“Will it be weird?” I take my own bite, the cheesecake creamy and sweet.
“I guess that depends on us.”
The thought of never seeing her again is too painful to consider, but at the same time, knowing I’ll never be able to slide my hands around her trim waist, never nibble on that delicious neck, never sink into her soft warmth… it almost seems as tortuous to be denied the intimate way I crave her.
“I want you in my life, no matter what,” I tell her, unable to consider any other possibility. “But I don’t know how that’s going to work just yet.”
She nods and sets down her fork, reaching out a hand to give mine a quick squeeze.
We sit in companionable silence as we finish our desserts, and I sink into the couch cushions and close my eyes, releasing a long breath.
Will it still be okay to come over here after I’m married? I’d normally have no issue with a guy and girl being friends and hanging out with one another, but we both know that’s not the case here. This is no platonic relationship. This is desire. Unfulfilled longing.
Love.
I’ll take what I can get for now, soaking in the comfort of her presence, imagining for a moment this is us on a normal weeknight. No demanding fathers. No unwanted fiancees. No threats and livelihoods at stake.
Just me and the woman I want above all others.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gabriel
I sign my name on the sworn affidavit, my stomach giving a lurch as I slide the paper back over to the clerk. No, there are no legal impediments to this marriage, only moral ones.
Next to me, Serena is recreating that sickly shade of green she last sported while watching me and Mackenzie eat those ribs at the catering venue. Not that I can blame her this time. Applying for our marriage license is as stomach-clenching as I feared.
“All right,” the clerk chirps, giving us a huge grin. “Just give me a moment to enter this information in the system and I’ll get your license for you.”
Or more like tweet to your twenty followers what you’re doing. The girl obviously recognized us. Then again, Dad finally put ThousandWords’ marketing team to use in playing up our relationship online. And due to a lack of staged photos, we’re now marketed as “an intensely private couple”. Have to admit, it’s a good angle.
“And will you be changing your surname after the wedding?” she asks Serena. “I can get that paperwork started for you.”
“Um, no,” Serena murmurs, glancing over at me guiltily. No sweat off my back, though. I’d prefer for us to keep separate names.
And separate lives.
The woman pops out of her chair and disappears into a back room, leaving my fiancee and I alone awkwardly staring at the vacated desk.
“So, what are we going to do as far as living arrangements?” I hate having to talk about this stuff, but we’re kind of down to the wire here.
She flinches, the idea of us cohabitating apparently abhorrent to her. “I’d like to stay in my apartment,” she says tentatively, like she’s not sure how I’ll receive her statement. “Alone.”
“Fine with me,” I shrug, my shoulders releasing some of their tension. That’s one less thing to worry about.
“You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be?”
She peeks over at me, sweeping a curtain of blonde hair behind her ear. “I was afraid you’d see it as a rejection.”
I manage to contain the cynical laugh that threatens to escape. She’s done a pretty decent job of that already.
“How about a ring?”
“Mackenzie got us bands for tomorrow.”
“No, I mean like an engagement ring. Some big, sparkly honker that tells everyone you’re a Bishop now.” That’s what she wanted in the first place, right? And the more expensive, the better. It’s Dad’s money that’ll be paying for it.
“No.”
I shrug again, fixing my gaze on the still empty desk in front of us. The cup of pens, the stapler, the tiny bottle of white-out. Anything to avoid looking back over at her. How long is it going to take this lady to print out our license?
“I don’t love you,” a choked whisper sounds from next to me.
I glance over, Serena’s head bowed, doing her signature move of shrinking in on herself. “I know.”
“And I- I don’t want to marry you,” she tearfully admits.
Again, that’s been painfully obvious from the beginning. “I know.”
She swivels toward me, eyes red-rimmed. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why are you marrying me?”
What world is this girl living in? “My dad’s making me.”
She presses her index finger to her chest. “Mine is too. I- Oh my God, this whole time I thought you were so excited about the wedding.”
“What?” Is she delusional?
“You and Mackenzie would always talk about all these ideas you had for it. And every time we ever went anywhere, you were so into it. You helped with everything.”
I resist the urge to itch at the back of my neck, guilt creeping over my skin. It wasn’t the wedding I was excited about.
It was Mackenzie.
“I was… trying to make the best out of a bad situation.” If she mistook my interest that badly, it can’t do any good to inform her of my true motivation now.
“Here’s your license,” the clerk exclaims, coming back in, face aglow with excitement as she waves a paper at us.
“Thanks,” I mutter as she hands it to me.
“I’ve been following your posts on ThousandWords,” she blurts out. “Congratulations.”
Not my posts. The marketing team has taken over both mine and Serena’s accounts. I stopped checking what they’re posting a week ago.
Serena gives a polite, tight-lipped smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and straightens her purse strap on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
I take her lead and follow her out of the clerk’s office and down the hallway, pausing halfway down. I pull her aside and bluntly tell her, “Listen, if you really don’t want to go through with this, we don’t have to.”
Maybe this is my way out. A chance again to still uphold my end of the bargain without actually having to get married.
