oh my God. And then he'd come out walking around in those thin gray pajama pants, and I could fucking see everything. And he'd still been hard. Very, very hard. Honestly, he needed to be careful, because that thing could club somebody on the head and knock them clean out.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Sure. I'm fine," I muttered as I played with my cup of hot cocoa. The warmth soothed me, but I hadn’t taken a sip.

  "I know you better than that. You look stressed the hell out, Gwen. I know you think you have to do this thing, but you don't."

  "Yes, I do. It's done anyway. The engagement party is in a couple of weeks."

  He pressed his lips together. "I guess the view can’t be ignored."

  I didn’t like the subtle dig, but I let it slide, knowing he was just worried about me. "The penthouse, yeah, it's a stunner. And if I'm being fair, at least Micah is nice. I can't read Atticus at all. He's like a granite wall."

  A granite wall with a very big⁠—

  "So what, he's kissing you now?" he asked.

  A wash of heat hit my face so hard I was surprised it wasn't sandblasted. "Um, what?"

  "That kiss, is that a thing now?" he asked through clenched teeth.

  Hell. "Look, this thing is happening, so I'm trying. And he is doing… I don't know, doing a reasonable facsimile of trying. Your anger is at the wrong person. Dad is the one who used me. Dad is the one who put me there."

  "While I’m pissed off at the old man, it looked like Pendragon was doing a whole hell of a lot more than trying."

  "Well, we have to make it look real, okay? I'm trying to make the best out of a shitty situation. You were there. I was blindsided. It's already hard enough without your judgment. We are stuck, so we might as well try to get to know each other." Utter bullshit. I didn’t want to lie to Lance, but he wasn’t going to let it go.

  "But I thought⁠—"

  I tugged him to a stop. "You thought what?"

  "I thought that you weren't going to do it."

  "We covered this, Lance. If I don't do it, Morgan has to. And while Atticus Price might be cold-hearted and not particularly gregarious or chatty, he met the terms. Someone else might have pushed for more. It's a good deal. And even better, it’s not Bronson Jacobson."

  "And what about you? I care about you, Gwen. You're just going to suffer in silence?"

  "Yeah, if it means my employees have what they need and aren’t carved up for parts. If it means my sister doesn't have to get tied to somebody at the age of eighteen, yeah. I can do anything."

  He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "It’s just… I don't know. I'm used to you fighting."

  "Well, I am plum out of fight right now, Lance. I am exhausted, trying to hold everything and myself together. So I need some help."

  "I told you, I can go to my family. I⁠—"

  "No, when I said help, I didn't mean you falling on a fucking sword. Only one of us gets to do that, and I have already fallen. When I say I need help, I need you to assist me in making this transition as smooth for my people as possible. You running in to rescue me doesn't save Morgan."

  He sighed at that. “Fuck. You really are between a rock and a hard place.”

  He had no idea. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to think of just how hard Atticus was last night. "I have come to terms with it. So, right now, I just need your support, Lance."

  "You have it, always, Gwen. And I’ll get with Morgan about your engagement party."

  "I appreciate that, but there's a party planner,” I said. “Neither one of you has to do it."

  "But as your man of honor, presumptuous, I know, but⁠—"

  I shook my head. "You really think Atticus Price is going to let you be the man of honor?"

  Lance tipped up his chin. "I'd love to see him try to stop me."

  I could see it, Lance and Atticus were going to be a problem. Because there was absolutely, positively no way Atticus was going to let another man stand up next to me at our wedding.

  Over his dead body.

  Or mine.

  Chapter 15

  Atticus

  "You're here early."

  I scowled when I found my brother and Pierce in my office going through our financial report. "Well, what the fuck are you two doing in here?"

  Pierce just shrugged. "Micah said you had a better display board."

  He was right. I did have a better display board. For reasons I couldn't quite fathom, Micah hadn't wanted a massive corner office. He'd kept his smaller one. It didn't matter how much I tried to force him into taking one of the executive offices, he still didn't want it.

  "Okay, what are we looking at?"

  Micah rolled his shoulders. "I'm looking at the due diligence from Becks. Something is not adding up."

  I ran my hand through my hair. "We vetted them. So what's the problem?"

  Pierce just shrugged, somehow managing to balance his chair just so without tipping over one way or the other. He was a graceful motherfucker, and he was annoying. He moved with the stealth of the training he'd no doubt had in Special Forces. "It's not so much the bottom line. R&D divisions are always a money pit. That's not even my main issue. My issue and why I'm here is the security aspect of it. See that client list? Sixteen clients. All having purchased, or so we think, specific access levels to this new software. A new push and release are expected in the next month. So on paper, R&D should be flush with cash, but it's not. Where is that money going?"

