Emily Pinault was more than the sum of her scandals and accolades. She was a kaleidoscope, and he’d only ever seen one color. Now the others flashed at Nicolas like a fireworks display he couldn’t look away from.
He wasn’t sure what intrigued him more: her secrets or the grace with which she hid them.
Usually, he despised them—secrets, that is. But hers strangely had the opposite effect. He felt like they were protecting her. So, instead of tightening the knots in hischest, they loosened them. They’d even managed to make his decision to marry her feel justified.
Because maybe she needed his help.
Needed him.
It was damning. That assumption.
At twenty-nine, Nicolas had become a risk. Royal Media’s major shareholders equated stability with leadership. For them, stability now meant marriage. With the pending global streaming acquisition worth billions, they had another reason to push forhis. Especially with its target audience being families.
Being unwed didn’t help as the newly appointed CEO. They’d been trying everything to test him, to see if he truly was worthy of the title after his father’s health issues caused an early retirement. His old man had agreed to the stipulation. Nicolas knew he would have. He’d do anything to keep the reign of the Re name going.
But how coincidental was it that Nicolas had ended up marryingher?
He should have wanted someone safe, someone who hadn’t lived under the spotlight or would inevitably step back into it. Someone with a cleaner reputation, a wife who could stand beside him and deliver in public. One who could say to the world she was his right now, and not when she decided it was time to. But the idea of choice had been ripped away the momentshechose him. Emily was the one who had chosen Nicolas, offered him the proposition, and somehow that bound his hands in ways he couldn’t explain. Ways he didn’t dare to.
So, after he submitted a sealed marriage certificate to his legal team, he lied. Lied that she was under a contractual term that prevented revealing her identity to the public due to her career.
He’d thought it would take more convincing, but surprisingly, the company had agreed that they would announce the marriage in conjunction with the acquisition. And if John was anything, he was perceptive. The board only wanted to know that a wife existed.
Honestly, Nicolas was shocked they hadn’t intervened inwhohe was marrying. Maybe it was because they already knew they were crossing the line with demanding it in the first place.
Life was a strange thing though because Emily had often crossed his path; at brand launches, charity events and even soirées, but they’d never spoken. Not since eight years ago when she’d looked like an angel emerging from that hotel’s closet. White floral dress and tendrils framing the sides of her face, flushed from the humid air.
So why had the universe decided it made sense for them to interact on the other side of the goddamn country? About marriage, of all things. And actually carrying out the act. Was it another test, one that had already ended in failure? Because he sure as hell had been feeling like one ever since impatience won out, since the moment he couldn’t wait for his family’s lawyer any longer and boarded his private jet to go to Los Angeles. All that for him to find out John was on a business trip in Montecito, forcing him to drive up there.
Speaking of impatience, Emily’s had almost rivaled his. What the hell had gone down with Mallion to make her need a contract marriage? A breakup didn’t usually lead here. Was this her idea of a revenge dress—or worse, a revengehusband? Because there was a good chance she was using him even more than he was using her, and it should sting, but it didn’t.
He could tell it had been her first time doing this from the way she’d overseen a few clauses with loopholes. An oldhabit he and his team fell into without thinking, not because he felt any malice toward her. She hadn’t noticed a single one; neither had her lawyer or her team of them. Remembering that now twisted something inside of him. Some selfish part of him felt a grim satisfaction that he’d been her first atsomething.
He could have implored if necessary, because he knew, again, that something was missing from the bigger picture. But there was also a side of him that relished the act of uncovering her secrets, his twisted way of getting to know her more.
Of all the things circling his mind, however, one fact remained true when it came to this marriage: between his hand and Mallion’s, Nicolas’s was the steadier one for her to hold.
He’d learned about her ex over the years. He could tell how ill-matched the two of them were from the beginning.He’d silently hoped eventually she would as well.
He wasn’t sayinghewas perfect. And of course, he wasn’t the ultimate catch.
With the right woman, however, Nicolas could be a home run.
The man understood the privileges in what he could offer. It made him mindful to whom he entrusted them, a trait women found frustrating as he always kept things at surface level.
The point was: unlike him, Emily had a real relationship, so what gave?
Nicolas knew all about the younger of the Pinault heiresses. The famous actress with the beloved nickname “Golden Girl.” This came after she’d won three Golden Globe Awards in one night, setting history as the first to do so.
She’d stolen the hearts of many worldwide, him being no exception to this.
Maybe it’d been influenced by their conversation at the Pinault’s charity gala when they were younger, but he’d started noticing her. In the news. In ads. In gossip.
He convinced himself that it was the exposure effect of it all. The reason he’d sat down and watched her latest movie at the time. In it, she’d been wearing clothes tattered from war. Sobs had racked her tiny frame from the news that her older brother had been lost on the front line. He’d never felt his heart race like that before.
She’d been the only thing anyone could remember from the chaos on screen.
The only thinghecould remember.