She looks up at me from beneath lowered lashes sorrowfully. “My dad would never forgive me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I do.” My eyes widen at her forceful tone, the most expressive I’ve seen her. “He outright told me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, the strong emotion just as quickly draining from her. “He’s my only family. My mom brushed me off years ago when she married her new husband.”
I release a sigh. Damn her for making me sympathize. “You can’t go against him?”
“No. He said he’d withdraw funding for my nonprofit too.”
That pit in my stomach sinks down further, but really, who am I to complain? I’m still under my father’s thumb too.
I nod, sensing her resoluteness. Not that I was truly expecting her to change her mind. My luck wouldn’t hold that long. I had my one night with Mackenzie.
And the memory of that will have to get me through the rest.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the front door, sweat stinging my eyes as it drips down. I strip off my shirt and use it to mop up my face, walking over to the bank of windows facing the skyline. Nadia must have recently cleaned them because there’s not a streak on them.
I went harder than I should have today at the gym, and I have a feeling I’ll be paying for it tomorrow, but I needed some external focus to take my mind off things.
The rehearsal dinner is tonight. The wedding tomorrow. I’m out of time.
I gaze out the window, attempting to appreciate the view, but it doesn’t have quite the same effect it normally does. I turn around, the sleek furniture luxurious, yes, but not inviting, the marble counters in the kitchen elegant but cold. And this view? The setting sun amid the Manhattan skysc
rapers? Both breathtaking and ostentatious.
Everything in here, while not decorated by me personally, suddenly seems… different. Like I’m detached from it all.
I clench my fists and release them, marching into my walk-in closet to grab the first suit on the rack and head into the bathroom to turn on the shower, the dual sprays quickly creating a warm steam that loosens my muscles.
I peel off the rest of my clothes and step into the cavernous space, my arms heavy as I reach up to wash my hair. I’ll have to take it lighter on the bench presses, but I’m still fairly sure I’ll be at the gym more than usual from now on. Anything to take my mind off what my life has become.
I stand under one of the sprays, letting the shampoo rinse out, and suddenly have to brace myself against the tile wall as my balance gives, the weight of my impending nuptials catching me anew.
What the fuck am I going to do? I’m marrying a woman tomorrow that flinches at the mere thought of being my wife. Dread washes over me in time with the shower spray, drenching me, consuming me.
I turn around, scrubbing my hands down my face hard in an attempt to block it all out. I just need to focus on something else. Take things one minute at a time if that’s what’s necessary. Concentrate on something that calms me.
And the thing that brings me the most peace, the most comfort… is Mackenzie. I imagine her, the way we were on her couch last night, nothing sexual about it. Sitting companionably, her presence vital, necessary. I don’t know how long I ended up staying, the two of us silent but together, but it wasn’t long enough.
And as much as it soothed me simply to be with her, I also crave her. The taste of her, touch of her, every sense of mine alive when she’s near.
I’d had her naked in my bed a week ago, learning the sounds she makes when pleased, desperate, on the edge. Her soft sighs, her needy moans, her cries of satisfaction. If I’d known then I wouldn’t be hearing them again, I’d have spent the whole night wringing every last sound out of her, running the gamut from barely audible breaths to screaming my name.
But my memories will just have to do. Remembering the softness of her waist as I’d held her in place for my thrusts, her warmth as I’d lost myself inside her…
My dick raises at this train of thought, and I grip it roughly, letting the shower spray rain down on my back as I brace a hand against the wall again, needing to be close to her in some way.
A vision of a naked Mackenzie, here in my shower with me, floats in my mind, chasing away any thoughts of what tomorrow holds. She teases me, eyes glittering with mischief as she soaps her breasts, batting my hands away playfully when I reach out to cup her. Her fingers trailing over all that expanse of creamy skin, briefly dipping down to nestle right where I want to be, a coy smile flirting along her lips.
My hand clenches into a fist against the smooth tile of the shower as I abuse my cock, stroking it violently, needing the savagery in order to feel anything at all.
Fantasy me drops to my knees and removes her fingers from her pussy, replacing them with my tongue, tasting her honeyed sweetness, bringing my hands to her luscious ass to grip her closer. She tugs at my hair as her head thuds back against the wall, moaning my name, words of love, how she needs me above all others. There’s only me. And her.
I barely feel the spray now, imagining her pulling me up to face her, hitching one leg around my waist, guiding me into her. Sinking into her wetness, nothing between us. Just me and the woman I love.
Thrusting with abandon as she takes me, those nails digging into my shoulders. Her pussy clenching tight around me until I spill into her, giving her everything.
I pound my fist against the tile as my orgasm overtakes me, jetting out of me, wishing desperately she really was here, that she could see what she does to me, the hold she has over me. I welcome it, embrace it, revel in any sense of connection I have to her, until I’m finished, the water lukewarm now, washing everything away.
I turn the shower off, standing there dripping, a hollowness permeating me once more as that faint link to her departs. I’ll see her tonight at the rehearsal, but there won’t be any sly meetings of the eye, any brushes of fingers, any indication at all that we’re anything other than wedding planner and client. The way it’s supposed to be.
