by Sienna Blake
____________
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride
A Good Wife Novel
____________
Sienna Blake
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride: a novel / by Sienna Blake. – 1st Ed.
First Digital Edition: November 2017
Published by SB Publishing
Copyright 2017 Sienna Blake
Cover art copyright 2017 Giorgia Foroncelli: [email protected]. All Rights Reserved Sienna Blake. Stock images: shutterstock
Paperback formatting services by Romacdesigns: http://romacdesigns.com.
Content editing & proofreading services by Book Detailing.
Proofreading services by Proof Positive: http://proofpositivepro.com.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Epilogue
Irish Kiss
Excerpt of Beautiful Revenge
Books by Sienna Blake
Acknowledgements
About Sienna
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride
Drake
This marriage was supposed to be another business deal. My latest investment, a means to an end… I need an heir. Which means I want her belly swollen with my child before the year is out.
She was supposed to be my perfect little bride. Quiet. Uncomplicated. Unemotional.
I didn’t foresee the stunning firecracker who tumbled into my life and woke things in me I thought were long dead. I didn’t count on her turning my world upside down.
And I definitely didn’t plan on falling for this beauty.
Noriko
This marriage was supposed to be my sacrifice. A way to save my father, a means to an end… I need to remain childless. So I can exit the contract at the end of the year.
He was supposed to be a boring old man. Distant. Uncomplicated. Passionless.
I didn’t foresee the rude, arrogant and beautiful brute who made my body react like fire and smoke. I didn’t count on there being more underneath his gruff exterior.
And I’m definitely not supposed to fall in love with the beast.
This is a NEW story using old characters from the now unpublished novel, Girl Wife Prisoner. This version has no Keir, no cheating and a Happily Ever After.
Although this book is part of a series, it is a standalone novel.
For Jennifer Ballam,
And all of you who loved Drake the most.
1
____________
Drake
“What the hell do you mean, Carter’s backing out of the deal?” I growled.
Roger, my second in command, was practically jogging at my side to keep up with me as I barreled through the corridors of Blackwell Industries’ head office. Following close behind us were the heads of the analyst and legal team working on this deal.
A deal that I thought we had stitched up.
Roger rambled on about how this was unpredictable, it was one of those things, there were other companies out there to buy.
I ignored him. I wanted this one.
“Sam,” I barked out as I approached my office.
My personal assistant’s blonde head popped up from behind her desk. “Drake?”
“Get me Carter on the phone. Now.” I slammed open my door and strode into my corner office, a spacious and stylish space on the top floor with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the boxy cityscape of Los Angeles.
“Line two,” Sam called.
It was game time.
I kicked a chair out of my way and leaned over my desk, pressing the flashing button to put Carter on speakerphone.
“Carter, buddy,” I started, my voice friendly, even as I unbuttoned my collar and ripped my silk Hermes tie off from around my neck, throwing it across one of my expensive leather chairs. “What’s this I hear about you getting cold feet?”
Through the speaker, I heard Carter sucking in a breath. I wasn’t supposed to know yet. He’d only just decided to pull the plug. The truth was I had little birdies everywhere. Every-fucking-where. Sending information to me from all levels of every organization I was either competing against or looking to buy. Especially companies I was looking to buy.
“How do you know about—?”
“That’s not important, Carter. What’s important is why you want to back out of such a lucrative deal.”
He paused.
“Come on, Carter. Talk to me. We’re friends.” I snatched my stress ball off my desk and crushed it in my hands. “What’s going through your mind? Has someone else made you another offer?” I bet you it was Wright. I was going to kill that asshole sonofabitch. No, I would burn his company down and bury him in the rubble. Then I would kill him.
“It’s…Jed.”
“Jed?” I clicked my fingers at Roger and Sam, both standing at my doorway, mouthing, Who the fuck is Jed? They both looked at each other, then shook their heads at me.
“My son,” Carter clarified.
“Your son?” I repeated. That little brat barely out of fucking diapers? What the fuck did he have to do with anything? I inhaled slowly, then exhaled. Stay calm. Stay in control. “What has your son got to do with this deal?” The deal we’d spent six fucking months hammering out.
“Well, you see, I’ve been thinking.” Here we fucking go. “About Jed. About his future. About what kind of father I want to be to him. He’s my first boy, you know. The wife and I spent years trying. We had to go the IVF route.”
