Nixie

Nothing could have prepared me for the whirlwind my life had become.

Staring at my reflection, I didn’t even recognize the woman looking back at me. For one thing, she was wearing a wedding dress. The most beautiful wedding dress I’d ever seen. Yards of silk and lace had been stitched together by hand, the overall effect ethereal and elegant.

“Here you go, darling.” Marcella Velasquez, the owner of the upscale Madison Avenue wedding salon, came in bearing a delicate tulle veil with intricate beading sewn into a headband that could have been worn by a Windsor princess. The salon was so exclusive it wasn’t open to the public. Potential clients were vetted before being offered an appointment. And even then, permission to walk down the aisle in a Marcella dress wasn’t a given . . . Unless you were marrying Nash Knight, of course.

I dipped my head and Marcella settled the ends of the veil behind my ears, pushing the band through my hair and pulling one of the translucent layers of tulle over my forehead. With the tulle covering my face my reflection was softer, the edges blurry. Better. The reality of what I was wearing, what I was doing, was too harsh for my naked eyes.

“Well, now. Don’t you just look the princess in a fairy tale,” she enthused.

Oh, I was living a tall tale, all right. What would Marcella think if she knew the four letter word that started with l and ended in ove had never even crossed Nash’s lips? Or mine. Our union was a solution to my problems. A convenient, crazy solution. My fiancé was the smartest, sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on, and I wanted to do much more than simply look at him every time we were in the same room. Yet I had no idea what he thought of me, whether lust was an acceptable stand-in for a deeper emotional connection. I couldn’t reflect on any of the red flags and question marks trekking through my brain, though, because I wasn’t alone.

Eva clearly subscribed to the keep - your - friends - close - and - your - enemies - closer school of thought. She was circling now, taking in every detail of the dress. “I think this is the one, Nixie. Definitely.”

I did, too . . . except for the price tag. It seemed ridiculous to spend nearly fifty thousand dollars on a dress and veil I would only wear for a few hours at most, to celebrate a marriage that might not last until spring. “Eva, maybe I should wear something a little, um,” I struggled for a word to replace the one I wanted to say—cheaper, “simpler?”

“Why would you want to do that?” Eva sounded genuinely perplexed.

“I just think maybe we should keep things, you know, understated.” Even though our wedding was just a sham, it felt wrong to be walking down the aisle without my parents to witness it, or even Pappi. Getting married was supposed to be a momentous occasion, and I only knew a handful of people on the guest list, including the man I was marrying.

Her full-throated laugh filled the spacious room. “A Christmas Eve wedding. Profiles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post. A guest list that includes three hundred of the wealthiest, most successful financiers and socialites in Manhattan. I think we overshot understated when Nash put that rock on your hand.”

I fingered the ring encircling the third finger of my left hand, rubbing my thumb over the massive canary diamond rising above a slim platinum band of smaller, brilliant diamonds. It, too, was outrageously expensive. And meaningless. Nash hadn’t even given it to me himself, sending it via messenger to the hotel, and highlighting the fact that our engagement and wedding were just one big charade.

Which, ironically, was what had made me agree to it.

A fake engagement. A fake wedding. They put boundaries on the feelings Nash had stirred up in me, emotions that were too big, too overwhelming.

I could handle fake.

Because if what I felt for Nash was real . . .

“So, should I have the seamstress come in to make any necessary adjustments?” The edge of annoyance to Marcella’s tone brought me back to reality. Her list of clients included Hollywood celebrities, New York debutantes, daughters of powerful politicians and European nobility. She didn’t have the time or patience for indecisive brides.

Eva lifted my veil. “Yes?”

For god’s sake, just follow the damn script, Nixie.

I faked an enthusiastic nod. “Yes.”

As if they had been waiting right outside the door, two tiny, pale women darted into the room, hair pulled back from their faces in severe buns, sewing kits clutched in their hands. Speaking a language I didn’t recognize, they knelt on either side of me, muttering quietly to themselves and pushing pins through the excess fabric at my waist as I held my breath, anticipating the sharp sting of a needle with each inhale.