I step out and grab my towel, going through the motions of drying off, combing my hair, shaving my face, the routine on autopilot, not letting any other thoughts through.
Otherwise, I might just break.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mackenzie
I believe disaster is the word I’m searching for. It’s the closest thing I can think of to sum up what this rehearsal dinner is like so far.
Catered personally by Haven’s Michelin-rated chef, the food is exquisite. Seated in the restaurant’s private room on the top floor of the hotel that ninety-nine percent of New Yorkers will never lay eyes on, I have a singular chance to enjoy quite likely the most exclusive meal of my life. This place is even harder to get into than Chez Alexandre’s.
But I barely taste the delectable-looking appetizer in front of me. The room is silent. And I don’t mean there’s just an awkward lull in the conversation. I mean you could hear a pin drop. And it’s been that way for the past twenty minutes. Damn these fancy restaurants and their four-course meals that take forever.
“More wine, my lady?” the server asks as he enters and stops near me, the question nearly deafening after so long without sound.
I stare longingly at the bottle he presents, something French I can’t pronounce that’s been aging longer than I’ve been alive, then back at my empty wine glass. “I really shouldn’t,” I demure, choosing to be responsible and keep my wits about me.
Ugh, there’s that word again. I’d choke responsible if I could.
I glance over at Gabriel across the table, who merely holds his glass out as the server approaches him next. This marks his third refill. In twenty minutes. He doesn’t meet my gaze as he takes a sip, ignoring the lobster salad with beetroot on his plate. His goal tonight is apparently only the consumption of alcohol.
Next to him, Serena picks daintily at her food, birdlike in her eating as she takes the tiniest bites possible. She asked for a vegetarian option, and from the amount of kale it involves, I’m glad I didn’t get it.
I thought the wedding rehearsal earlier had been brutal, but at least there was music and movement, a recorded version of the traditional wedding march replacing the string quartet that will play for them tomorrow, the minister’s clear, strong voice explaining to Gabriel and Serena exactly what he’ll say. They’ve both opted not to speak any personal vows, so the ceremony itself should be over fairly quick.
Gabriel’s only request had been for the minister to remove certain words. Anything hinting at loving, cherishing, obeying, commitment, devotion… The list had gone on until the wording pretty much consisted of a uniting of these two families. Mr. Bishop’s eye had ticked, but it’s not like he could really blame him.
At least I don’t.
I’d watched the engaged couple standing at the altar, looking anywhere but at each other, doing everything in my power to keep my face neutral, to not let any hint of what was going on inside to show. What were the lines from that Disney song? Conceal, don’t feel? Yeah, that was me.
All this torture I’ve put me and Gabriel through staying apart will be for nothing if his dad and brother see my true feelings. Then again, if Archer still hasn’t caught on to the way Serena’s been surreptitiously eyeing him this whole night, there’s not much hope for him. He’s either exceptionally unobservant or extraordinarily polite.
It’s obvious that both fathers have picked up on her interest, they’re just choosing to ignore it. What’s done is done. The players are set and all that’s left is to make it legal tomorrow.
But it’s all so… wrong. Even for two families uniting, there’s no common sense of purpose, no joy. Mr. Montague doesn’t seem to be the same man he was from the initial plan
ning meeting, any trace of friendliness gone, appearing aggrieved by both his daughter and Mr. Bishop. If he’s upset with Serena, I can understand that, solely because she tried to call off the wedding so close to its arrival. But what beef does he have with Gabriel’s father? Is the merger not going according to plan?
You know, it doesn’t matter. After tomorrow, I’m done with all this business. I’ve spent all day hardening my heart. I’m not the girl who jumps blindly into situations like this anymore. The way I did starting my business without fully anticipating the problems that would arise. The way I went over to Gabriel’s apartment when Serena called off the wedding before seeing if it would stick. Even moving to New York with no job prospects and only a dream. I’d floundered for the first few months before landing a position with Denise.
I need to be more cautious. Keep safe.
But those risky things were some of the best decisions of your life.
That’s true. I love living in New York more than I ever did in Ohio, even if my apartment right now is crappy. And while I got along great with Denise, there’s nothing like the thrill of owning my own business. Yes, the hard times are more stressful, but it makes the accomplishments that much sweeter. I earned them myself.
And this thing with Gabriel… no, I don’t regret that either. Even if it wasn’t meant to be. Even if a part of me is missing. He was never mine to begin with. I should be content with what we did have together.
I sip from my water glass, rubbing at the ache in my chest that won’t go away, and force myself to take another bite of my stuffed portobello, trying to appreciate the tangy goat cheese, crispy panko topping, and heavenly smelling smoked bacon crumbles. But it’s like ash in my mouth. And like so much in my life lately, gone before I know it.
“The party’s arrived,” a voice announces, a dark-haired man striding into the room who has to be related to Gabriel in some way. He has the trademark blue Bishop eyes and similar enough facial features that make me strongly suspect it’s his brother that’s been overseas.
Resisting the Billionaire Page 20