Emma:I’m really busy, but I agree. We need to meet. We need to talk. When are you free?
I lowered myself slowly into one of the kitchen stools, the polished marble cold beneath my forearms as I leaned forward with my phone dangling loosely in my grip.She’s here. Fuck. Emma is in the same city I am right now.
The timing should have felt like fate. Instead, it felt like the universe had decided to wrap both hands around my throat and squeeze. I scrubbed a palm over my face, exhaling hard.
A mental image of Kate’s face flashed behind my eyes again—her expression the moment her composure had shattered. The stunned disbelief. The way she’d pinched herself like she thought she was trapped in some surreal nightmare she could wake up from if she tried hard enough.
Guilt churned low in my stomach once more.This is wrong. For Emma. For Kate. For me.
I stared at the blank reply box, my thumbs hovering uselessly above the screen while my mind tangled itself into knots. I didn’t like Kate. Kate infuriated me.
Doesn’t she?
“Yes,” I muttered to the empty apartment, like I needed to hear it out loud to believe it. “She’s a maddening woman with great hair and grit. That’s all. And a decent caboose. But that’s it.”
I shifted in the stool, tension coiling tighter in my shoulders. I respected her tenacity. Her intelligence. The way she bulldozed through conversations with zero regard for anyone’s ego.
And apparently, I appreciate the fullness of her lips too. The sharp curve of her smile. The swell of her ripe peach of an ass.
I shoved upright so fast, the legs of the stool screeched across the floor. Dragging both hands through my hair, I shook my head at myself and cursed under my breath. “No. Fuck no.”
This was too confusing. Too muddy. I didn’t let lines blur. I didn’t spiral into emotional quicksand because a woman glared at me with fire in her eyes and refused to back down from a fight. I paced the length of the kitchen as I tried to wrestle control back into place where it belonged.
My brain. Not my dick.
I respected Kate. I was also somewhat afraid of her, and while the realization sat heavy and unfamiliar in my chest, it was suddenly clear that it was true.
Kate pushed buttons in me I hadn’t known existed. She challenged me in ways that scraped too close to something I preferred to keep locked down behind professionalism and routine. But seeing her broken, seeing that crack split through all that armor, had sent me into a tailspin I still hadn’t recovered from.
I stopped pacing, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the gray Chicago skyline. Knowing Kate, she was going to eventually agree to this arranged marriage.
She’d agree because her father’s company depended on it. Because her career depended on it. Because she was loyal to a fault and stubborn enough to carry their entire new, still fragile empire on her own shoulders if it meant protecting the people she loved.
I glanced down at my phone again. Emma’s message still glowed on the screen, patient and expectant. She deserved honesty. She deserved clarity. She deserved a fucking man who hadn’t agreed to a marriage negotiated over breakfast and baseball tickets, but before I could have that conversation, I needed to face the disaster sitting across the hallway.
Kate.
Energy crackled under my skin though, looking for somewhere to go before it burned straight through me. I went to change and grabbed my running shoes from beside the door, already knowing I wasn’t going to outrun any of this but needing the illusion of control anyway.
I yanked the laces tight, knowing I needed to release some of this energy before I went to talk to her. She and I were explosive enough together as it was, and now, we were practically engaged.
If I went to her in the state I was in and with her probably still feeling the way she had been when she’d left the office, it was likely we’d murder each other long before we’d ever walk down the aisle.
CHAPTER 14
KATE
Ishowed up to breakfast looking exactly how I felt. Raw, stripped down, and held together by that lovely little flavor of emotional duct tape known as stubbornness. I hadn’t put on any makeup and I’d barely managed to drag my hair into a messy ponytail.
Instead of my professional garb, I wore tights, sneakers, and an old gray sweatshirt that had seen more late nights than most bartenders.
I’d had a whole day to think about it. A whole day to bury my feelings and pull my big girl pants up, but that didn’t stop the inside of my chest from feeling like someone had stuffed it with broken glass.
The diner where they’d asked me to meet them had the distinct scent of burnt coffee and syrup. When I slid into the booth across from my parents, my beloved mom and dad, I felt like I didn’t know them at all. Yesterday’s cab driver had shown me more kindness by taking me for ice cream than the two people who had raised me.
These were the people who’d taught me how to work hard, to fight smart, and to never quit. Now we were in some back-alley diner instead of their hotel, like they’d decided to removeme from any place where I might embarrass them if I decided to make a scene.
I stared at both their faces for exactly three seconds before I took a breath and lit into them. The gloves were off. No point in holding back now. “You’re selling me into a marriage contract like I’m a negotiable asset.”
