Chapter 1 - The Vegas Morning After & The Sinister Platinum Ring
The first thing that terrified me was waking up naked beneath sheets far too
expensive to belong to my hotel room. The second was seeing my boss calmly
pouring coffee across the suite—and the third was discovering a platinum wedding
band on my finger while he told me, “If you leave before sunrise, my family’s
empire could burn.”
For several frozen seconds, I stared at the ceiling while my heart tried to
punch its way out of my chest. Sunlight poured through enormous windows
overlooking Las Vegas, and somewhere nearby, silverware clicked softly against
china.
Then I turned my head.
Graham Reed stood beside a breakfast table wearing a dark gray hotel robe like
this was an ordinary Thursday morning. CEO of Reed Global Infrastructure,
possible future chairman, and the man everyone in our Chicago office secretly
called the Ice King looked at me without the slightest hint of panic.
“Good,” he said. “You’re awake.”
My black cocktail dress was crumpled near the couch. Graham’s shirt lay beside
the bed, one of my heels had somehow ended up beneath a table, and his tie hung
from a lamp.
I dragged the sheet tighter around myself. “Why am I in your room?”
“Before you panic, drink some water.”
“Before I panic?”
Something briefly moved behind his controlled expression. “Your room was
compromised. After that, the night became complicated.”
My stomach twisted into knots.
“Avery, put on the robe,” he said, his voice dropping into that commanding
register that usually silenced entire boardrooms. “We need to talk before anyone
else does.”
The breakfast table was set for two—coffee, eggs, toast, fruit, orange juice.
Somehow that normal little detail made everything feel even more insane. I
wrapped myself in the spare plush robe and headed for the bathroom on shaking
legs. Graham instinctively stepped forward when I stumbled, then stopped before
touching me, his jaw clenching tightly.
Inside, I locked the door and gripped the cold marble sink.
My hair was a wild disaster, my cheeks were flushed, and there was a faint pink
mark near my collarbone. Then I looked down at my left hand. A heavy,
exquisitely cut platinum wedding band gleamed beneath the bathroom lights.
“No.” I stared at it, hyperventilating. “No, no, no.”
Fragments from the previous night crashed through my memory like shattered
glass.
Our client dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Strip. Eight brutal
months of negotiations had finally ended with Graham closing the Southwest
Transit Systems acquisition, and executives from Phoenix and Denver kept
ordering thousand-dollar bottles of scotch. Graham had looked completely
exhausted, carrying the weight of a hostile board takeover on his shoulders. So
I had stepped in. “Give him a break,” I had joked, taking the glass from his
hand. “I’ll take this one.”
One toast had become another. Then everything blurred.
A private elevator. Graham’s hand steady and warm against my waist. My hotel
room door standing wide open even though I remembered double-locking it. My
laptop bag unzipped. The room safe hanging open, wiped clean. Fear had sobered
me instantly.
Then Graham had brought me up to his high-security penthouse suite, handing me
water, loosening his tie while his usual icy expression disappeared beneath
something raw, furious, and fiercely protective. After that… the memory
shattered into flashes of neon lights, a drive-thru chapel with plastic flowers,
and a minister with an Elvis accent.
A soft knock sounded on the bathroom door.
“Avery.”
I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the wood. “Tell me I didn’t marry
you.”
Silence hung thick in the air.
Then Graham answered through the door. “I can’t tell you that.”
I ripped the door open so fast it nearly struck the marble wall. He was waiting
right outside, hands buried in the pockets of his robe. His storm-gray eyes
dropped directly to my left hand.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “That part is real.”
“Are you completely out of your mind?” I cried, tears of shock pricking my eyes.
“We work together! You are my boss! I am your executive assistant! I don’t even
like you half the time, and you definitely don't like me!”
“This isn’t about liking each other, Avery.”
“Then what is it? Some sick billionaire prank?”
I pushed past him, grabbed my crumpled dress from the floor, and reached wildly
for my purse and phone on the side table.
That was when Graham’s entire posture shifted. He moved with terrifying speed,
cutting off my path and placing his wide, solid frame between me and the heavy
mahogany suite door.
“Avery, do not open that door.”
“Get out of my way, Graham. I’m going to the airport, and I’m calling a lawyer.”
“If you walk out of this suite right now,” he said, his voice deadly calm, “my
family loses control of Reed Global. The board convenes in six hours. And
someone broke into your room last night because they knew marrying me was the
only way you could stop them—and stay alive.”
May you like
The room seemed to drop ten degrees. The platinum ring on my finger suddenly
felt like a loaded weapon against my skin.
