Aiden led me to a limousine waiting in front of my building. I don’t know why I was surprised. He held the door and helped me inside, lifting my skirt so it wouldn’t trail in the street as I settled myself against the smooth leather upholstery. Aiden got in on the other side, sitting next to me, a little too close for comfort.

I was in way over my head. He knew what he was doing every step of the way, and I was running to keep up. Proving me right, he opened a cabinet opposite our seat and pulled out a chilled bottle of champagne, already opened.

Wasn’t this romantic…

Did he think this was a date?

A real date?

I accepted the champagne and took a long sip, not sure if the idea thrilled or terrified me. Maybe a little of both. I did not want him to kiss me again. I didn’t. Okay, maybe just a little. Once. I wouldn’t mind if he kissed me one more time.

I didn’t want to play a game any more than I had to. Taking another sip of champagne, I swallowed and asked bluntly, “Why am I here? A hundred women would jump if you needed a last-minute date for a party. Why me? And why that scene in your office yesterday?”

I expected him to laugh and blow off my question. Instead, he said, “I don’t want a hundred women. I want you.”

“You can’t.”

“I do,” he said, simply. “And to answer your other question, that scene in my office was my ex-wife doing what she does best. Tormenting me. She fought me on the divorce tooth and nail, and I only managed to get rid of her with a huge payoff. I’m assuming she’s run out of money and before she goes and hunts up another sucker, she’s making a run at her original piggy bank.”

“Cynical,” I said.

Aiden sipped his champagne and shook his head. “Accurate.”

“If she’s that awful, why did you marry her in the first place?”

“Valid question.” Aiden’s eyes met mine. I couldn’t look away as he studied me for an endless minute.

I don’t know what he was looking for, what he hoped to learn, but he must have arrived at some conclusion. “I married her because I thought I was supposed to. I was twenty-four, trying to run the company, trying to be head of the family, and out of my depth with both of them. I missed my parents and I thought Charlie needed a mother. She was fifteen, her only female cousin was gone, and my brilliant solution was to marry Elizabeth, who did a very good job of playing the sweetly devoted girlfriend right up until we said our marriage vows.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sometimes it’s too easy to make bad decisions for the right reasons. Why did you decide to divorce her?”

“You met her yesterday, right?”

A laugh bubbled up, and I covered it with another sip of champagne. “Well, yes, and she did seem fairly horrible.”

“Honestly, I probably would have put up with it for longer. She went out of her way to make my life comfortable, as far as I know she never cheated on me, and she was—” he paused, considering, “adequate in bed.”

“Did you cheat on her?” I asked, suddenly needing to know. He wasn’t painting a picture of marital bliss.

“No. I was tempted a few times, but I never did. I believe in keeping vows.”

“So what was it? What happened to make you decide you didn’t want to be married anymore? She doesn’t seem to understand that you don’t want her, and you’ve made it clear you can’t stand the sight of her, so I don’t get it. What did she do?”

Aiden looked at me again with that solemn, penetrating gaze that made me feel like he could see all the way to my soul. Finally, he said, “I heard her call Charlie fat. I know it seems like a small thing, but Charlie and I are close. She was only ten when our parents died. I did my best but I was no stand-in for them. I confronted Elizabeth about it and she went off in a litany of Charlie’s faults. I talked to Charlie, and I found out that Elizabeth had been cutting her down for years. Charlie kept it to herself because she didn’t want to cause problems in my marriage. That killed me, the idea that my baby sister was being systematically demoralized by my wife and I didn’t even know. I was supposed to be looking out for her. Our home was supposed to be a safe place, and I’d made it the opposite.”

“You didn’t know they didn’t get along?” I asked. I didn’t have any trouble imagining the woman I’d met in Aiden’s office being a raging bitch to his little sister. She was the kind of competitive female who wouldn’t be able to stand her husband adoring another woman, even if that woman was his younger sibling.