  I frowned as I looked at the balances. "Okay, do we have any other companies for comparison?"

  Micah held up a folder. "Check your iPad. I'm having a sneaky look at their books, but none of it makes sense."

  "Why do you always come to my office when you want to hack something?"

  "What?” he asked innocently. “You said I couldn't hack the NSA anymore, but you didn't say I couldn't hack at all."

  I slid my gaze to Pierce. "You're not going to say anything?"

  "No. If I can’t ask you about your afternoon delight, I'm not going to ask him about his hacking activities. I like my bank accounts the way they look."

  I rolled my eyes. "Both of you are assholes."

  Both my brother and Pierce grinned at me.

  I reviewed the findings on my iPad after I removed my jacket. My frown deepened the more I read. Gwen was right. They didn't have any money. Her father had, in essence, set R&D adrift, knowing she hadn't signed off yet. And we hadn't ratified our contract. So, how the hell was she going to pay her employees in the next few weeks while we sorted out the nitty-gritty details?

  No wonder she was fucking stressed.

  Fuck.

  "There should be customer funds in here. Do you think someone is pinching it? Is it Lakewood?"

  Pierce glanced at Micah. Micah glanced back at Pierce and then to me. "Um, no. Lakewood is clean. We looked."

  I ground my teeth. "Define clean."

  Pierce just shrugged. "He's clean on paper. No nasty drug habits. No wife or child support to worry about. Nothing anyone can really blackmail him with. And he's good at his job. Actually, I think we have a skillset opening for him in London."

  I smiled then. "London, you say?"

  "Well, he's been tech operations here, but he can be more useful somewhere else while we work out how all the employees fit in."

  "Pierce, sometimes, I want to kiss you fully on the mouth."

  "I think my last girlfriend read a lot of romance novels like that."

  I grinned at him. "I'm sure you read some too."

  He shrugged. "I cannot confirm or deny. The point is, I can get rid of him if you want."

  "And by rid of him, I know you just mean to London, right?"

  Pierce just rolled his eyes. "Okay, if you say so."

  Micah shook his head. "You let him casually talk about murder, but I can't talk about hacking?"

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. "I swear to God, I need better friends. One of you, tell me something useful."

  Micah hit a couple of keys and then used his laser pointer. "Right there. That's the one we should dig into."

  I glanced at the numbers, the deposits, and the receivables. "What company is that?"

  "AKC Consulting," said Micah. "It's a small tech firm. From the amount of receivables in there, they're not doing enough business to be able to afford access to this kind of software. Not to mention, what are they going to use it for? They're a small house. As far as I can tell, they just pump out apps."

  "Right, so what's their story?"

  "Well, the issue is more like, who are they owned by?"

  A prickle of alarm danced at the base of my spine. "Fuck."

  "That's precisely the right sentiment. Jacobson. Not the younger. The senior. The senior is a lawyer who executes a trust."

  "Fuck. Let me guess, a trust that benefits Bronson Jacobson. What is his hard-on for this software?"

  Pierce, still bouncing on two feet of his chair, shrugged. "It could be about the girl."

  "They know each other, but have they dated?" Micah asked.

  Pierce shook his head. "It didn't come up. I've got nothing on them. They've been in the same circles for a long time, but her movements indicate nothing about knowing him on a personal level."

  "Okay, then. Unlikely his interest is about her. If it's not her, then it's fucking me."

  Micah scrolled through the data. "What do you want to do?"

  "For now? Float the money to cover their salaries and operations until we hit the final on this deal. I'll send a new contract to Gwen that covers what she'll need for salaries and to continue running until we take over fully."

  "Right, done." My brother studied me closely. "What's wrong with you?"

  "She didn't tell me she needed help."

  Pierce just chuckled, and Micah just shrugged. "Why would she?"

  "Because I'm going to be her husband. We are going to be married. She could have asked me for thirty million dollars, knowing I would feel obligated to give it to her."

  "Maybe she isn't the kind of woman who wants your help," Pierce suggested.

  "Everyone wants something from me."

  Micah shrugged. "I don't. Pierce doesn't."

  "You know what I mean. Women. Women always want something."

  "Well,” Micah said, “it looks like Gwen might be one of the few who doesn't. And maybe you need to treat her accordingly. Besides, brother, you made that choice."

  "I made that choice because it came with the software."

  Micah cocked his head and gave me a sarcastic smirk. "Okay, if you say so. But the moment you found out that the woman from the balcony was Becker's daughter, you were all in."

  That itchy, too-tight feeling on my skin was almost too much to bear. "What's your point?"