Marcella backed out of the room, promising to return with “lingerie guaranteed to make your husband refuse to leave our honeymoon suite.” I pressed my lips together, holding back the truth that was bottled up inside my throat—that there would be no honeymoon. That I’d had sex with my fiancé exactly once, before we got engaged. And that, from the way he was avoiding me, he may have decided not to bother with the endeavor again.

I didn’t want to be disappointed that Nash hadn’t called or tried to see me since the day we returned from Bermuda, even after I accepted his ring. But I was. I shouldn’t have been, of course. I’d told him I needed space, after all. But not from Nash himself, just that overprotective attitude of his that made me feel claustrophobic.

On one hand I wanted to see him, talk to him, be with him—every chance I got. And on the other, I wished I’d never met him. It was completely confusing, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. I was both, I guess.

The afternoon Nash and I shared in Bermuda had been . . . amazing. The sex itself was unbelievable. But it wasn’t the physical aspect of it that had left me so shaken. Even thinking about it now, surrounded by Eva and two seamstresses, Marcella coming in and out with frothy lace concoctions that had my cheeks burning, sent my heart thudding inside my chest, pounding against my ribs like it knew I was driving downhill in a car with no brakes. No safety equipment at all.

Nash had been inside me that day, and a piece of him had stayed inside. Now, whenever I thought about him I felt feverish, like he’d infected me somehow. And no matter how much I tried to convince myself that avoiding him was for the best, my body craved him like an addict. At night, in a bed I knew he’d shared with countless women, I shook and trembled—with desire and jealousy—my hand creeping between my legs as I recalled, in excruciating detail, every lick and taste and touch.

Who was Nash having sex with now? Had he gotten another hotel room, or was he bringing women back to his penthouse apartment these days?

The sharp stab of a pin drew me back to the present, and I realized I’d been breathing hard, lost in my own thoughts. Lost in Nash.

Eva was sitting in the settee behind me, her long legs crossed, phone held loosely in a perfectly manicured hand. Looking at me through the trifold mirror as if she could read every single one of my thoughts. Too late, I wished I’d swept the veil back over my face. “Eva, you don’t have to stay with me, I’m sure you have much more important things to do with your time.” After our return from Bermuda, Eva had leapt into all aspects of wedding planning. Since I’d never planned a dinner party, let alone an elaborate wedding, I didn’t exactly mind. Her motivation, though, was less celebratory than an attempt to limit the amount of interaction between Nash and me. And it was working.

“Nonsense. The twins’ school isn’t far from here and I have to pick them up in an hour or so anyway.”

“Oh.” I managed a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “That’s great, then.” One hour. I could do that. It wasn’t as if Eva was rude to me. On the contrary, after she confessed her opinion of me, she’d been unfailingly polite and attentive. I just didn’t know what to say to her.

Thanks for letting me marry the guy you want for yourself. I promise I’ll give him back soon.

That didn’t exactly seem right.

Thanks for helping with my fake wedding, I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.

Hmmm. That one was better, but still not right. Probably best to say as little as possible. Especially since what I really wanted to say was something completely different. Back off, bitch. Nash might not know it yet, but he’s mine.

Um, yeah. Definitely needed to keep that one to myself.

Because Eva’s reasons for wanting Nash made sense. He was the closest thing to a father her kids would ever have, and he already loved them as if they were his own. I knew only too well what it was like to grow up without parents. How could I, of all people, be so selfish as to put my needs above two of the cutest four-year-olds I’d ever met?

And Eva was right about me, too. I would rather run from my problems than face them head on. What kind of wife would I be to Nash?

A terrible one.

No. No matter how much I wished things could be different, I needed to remember that despite Nash being my fiancé, he was not mine and never would be. He deserved better.

Finally, once I was covered in enough pins to make a porcupine jealous, the two seamstresses helped me get out of the dress, a process I undertook with as much caution as if I was disabling a bomb. Eva stayed in the dressing room, although she kept her eyes on her phone until I was wearing my own clothes again.