Aiden shrugged one shoulder and looked away. “I knew they weren’t close, weren’t friends, but I didn’t realize how cruel Elizabeth could be. No one deserves that, but especially not Charlie.”

He sat up and poured us each another glass of champagne. I looked at it doubtfully. I wasn’t sure I needed another glass. I wasn’t a big drinker and too much alcohol seemed like a bad plan. I took it anyway.

Aiden went on, “I can see why she thinks we might get back together. Charlie’s out of the house, happily married, and we got along well enough when we were married. I worked all the time, and she spent my money.”

“The ideal marriage,” I murmured.

“For Elizabeth, I think it was. She wanted social standing and a bottomless wallet.”

“And what did you want?” I asked before my brain fully formed the question.

“I thought I wanted a wife. I was young, focused on work and what was left of my family. I convinced myself that if I just got married, everything would fall into place. It took me six years to realize that I didn’t want a wife. I wanted a marriage like the one my parents had. Not the same thing.”

I stared at Aiden, my eyes wide with shock. “You stayed married to her for six years? Six years?”

The side of Aiden’s mouth quirked and he said, “I worked a lot.”

I took a sip of champagne and muttered, “I bet.”

I couldn’t quite imagine Aiden married to Elizabeth. They would have looked good together, no question there. She was cold but beautiful and I hadn’t met many men as handsome as Aiden. But I was coming to see that the core of him was warmth. He cared about people. He loved his family. From what I’d seen and heard, Elizabeth only loved herself.

The limo cruised to a stop outside the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead. The door opened, but Aiden came around to help me out.

He’s not Prince Charming, I reminded myself, and you’re not Cinderella.

Though I was starting to think Elizabeth was definitely the evil stepmother. It sounded like Aiden’s little sister would agree.

He led me in, filling me in on the event we were attending, a fundraiser held by the Winters Foundation in support of literacy programs. We’d barely cleared the doorway to the ballroom when a stunning woman in a red ball gown glided up and stopped in front of Aiden, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Abigail,” he said, warmly, “everything is beautiful. It looks like you have another success on your hands.”

“I hope so.”

A striking man with dark hair and silvery eyes came up behind her and wound his arm around her waist. “She works so hard putting these things together and then when they finally happen, the nerves hit.”

She poked him in the side and whispered, “Don’t tease.”

He ducked his head to kiss her cheek and whispered back, “I love to tease.” Those silver eyes landed on me and he raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know you,” he said. Abigail poked him in the side again.

“Jacob, Abigail, this is Violet Hartwell. Violet, this is my brother, Jacob, and his fiancée, Abigail. Abigail works for the Winters Foundation in event planning, and, as you can see, we’re very lucky to have her.”

“It’s nice to meet you both,” I said, the resemblance between Aiden and Jacob clearer now that I knew they were brothers.

I’d heard whispers about Jacob around the office. People said he was scary, a shark in a business suit who made Aiden look warm and cuddly. Seeing him whisper in his fiancée’s ear, the blush that rose on her cheeks, I had a hard time imagining the stories were true.

“I’m going to get Violet a drink,” Aiden said, “we’ll catch up with you later.”

I let Aiden lead me across the room to the bar, nodding when he asked, “Champagne?”

Why not?

This was a one-time thing. I was going to drink, have fun, and enjoy ogling Aiden. His brother was attractive, but Aiden was easily the most devastating man in the room. He wore his tuxedo like he’d been born in it, and his neatly arranged hair left me wanting to mess it up, to sink my fingers in the silky strands and pull his mouth down to mine.

Uh-oh.

No, Violet.

No kissing Aiden.

That was also a one-time thing, and that time was over. I tried to tell myself that getting closer to Aiden, being his date for the night, might shake loose the kind of information I was looking for. People were drinking and gossip would run rampant. Maybe someone would say something I could use.

I could barely convince myself that was my motive for being here. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, and when Aiden pressed the champagne glass into my hand I took a long, indelicate sip.