Yes, yes, I fucking know this. And…? “It must have been a trying time for you both,” I said, my voice as soothing as I could possibly make it.
“It was incredibly stressful for us, you know? I don’t know whether Julie can go through that again. He…well, he might be our only child…”
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to reach into the receiver and choke the livin
g shit out of him. My voice, however, was calm and patient. “And that means?”
“If I sell my company to you, then I have nothing to pass on to him.”
There it was. His actual objection to selling his company. A company that under his useless command was inefficient, turning over well below what it should be. The only reason why Carter’s company grew to where it was today was luck. Pure dumb luck. Right product, right timing.
If I bought his company, I’d increase the profits by fourfold in the first goddamn year. I could already feel it shaping underneath my hands. I could see how and where I was going to trim all the fat. This company was already mine.
Not yet.
If I didn’t figure out a way to get Carter to stick with the deal, then not ever.
Roger, Sam, all the heads of the project teams—Analysis, Legal, Finance—along with a bunch of other rubbernecking slackers were all gathered at my door. All waiting with a collective breath, wondering how the fuck I was going to convince this indecisive, toe-tapping man-bitch to get back on the train. Because we couldn’t leave this station without him.
All that work for nothing.
I wouldn’t let it happen.
I took in a deep breath and the faces at my door blurred. I exhaled, my mind focusing, thoughts sharpening.
“Carter, the best thing you can do for your son is to sell your company now. Put that money in a trust for him so he can build his own future. Who knows what will happen to the market in ten years’ time? Who knows whether your company will even exist when he turns eighteen?”
“I…I don’t know, Drake.”
I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t working. But I could make it work. I just needed to overcome his objections. One by one. I needed to turn his “nos” into “yeses.” I changed tactic. “Buddy, I hear you loud and clear. You love your son. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“You want to do what’s best for your son. To leave this earth knowing he’s carrying on your legacy.”
“Yes.”
“You want your son to be proud of his old man.”
“Yes,” his trembling voice was barely a whisper.
“Carter, the best thing you can give your son is not your company…” I paused for effect. “It’s you.” My voice was smooth, the words flowing like silk now. “Your time. Your energy. Your love. He is the best reason to sell. You don’t want to wake up one day an old man, your son all grown up, and realize that you don’t know him because you spent your life, wasted your life, working your ass off to run a company that he may not want anything to do with.”
Carter was silent on the other end of the line.
I kept going. “This is what great men know—we are not the product of what we own, but of who we love. This is your chance to be a great man, Carter. This is your chance to secure your son’s future. And his son, and his son. Take the deal. Do it for him. Do it…for Jed.”
There was a weighted pause.
We all held our breaths.
It was so silent you could hear a fly fart.
Carter cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “Well…okay then.”
“Okay…what?” I asked gently.
“I’ll sell you my company.”
I pumped my fist in the air and gave out a little kick. “That’s excellent news, Carter. I knew you’d make the right decision.” I snapped my fingers at Siobhan, my head of Legal. “I’ll get my head of Legal over there right away to get the papers signed.” Siobhan nodded, a grin on her face, and she disappeared through the crowd.
Carter and I exchanged our goodbyes. I stabbed at the button, ending the call.
I spun on my heel, my arms held out to my audience, like that’s the fucking way it’s done. The crowd at the door erupted into cheers and hooting, their clapping echoing through my cavernous office.
I waved at them. “Alright. Show’s over. Get back to work.”
They dispersed with fading calls of congratulations and awe clear on their faces.
The adrenaline surging through my veins began to dissipate. Underneath I felt tired. Worn out.
I walked around my desk as Sam strode up, a bunch of notes in her hand, calls I’d missed.
A stab of pain shot through my chest. I winced.
“Drake? Are you alright?”
“Fine.” I grabbed the notes and waved her out, calling out for her to shut the door behind her.
When I was alone I sank into my chair and clasped my chest, heaving in a breath. What the fuck was that?
2
____________
Noriko
Twenty more minutes.
Just twenty more minutes until I was—
“Norikoooooo,” my sister Emi’s voice called through our house. “Where’s my other schoolbag?” I could hear her rummaging through our cupboards. Morning light filtered through our shoji walls, panels of thin paper in wooden frames.