“You know, you really are going to make a beautiful bride.” The nostalgic tone to Eva’s voice slipped beneath my skin and I turned to face her. She continued. “It’s really too bad we won’t be seeing each other after the wedding. I’m sure you’ll want to move far away from here once all the financial details get worked out with your parents’ will. Had circumstances been different, we might have become friends.”

Reading between the lines, Eva was telling me to get the hell out of Dodge as soon as the deed was done. She obvious didn’t realize that I was as eager to leave as she was to see me go. Nash had said he wouldn’t get back together with Eva, but I just didn’t believe him. Even without considering Madison and Parker, Eva was beautiful and poised. She fit into his world seamlessly.

Staying in New York would mean worrying about bumping into the happy insta-family around every corner. Logically, Eva was the best match for Nash. I knew that. But the thought of actually seeing them together . . . that was too much for my heart to bear.

Eva’s phone pinged as we walked out of the shop. Holding a finger up, she whispered, “must be about the kids” and put it to her ear. A brief exchange followed and when she ended the call, there was an aggravated look on her face. “Parker seems to be having a reaction to this supposedly all natural Play-Doh the teacher brought in. Would you mind if Jay brought me to the school to pick him up before taking you wherever you need to go?”

The Navigator was parked right outside the door to the shop. “Of course not.”

Jay slipped out of the driver’s seat and came around the back of the car to open the door. Eva quickly explained the situation and jumped into the backseat. I nearly followed her, stopping just a second before my foot left the curb. “Actually, I think I’m going to window shop along Fifth Avenue for a little while.”

Jay’s face darkened. “Boss won’t like that.”

I gestured at the crowded sidewalks, the sunny sky. “Tell Nash I promise not to rush into any dark alleys, okay?”

From inside the SUV, I heard Eva pick up her phone again. “Madison has the rash, too? Yes, yes, I’m coming. Be right there.”

“Jay, I’ll be fine, Eva needs your help much more than I do right now.” The look on his face told me he’d much rather be taking me back downtown than helping Eva deal with dual allergy attacks, but he gave a resigned nod and shut the door, jogging to the other side of the car.

As the car pulled away, I breathed a relieved sigh and began strolling up the street. My next appointment was an easy walk down Fifth Avenue, anyway. The morning wasn’t too cold, and it was a perfect opportunity to window shop and enjoy the elaborate Christmas displays. Slipping into the stream of tourists gaping at the make-believe land that existed behind glass display windows, I could almost believe that I was in New York for no other reason than to enjoy the sights, not a care in the world.

There was falling snow and moving mannequins, chugging trains weighed down with bulging velvet sacks and festively wrapped gifts. Santa Claus and snowmen, elves and reindeer. The magic of the season was certainly alive and well in Manhattan. Retail magic, anyway.

As fake as my upcoming wedding.

I sensed his presence even before I heard the familiar voice whispering my name. Instinct told me to pivot and run, but remembering what Nash had taught me, I took hold of my nerves with both hands and forced myself to remain facing the glass. We were surrounded by people, and if Derrick tried to hurt me again he deserved to wind up on the sidewalk, clutching his balls and howling. “Back to stalking me, are you?”

“You say stalking, I say protecting.” Derrick was calm, nonchalant.

“Protecting me from what—tourists bearing selfie sticks?” I snapped, ducking out of the way as a teenaged girl nearly decapitated me trying to get a picture of her and her boyfriend.

He slipped smoothly between me and the girl. “If that’s what you need.”

“The only thing I need from you is to be left alone.”

“Is that why you’re engaged? Doesn’t seem like you want to be alone at all.”

I knew Derrick would find out about Nash, that was the whole point of planning a lavish New York City wedding, but hearing him acknowledge it was strangely discomfiting. “What I do isn’t any of your business anymore.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Noelle. Everything you do is my business.” He turned his head, looking down at me. “Does your new fiancé know that Nixie Rowland is really Noelle Kennedy?”

Hearing my childhood nickname slip from Derrick’s tongue left a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Leave Nash out of this.”

“No problem.” He shrugged. “As soon as you leave Nash.”