“Hey, slow down there. We haven’t even had dinner yet,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I reassured him, even as I felt bubbles of champagne tickling my brain. “I never get drunk.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said under his breath.

“I won’t embarrass you,” I promised.

“It never occurred to me that you would,” he said, smiling down at me, the combination of affection and desire in his eyes making me a little dizzy.

No kissing, I reminded myself.

I felt the burn of eyes on my skin and glanced across the room to see Aiden’s cousin Gage glaring at me. I met his blue eyes and didn’t look away. I expected him to move toward us, to break my gaze, something, but he just stood there and stared, looking furious. Aiden noticed his cousin at the same time a sweet looking blonde beside Gage scowled up at him, then glanced curiously across the room at me.

I looked away from Gage to see an annoyed expression on Aiden’s face. What was that about?

“Your cousin doesn’t seem to like me.”

Aiden didn’t hide his irritation from Gage. Sliding his arm around my shoulder, he turned me in the opposite direction from his cousin, toward the open terrace doors. “Ignore Gage. He’s in a mood.”

Gage’s office was on the opposite side of the executive floor from Aiden’s, and they often worked side-by-side, so I’d seen him here and there. He always ignored me, so it was a surprise to be the subject of his focus.

“Does his mood have anything to do with me?”

“Maybe,” Aiden said.

Maybe meant yes. I ran through all the possible responses I could think of and decided saying nothing was my smartest move. Aiden knew I wasn’t who I said I was. We seemed to be ignoring that, but he hadn’t forgotten.

We were in a stalemate, each waiting for the other to make a mistake. But if Aiden knew, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine Gage did as well. Clearly, whatever game Aiden was playing with me, Gage disapproved.

I didn’t have it in me to care. One way or another, my time at Winters, Inc. was coming to a close. Chase would be back in two weeks and I had to wrap up this ridiculous plan of mine before he came home. I didn’t want him to find out what I was up to. Not unless I found the information I needed. As each day went by and I came up empty it seemed less and less likely that would happen.

In two weeks all of this would be behind me. Until then, Gage Winters could deal with it.

I was so distracted by Gage’s attention I didn’t see Elizabeth until she stepped right in front of us, halting our slow progress towards the terrace doors. She wore a platinum sheathe that skimmed her slender figure and almost perfectly matched her cold gray eyes. With her hair in an elaborate knot, I realized with a wave of discomfort that she and I looked alike.

Light blonde hair, pale skin, tall, frosty demeanor—the more I thought about it, the more I realized Aiden definitely had a type. Granted, her eyes were gray to my lavender blue, and she was more slender. She was also a raging bitch to the core, while I wore my bitch on the surface, and only when necessary. Still, unease filtered through me as I saw Aiden’s eyes bounce between us.

Before he could speak I said, “Can we help you?” in the same tone someone like Elizabeth might use when talking to the help. She flinched just a little, and Aiden’s arm slid around my waist, his fingers warm through the light tulle of my dress.

“I see you’re insisting on going through with this charade,” she hissed under her breath. “I know the two of you aren’t dating. Aiden has never mixed business and pleasure. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it, darling—”

I have no idea what came over me, but Aiden deserved better than to be this woman’s cash cow. He’d given her six years. That was more than enough.

I leaned into Aiden’s side and looked up, sending him a melting glance before narrowing my eyes on Elizabeth and saying, “He’s not your darling. And he’s not interested. Coming to the office was bad enough, but this is just desperate. Pay attention, Elizabeth. People are talking. I suggest you look for greener pastures before you use up the rest of your social currency chasing after someone who doesn’t want you.”

Elizabeth sputtered, her chilly gaze suddenly hot with embarrassment. Aiden bent his head and said in a low voice, “If I were you, I’d listen to the lady, Elizabeth. I’m finished being polite. Approach me again, for any reason, and you will find yourself unwelcome anywhere you want to be. Is that clear?”

Elizabeth’s mouth snapped shut and she gave a single nod. I lifted my chin to smile up at Aiden as he swept me around her and out through the terrace doors.