I let out a soft sigh as I finished folding the futons, the thin mattresses that my two sisters and I slept on, stacking them in the corner along with our comforters and pillows. Emi was thirteen. She just started high school, which meant she was now obsessed with her appearance. Which meant it’s the impractical but so-hot-right-now choco-pink schoolbag or nothing.
“Have you checked near the front door?” I called out without bothering to turn and face her.
There was a pause, then the movement of feet across our thin mat flooring. “Got it.”
Now that the whole family was awake, I slid open the fusuma, the sliding panels of our rooms, creating a larger space. I walked over to our small shrine in the corner of our living space and lit an incense stick for Mama. I miss you every day, I said silently to her as the spicy thick scent wafted around me. Then I squashed the worm of my anger wriggling in the dirt of the hole she left behind. The hole that I was now expected to fill.
Fifteen more minutes.
I hurried to the kitchen where the rice in the cooker was probably cooled enough to touch. “Your tie is crooked,” I called to Tatsumi, my middle sister, as I passed her. She was putting on her sailor-style school uniform while dancing to Gwen Stefani, a western pop singer she has been obsessed with, blaring from the tiny player.
She cursed behind me.
“Language,” I called back.
“Sorry.”
In the kitchen I formed the rice into little balls around a small piece of leftover fish in the center, before rolling them in seasoning, my practiced hands moving quickly. I had four lunchboxes laid out. As I finished each onigiri, I placed them in alternating boxes.
“Can you do my hair, Nori-chan?” Tatsumi called.
“Only if you want an updo with rice bits and fish. Ask Emi.”
“She can never do it as well as you can.”
Tatsumi had always been concerned with her appearance. Lately it’d gotten worse. She admitted to me the other day she has a boyfriend at school. Fifteen is too young…too damn young to have a boyfriend. But I knew telling her not to would make her more determined to. I was hoping her crush was a phase. “Let me finish making lunch first,” I called back to her. “You finish getting ready.”
Footsteps ran up behind me. She threw her arms around my waist and squeezed. “Love youuuu. You’re the best.”
If my hands hadn’t been covered in rice and smelling like fish, I’d have hugged her back. “I love you, too, little brat.” I smiled, my chest warming. “Now go or you’ll be late.”
She ran off. I quickly finished our lunches, did Tatsumi’s hair, then shoved the girls out the door so they could catch their bus. From the door of our house, I waved and called my well-wishes for their studies as they chased each other down the dirt country road.
I was alone.
At last. Alone.
My nerves tingled. I had this place all to myself. I felt like I could breathe again, the heaviness that hung around my neck like a metal collar, shrugged off. The door of the cage around me temporarily flung open.
; I loved my sisters, I loved my father, but I yearned for the stillness of the house. No chatter, no demands, just the whisper of leaves against the paper walls.
I could just…be.
Instead of…should.
If only I could spend all my days alone. I wouldn’t have to hide my secret. I wouldn’t have to keep it wrapped up and tucked against my soul, constantly fearing that I’d one day drop it and it’d spill to the floor.
My secret…
You see, I was a bad sister. A bad daughter. Pretending to be a good one.
I was too selfish. I felt too much. I wanted things that I shouldn’t want: to see all the galleries of the world, to spend my days making art, studying art. To be reckless with my life.
I didn’t want to marry a stable man with a decent income and have his children like I was expected to. I wanted to run out screaming from behind everyone else’s lives.
I dreamed—wild and shameful dreams—of being free, of being unburdened by all my responsibilities. It was like an ache that I swallowed, now sitting like an undigested stone in the base of my gut. I loved my family, even if loving them imprisoned me. I hated myself for wanting such selfish things.
I ran over to my drawer, my one personal drawer just for my use, pulling out the large sheets of paper and the tubes of paints my father saved up to buy me for my last birthday. He had handed it to me like an apology. “I thought you should have this. Before you finish your studies,” he said, because he knew that once I went out to work, I’d never again have the time for it. Work. Marriage. Children. Death. It was what was expected.
Still, I’d promised myself one form of rebellion. I refused to marry unless it was for love, the kind of ageless love that one was lucky to find, even luckier to keep. The kind of love my parents have. Yes, have. Even though Mama has gone from this world, their love is still alive. It still crackles in the air around me. It still shines in my papa’s eyes.