  "My point is you finally met a woman who doesn't actually want anything from you, and she's tied to you at no-fault of her own. You're going to have to find a way to navigate around it. You can't just buy your way out. If you want her, you're going to have to do a little work and maybe chill out just a little."

  "I am chill."

  That statement was the only thing capable of making Pierce tip over in laughter.

  Chapter 16

  Atticus

  La Table Ronde was busier than usual when I went to meet Micah after my morning meeting. I found him in our usual corner, a waitress flirting with him shamelessly. As usual, he didn't seem to notice. Just pushed his glasses up and gave her a bland smile.

  When I met him, I just shook my head lightly. "Poor thing has no idea that you're not even noticing."

  Micah shrugged. "Oh, I noticed. I'm just looking for something different."

  "Well, brother, what was it that society mag called you? Oh yes, filthy rich and nerdy hot. I feel like you can find a woman easily." I shrugged. "Or man."

  He shook his head. "Sorry, I'm more discerning than that. I'll know it when I see it."

  "If you say so."

  Neither one of us was particularly enthused about this meeting, but Richard Lions was an old family friend. He’d just chosen the wrong side of the board vote to oust my father. "Where is Lions?"

  Micah shrugged and dug into his light salad. My brother, who was even more regimented than I was about things like food and exercise, indulged himself often because he'd eat a salad at eleven o'clock in the morning, then small meals every few hours or so. And then he'd eat a whole fucking cake about once a month or so. Made no sense to me, but it was none of my business. "Your guess is as good as mine. He claimed that this was an urgent meeting."

  Lions was a wild card. One who made it clear that we couldn't trust him. But ignoring him could have dire consequences.

  I lifted my brow. "I have more important things to do." Namely, deal with my soon-to-be wife. I’d cleared my lunch calendar to meet with her, but she hadn't accepted the meeting.

  My brother put down his fork. "Someone is eager to see his new bride. How’d it go last night?"

  "You mean besides her hating me and being pissed off that her father essentially sold off her and her company?"

  He laughed. "So it went well then."

  I kept thinking about her scent. All morning it had clung to me, even after I showered. It was enough to make my balls ache. "As well as I expected."

  "Are you still sure this is the best call, Atticus?"

  "She's signed the contract, so yeah."

  "You know how dangerous it is having someone that close. We could be exposed."

  "I’m not worried about it. She’s my wife. Besides, Gwen protects her people. Once we’re married, I’m included in that. We can trust her."

  Micah cocked his head. "You’re serious? You really intend for this to last? No other women?"

  "Are we seriously talking about my sex life?"

  "Sorry, but you opened your sex life up for discussion. You've written it into the clause. So, do you intend to shag her then?" Micah's British accent was mostly gone these days except for the occasional slang word or two unless he was talking to one of his friends back in London.

  "Not up for discussion."

  His quick bark of laughter was unabashed. It was almost like the old days of us playing Knights of the Round Table. Micah was always Merlin. We’d been fighting an imaginary dragon with our paper towel roll swords and broken a Ming Vase.

  Micah still bore the scar just under his chin from the beating our father gave us. My scar was on my soul from him forcing me to watch.

  The memory of Micah and me playing on the estate grounds a few weeks after his arrival in New York was vivid and sharp.

  At first, I hadn't wanted a brother, but it had been nice to have someone to talk to. I mostly avoided my father, and my mother was always busy. Outside of school, I had some friends, but I was a loner. Having Micha around helped me come out of my shell.

  We used cardboard rolls as swords, and he tied a pillowcase to the back of his T-shirt to act like a cape, as he was playing Merlin, of course.

  He was supposedly training me to become a great king, but I needed a lot of training. Despite being smaller than me, he was surprisingly quick on his feet.

  We laughed, played, and made noise like children. When Micah began to whine for a snack, we went up the back stairs to the kitchen.

  After getting us both snacks, I accidentally threw a pretzel at my little brother. Micah, not one to back down, retaliated with his cardboard sword.

  While playing, we moved into the sunroom where I knocked Micah's sword out of his hand. As he chased after it, he skidded on the floor and bumped into the sideboard, causing a vase to fall and shatter.

  The resulting clatter and crash of the vase happened in slow motion.

  Even through the hazy fog of memory, my palms began to sweat as I remembered trying to push Micah out of the sunroom, but it was too late. Next, came the choreographed dance of Dad running in, me stepping in front of my brother, and my father shoving me out of the way.

  It was at that moment that Micah realized he had not been drawn into a fairy tale, but into a nightmare.

  I shook my head to clear the stinging memory. "Shut up, Micah."

  "Sorry. Sorry. It's just… You know that's not going to work, right?"