Chapter 1
Dominic
I let out an impatient sigh and turned to face the CFO, my long black hair shifting away from my eyes with the motion. The boardroom air was thick with tension, and I was in no mood to deal with it. “Enough! Your bickering won’t get us anywhere. Harrison, explain the situation.”
Harrison Blythe was a squirrely little man with squinty eyes and glasses so thick anyone else could use them as a telescope lens. He shuffled the folders in front of him and selected the thickest one. “The Kingsley Group is our golden ticket to expanding globally. They’re the largest investment firm in Europe and they’ve shown interest in a substantial partnership. But there’s a snag.” He tapped the fat dossier and shook his head. “They’re looking for a real estate partner that projects stability, longevity–and family values.”
“Which means they’re not looking for an untamed, work-obsessed CEO with no personal balance,” interjected Martha Langley. She was one of the longest-serving board members, a holdover from before I took over Voss Enterprises. Back then it had been Monsen Properties, little more than a hometown rental agency. The elderly woman rolled one of the pearls of her necklace between two fingers and shook her head. “We’re biting off far more than we can chew if they’re expecting a dog where we have a wolf. They want to see a man who is married to more than just his work.”
I dropped to my seat and dug my fingernails into the leather arms. “Voss Enterprises has more than tripled its market share in the last three years because of my ‘untamed leadership.’ The numbers alone should show the Kingsley Group that Voss Enterprises means business. Successful business.”
“They should,” Martha agreed, “but Kingsley is run by a bunch of old-money elites who care as much about image as they do about money. They value tradition and longevity – their new CEO is a fourth generation heir. And our CEO is,” she gestured to me, “an unwed, ruthless businessman with no heir and no sign that he’s ever going to change.”
The words were a major dagger to my pride. I looked coolly over the boardroom, doing my best to keep my temper under control. This was more than just a major deal. If I could secure this partnership, Voss Enterprises could easily quadruple our market share in 18 months. I didn’t give a damn what Kingsley thought of my personal life. But this company? It was my empire. And I would do anything to watch it expand.
“What’s the deadline for their final decision?”
Harrison rifled through the dossier. He stopped on a couple of different pages before his face lit up. “Ah. Thirty days. And if they don’t move forward with us, you know Drake Industries will swoop in.”
Just hearing the name of my rival set my teeth on edge. My jaw tensed and my nose wrinkled. Of course Lucian Drake and his pack of second-rate wolves would be circling the Kingsley group as well! They’d been fighting to undercut me for years now, both in business and in territory. If Lucian secured the Kingsley contract, it would cause a major shift in the real estate world.
“There has to be another angle. Find it.” I slammed his fist on the arm of the chair, and everyone in the room jumped. “We have to prove that Voss Enterprises is the only correct choice!”
Martha swallowed and leaned away from me, still fidgeting with her necklace. “Well, there is another angle. You don’t have time to show Voss has longevity, but the easiest way to show stability would be a wife.”
The room fell deathly silent. The other board members stared at Martha, completely flummoxed that she would be brave–or stupid–enough to suggest such a thing. I narrowed my eyes. “Not. Happening.”
“It doesn’t have to be real?” Harrison slipped in. “A relationship. An engagement. Just something to check their damn box.”
This was an organized attack! These lunatics had to have been planning this ahead of time! Before I could shut them down, laughter from the far end of the table caused all the heads in the room to shoot the same direction.
At the foot of the table sat Vivianne Sinclair, COO and my right-hand woman. She was blonde and tall, soft in all the right places…but with a face as sharp and cold as wind-swept ice.
“Are we really suggesting that Dominic Voss, the most famously unattached billionaire in New York City, fake a marriage just to make some old-money investors happy? You’re more likely to call 911 in Manhattan and get an ambulance in less than an hour.” She began to laugh again, and the board room remained otherwise awkwardly silent.
