Chapter 1 the man I shouldn't want
Chapter 1 – The Man I Shouldn’t Want
I wasn’t supposed to be at the wedding.
Not by choice.
But there I was—standing stiff in the front row, trapped in a champagne-colored dress my mother insisted I wear, watching her say "I do" to the man she barely knew. The crowd clapped politely. Champagne glasses clinked. Cameras flashed.
And me? I just stared at him.
Nathan Cole.
He was everything the rumors said he would be—tall, powerful, with eyes like winter frost and a presence that demanded silence. A man who owned entire buildings, made grown men stutter, and now, somehow, had become my stepfather.
My stomach twisted.
He didn’t smile when my mother kissed him. He didn’t look happy. Just… controlled. Like everything about this moment had been rehearsed.
And when his eyes swept the room and landed on me, it felt like the air vanished from my lungs.
That moment lasted only seconds.
But I felt it in my spine.
And worse—I liked it.
My name is Sienna Monroe.
I’m eighteen. Barely.
Graduated. Confused.
And I’ve been invisible for most of my life.
My mother? She’s always chasing money, status, and anything with a bank account. I was just the baggage she carried from one man to the next.
But Nathan… Nathan was different.
He wasn’t the usual weak man she seduced.
He was the kind of man who could break her—and he probably would.
The mansion smelled like wealth. Clean wood floors, endless marble, tall windows stretching toward the sky. And coldness. Like no one really lived here—just passed through.
He gave me a room far from theirs. I wondered if that was for privacy—or protection.
We rarely spoke those first few weeks.
Just passing glances in the hallway. Muted greetings at dinner. Awkward silences in the back of his black car when my mother made him drive me to appointments she forgot about.
But I saw the way his gaze lingered.
And I knew he noticed the way I watched him too.
One night, I came downstairs late. Couldn’t sleep. I wore nothing but an oversized T-shirt and no bra. I wasn’t trying to tempt him—at least, that’s what I told myself.
He was in the kitchen, alone, sleeves rolled up, glass of whiskey in hand.
“You shouldn’t walk around like that,” he said without looking at me.
“Like what?” I asked, leaning on the counter opposite him.
He turned slowly, and for the first time, he looked at me like I wasn’t just a girl. Not his stepdaughter. Not a child.
A woman.
His voice was low. “Bare. Loose. Tempting.”
I felt heat rise in my chest, down my spine.
“I live here too,” I whispered.
He took a step closer. Then another.
Then stopped. Inches from me.
“You don’t understand what kind of man I am, Sienna.”
“Then tell me.”
His jaw clenched. He set the glass down and walked away.
And I stood there trembling.
Because I wanted him to come back.
Weeks passed.
My mother started traveling again—"business trips" that always ended in strange hotel charges and smeared lipstick.
Nathan didn’t care.
Neither did I.
She was just the thread that barely tied us together. And slowly, even that thread began to unravel.
One evening, I found him in his office, door cracked open. Shirt unbuttoned halfway, tie loosened, his hands running through his hair in frustration.
I knocked once.
He looked up—eyes tired, chest rising slowly.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“But you’re always alone.”
His gaze darkened. “You don’t want to see the parts of me that are real, Sienna.”
“I do.”
He stood, walked toward me, slow and deliberate. My heart hammered.
He touched my face, gently, almost reverently.
“You deserve better than a man like me.”
“But I want you,” I breathed.
He looked like he was fighting a war inside himself.
And then… he kissed me.
Hard. Desperate. Forbidden.
When he pulled away, his voice was hoarse. “This can’t happen again.”
But we both knew it would.