Confrontation would get me nowhere with Derrick. As much as it pained me to drop it, I needed to change the direction of our conversation. “How’s your father?”

“He’s been better. He misses you. Doesn’t understand how a person he raised like a daughter can walk away from him without a backward glance, a phone call, a visit. Not even a Christmas card.”

I bit down on my lip, blinking rapidly to hold tears at bay. “Tell him I said hello. And that I miss him.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? I can bring you back to the house right now; he’d love to see you.”

A part of me leapt at the chance to see Pappi again. But not today, not with Derrick. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? You afraid he’ll talk you out of making the biggest mistake of your life?” His tone was indignant, and just loud enough to be heard over the chatter of the crowd.

“Lower your voice,” I hissed. “And no, that’s not why I don’t want to get in a car with you today. Derrick, we are over. And not just because of what I overheard you say on the phone—”

“I told you, that was a misunderstanding.”

I shook my head, the ends of my hair catching in my lip gloss. I batted the strands away. “Even I’m not that naive. I won’t be the solution to your money problems.”

I stepped back and Derrick’s hand shot out, his fingers digging painfully into my upper arm. “You don’t understand, Noelle. I’m in trouble, and if I can’t come up with the cash, my father will be in danger, too.”

Jerking away from his painful hold, I gaped at him, too surprised to remember a single thing Nash had taught me. “Jesus, Derrick. How could you get Pappi involved?”

He rolled his shoulders. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, I swear.”

“Well, what did he say?” At Derrick’s blank stare, I sucked in a quick breath, needing the extra shot of oxygen to process the situation. “Are you telling me . . . Pappi doesn’t know?”

Derrick looked away from me, rubbing the back of his neck as he faced an intricate Santa’s workshop display. “No. I can’t bring myself to tell him.”

“But . . . if Pappi’s really in danger, he deserves to know.”

“That’s the beauty of our situation. If we get married, I can pay off my debts and he’ll never have to know.” Derrick spun back to me, his dark eyes burning as fiercely as hot coals. “I’ll give up gambling for good this time, I swear.”

Unlike Nash, Derrick’s word meant nothing to me. Derrick had always been the first one to lay down money on a horse, or a ball game. But then he’d started haunting the underground gambling rooms of Manhattan. For a while, he’d been able to cover his losses with the gains, until he got invited to play at the high roller tables. There, ego and addiction had taken him to a place he couldn’t get out from.

“You’ve been saying that for years, Derrick.”

“But it’s different this time, I swear. I love you, I’ve always loved you. You and me, we can have a good life together. “

I knew Derrick loved me, in his own way. But only when times were good, when he was winning. There had been too many losses in recent years, though. Too many situations where he’d blamed me for failures that were no one’s fault but his own. The reasons had varied—I was a distraction. Or I’d worn the wrong clothes, sat in the wrong place, said the wrong thing. Being with Derrick had been unpredictable, and scary. His highs were too high, too intense. He wanted to drink and party and stay up all night. And the lows were downright awful. He would stomp around and yell until his face was a mottled red, then disappear for days. Pappi had brought Derrick into the business, but he was so unreliable, his title and salary were mostly for show.

I stepped away from the crowd. “No, Derrick. We can’t. Now please, leave me alone.”

Nash

“What do you mean, you left Nixie alone?” I barked into the phone clutched tightly to my ear, anxiously pacing back and forth along the perimeter of my office. The stunning view of New York harbor was entirely wasted on me.

Jay babbled an explanation that I interrupted mid-sentence. “Why didn’t you make her go with you? Or call me? Wait—what? An hour ago? Jesus.”

Frustrated, and knowing that nothing useful would come of berating Jay, I hung up on him and called Nixie instead. And called. And called. She didn’t answer, each one of my calls eventually going to voicemail.

Heat broke above the collar of my starched shirt as I pulled at my tie, unfastening the top two buttons before I suffocated. Where the fuck was she?

