He leans in, his mouth inches from my ear.
"Careful, fiancée," he murmurs. "You keep looking at me like that, and I'm going to forget about Clause 4."
A shiver runs through me. I want him to forget it. God help me, I want him to rip the contract up and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Let's get a drink," he says, pulling back but keeping his arm firmly around me. "I think we earned a mimosa. And I saw some quiche over there that looks suspiciously moist."
As we walk toward the bar, weaving through the crowd that parts for us like the Red Sea, I realize something terrifying.
I'm not pretending anymore. I'm leaning into him because I want to. I'm tucked against his side because he feels safe.
The ring on my finger catches the light. A prop. A contract. A performance we're both being paid to deliver.
I look up at Brooks Taylor, and my chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with saving my company.
CHAPTER TEN
BROOKS
The problem with the cottage isn't the square footage. It isn't the lack of an actual separate bedroom. It isn't even the pillow wall that Ivy reconstructs every night with the dedication of a civil engineer.
The problem is the rain.
A summer squall has rolled in off the Atlantic, hammering the roof with a relentless, rhythmic drumming that effectively traps us inside. The beach is a wash. The main house is a no-go zone because my mother is currently auditing the household staff.
So, we are trapped.
It is 9:00 PM. We are three glasses of Pinot Noir deep into "Operation Backstory."
Ivy is sitting on the plush Persian rug in front of the stone fireplace. She has kicked off her shoes, those terrifyingly high wedges she wears like combat boots, and is curled up in a pair of grey joggers and a tank top. She has a notebook balanced on her knees and a pen tucked behind her ear.
She looks soft. Accessible.
It's a dangerous look.
I am sitting on the sofa above her, ostensibly supervising, but mostly watching the firelight play off the curve of her neck.
"Okay, focus," I say, leaning forward to refill her glass. "The reporter fromHamptons Magazineis coming at 10 AM. Her name is Tabitha. She smells fear and cheap cologne. We need a narrative."
Ivy sighs, taking a sip of wine. "It's a simple question, Brooks. 'How did you meet?' Why can't we say we met at a coffee shop? It's classic. Low stakes. We reached for the same oat milk latte, our hands touched, sparks flew."
"Too cliché," I counter. "And I don't drink oat milk lattes. I drink black coffee. If we say coffee shop, Tabitha will ask which one. You'll panic and say 'Starbucks,' and my mother will read the article and have an aneurysm. Taylor men do not meet their wives at franchise establishments."
"Fine," Ivy says, rolling her eyes. "Then we met at a gallery opening. Very high-brow. We bonded over our mutual hatred of abstract expressionism. You made a snarky comment about a red dot on a white canvas, and I laughed."
"Better," I muse, swirling my wine. "But it lacks... passion. It sounds cold. Transactional."
Ivy looks up at me. "Brooks, we are cold. We are a transaction."
"The magazine's readers don't know that," I remind her. "We need a hook. Something visceral. Something that explains why a man known for calculated risks chose this one."
Ivy looks at me, her eyes dancing with wine and mischief. She taps the pen against her lips.
"We could tell the truth," she suggests. "We met when I assaulted you at a wedding, knocking you unconscious into a piece of garden statuary. When you woke up, you blackmailed me into servitude. It was love at first felony."
I laugh. It's a real laugh, one that rumbles in my chest. It's becoming a habit, laughing with her. It's a bad habit.
"Headlines," I say, sketching a box in the air. "'Love Hurts: How a Concussion Led to Diamonds.'"