I stood, leaning my 6’5” frame as far down the table as it could reach. “Do you have a better plan, Miss Sinclair?” My brown, golden-flecked eyes met her sky blues and locked on.
She smirked and shook her head. “No, I just think it’s ridiculous. Unless, of course, you’re actually considering pretending to be engaged? But who do you think you could con into such a thing? An actress? A random socialite? That’s even less likely than you actually being serious about this stupid plan.”
I sat back in my chair, studying Vivianne for a long moment. “Why not?”
“Why not what?” Her tone shifted, losing most of its mirth in exchange for alarm. Her arms crossed over her chest, then dropped to the arms of her chair. “Wait. You’re not serious.”
I folded my hands and placed them over the table, a smirk playing with the corners of my lips. Even if I didn’t go with the plan, anything that annoyed my COO was worth the tease. “Why wouldn’t I be? A temporary ‘marriage’ solves our problem. Six weeks. That’s all it would take. Long enough to sign the deal, make it official – and part ways, no actual feelings attached.”
Vivianne huffed and sat back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other. She waved her stiletto in my direction. “Again I ask, then, who do you think you could possibly con into this? There isn’t a woman in her right mind that would sign up for this scheme.”
“You,” I replied without even blinking.
She stared at me, speechless. “No way in hell, Dominic Voss. Absolutely not.”
“Why not? You’re already in my inner circle. You already know how the company works, and you can handle the pressure. Plus, you’re the only woman I know who wouldn’t get any ideas.”
Vivianne gaped at me, anger beginning to turn her pale skin splotchy. “Oh, I have plenty of ideas, Dominic Voss. And right now, most of them involve me throwing my coffee at you!”
I only laughed in response. “You said it yourself. I could try to rope an actress or socialite into this, but nobody would believe that. But you? You’re brilliant, respected for your own merits, and my COO. Everyone already thinks we’re a power duo. We wouldn’t just be believable. We’d be unstoppable.” Honestly, the more I said, the more I liked the plan.
“You’re out of your mind.” Vivianne shook her head, eyes still flashing as she processed how this day had gone so incredibly sideways.
“Perhaps I am,” I conceded. “But you know as well as I do how much this deal means. We’re not talking millions of dollars. We’re talking billions if we can play our cards right. And if Drake swoops in and steals it out from under us? You know that you’ll be the one cleaning up the mess.”
I could see the wheels spinning in her brain. I’d successfully unlocked the shark I’d hired, much to my pleasure. The rest of the board stared on in various levels of curiosity and abject horror as the COO puzzled everything out.
“You want me to play the doting wife for six weeks. No longer, no strings attached? No romance. No actual marriage. Just a temporary contract?”
I nodded. “Strictly business.”
Vivianne rubbed her temples and sighed so deeply that I thought her lungs might collapse. “This is insane.”
“Insanely brilliant,” I corrected. “So, what do you think, Sinclair? Will you marry me?”
She groaned and stared up at the ceiling. “God help me…”
“I’m taking that as a yes. With that, we have some preparations to make. Harrison, I need you to rearrange the budget and find half a million dollars to put on a proper wedding. If I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to do it properly.”
I pulled a stylus from my breast pocket and flipped open the cover on my phone to record a voice memo for myself. “I want the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza Hotel. Martha, contact Mario Vinchelli. Get him started on a wedding gown for Vivianne and a tuxedo for me. He’s going to insist he’s too busy, but I expect you to wear him down. He’s the best wedding gown designer in a generation.
“Erickson, I want you to contract Annie Esplin to plan the ceremony. This has to be a PR-perfect wedding ceremony, and she’ll get the job done. And William, get the event department on invitations and a guest list. The more elite, the better. The Grand Ballroom can handle up to 500 guests, and I want New York City fighting tooth and nail to have their butts in those chairs.”
I sat back in his chair and stared at the board members, who all stared back with shell-shocked expressions. “What are you waiting for? This was your plan. Get out of here! Everyone except you, Vivianne. We have more planning to do.”