Despite Nixie’s protests, I hadn’t pulled RiskTaker off Paul Attwood’s business—although I’d been growing increasingly disgruntled by their inability to find even a single fatal flaw to bring his enterprise down. My investigator, however, had uncovered Derrick’s riskier extracurricular activities. I already knew from Nixie that the man was a gambler, and judging from the response my investigator had gotten from several Manhattan bookies, a bad one. Most of them said they refused to take his bets anymore, and the other ones had been cagey about how much he owed, which was usually a bad sign. These were not men who could be fobbed off with I’ll-pay-you-later promises. If Derrick owed them money and couldn’t afford to cover his debts, he was in trouble. I didn’t know him, but I could sense the desperation he must be feeling, desperation that was aimed at Nixie. She was in danger, I could feel it.

“Simmons,” I bellowed.

Katherine was in my office a moment later, not at all flustered by my strident tone. “Yes?”

“There something wrong with the climate control unit.”

She turned to examine the thermostat on the wall. “It’s reading sixty-seven degrees, same as always.”

“It’s a fucking sauna in here. Have someone check it.”

“Right away,” she said. “Anything else?”

I glanced at the papers covering my desk, the computer monitor detailing my daily schedule. I had back-to-back meetings for most of the day, and tonight Nixie and I were scheduled to have dinner with Mack Duncan. Katherine had sent him the press release announcing our engagement and he’d insisted on meeting with us socially before reconsidering my offer to purchase his company.

It struck me that I was worried about Nixie because I was legitimately worried about Nixie—not just because I needed her to prove to Duncan that I was a serious, level-headed man capable of taking over NetworkTech.

So level-headed I’d mastered the art of lying out of both sides of my mouth.

I swallowed heavily. There were very few people in the world who meant more to me than a business deal. All this time, I’d considered Duncan’s company to be a once in a lifetime unicorn deal. But I was wrong. I’d been chasing the wrong dream. Nixie was the goddamn unicorn.

There would always be another business deal, but there was only one Nixie. And every lie that crossed my lips made me less worthy of her. That was going to stop, tonight.

If Derrick had so much as laid a finger on her, I’d rip him apart from limb to limb.

Katherine cleared her throat. “Was there anything else you needed?”

I gave my head a mental shake. “Have you heard from Nixie this afternoon?” Ever since Katherine had taken care of Kismet while we were in Bermuda, Nixie and my assistant had struck up something of a friendship.

“Actually, yes. I called earlier to remind her of the appointment with a personal shopper at Saks.” She glanced at her watch. “Right about now.”

A flare of hope broke through my anxiety. “Call them. Find out if she’s there.”

Katherine pivoted, concern streaking across her face, and headed back to her desk just outside my office. Barely a minute later she was back. “Yes, she’s there. Should I have them pass along a message for you?”

A tidal wave of relief crashed into me and I grabbed at the back of my chair for support. Yeah, tell her to answer my damn calls. “No. No message. But call Jay and tell him that his ass had better be sitting right outside Nixie’s dressing room, and that further deviations from the plan will not be tolerated.”

Katherine offered a stiff nod. “Will do.” She glanced at the clock hanging on my wall. “And you’re wanted in the conference room in five minutes.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, pulling my chair away from my desk and dropping into it, the movement propelling me forward until I planted my elbows onto my knees, holding my head up with my palms. Fear for Nixie’s safety had shaken me to my core. I took a few deep breaths, calming my still frantic nerves. Nixie wasn’t with Derrick. She was safe at Saks Fifth Avenue, trying on outfits for our dinner tonight and a wardrobe befitting my fiancé.

As fear for Nixie’s safety gave way to images of her undressing, I groaned. Was this what being in a relationship was like—all these messy thoughts and feelings taking up space in my brain? It was awful.

My intercom buzzed. Was it time for my meeting already? “I know, I know. I’ll be right there.”

“Actually, there’s someone here to see you.”

Frowning, I lifted my head to glance at my packed schedule. “It’s not exactly a good day for drop-ins,” I commented wryly.

“I know. But I think you’ll make an exception in this case.”

I rubbed at my temples and sighed. “Who is it?”

“Paul Attwood.”