Chapter 1 — Million Dollar Man

Nikolas Van der Meer was a man people talked about.

He was twenty-seven years old, obscenely wealthy, and dangerously accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.

As Chief Investment Officer of Van der Meer Holdings, he had already built a reputation most men twice his age would have killed for. His decisions moved markets. His acquisitions made headlines. Companies that had spent decades believing themselves untouchable found themselves answering to him before they understood what had happened.

He didn’t chase opportunities.

He bought them before anyone else realized they existed.

And when he wanted something, he rarely had to ask twice.

Outside the boardroom, things weren’t much different.

Women wanted him. Men wanted to be him. The press couldn’t decide whether he was a financial prodigy or an arrogant bastard with too much money and too little restraint.

Nikolas had never particularly cared which version they preferred.

Both made people pay attention.

And attention, he’d learned, was useful.

At just over six feet tall, he had the kind of build that suggested discipline rather than vanity. Lean, broad-shouldered, and quietly powerful, he looked like a man who had never needed to raise his voice to make himself understood. His dark brown hair bordered on black beneath certain lights, deliberately tousled over a face too sharply defined to be called merely handsome. A strong jaw, precise features, and light green eyes that missed very little completed the picture.

Those eyes were his most dangerous feature.

They were not warm enough to invite trust, nor cold enough to make people look away immediately. They simply watched, taking in details other people assumed had gone unnoticed.

Nikolas rarely gave much away.

When he smiled, it was usually because he knew something the other person didn’t.

That evening, he wore a charcoal Hugo Boss suit beneath a brown leather jacket, the combination expensive without being ostentatious. His white shirt was open at the collar, his dark tie loosened just enough to suggest he had escaped the office rather than brought it with him. A gold Patek Philippe rested against his wrist, accompanied by a few carefully chosen rings.

The most important sat on his pinky.

A gold signet engraved with a crown.

House Van der Meer.

It was not a fashion statement. It was not a sentimental accessory. It was a declaration of lineage, worn with the quiet certainty of a man who had never questioned which world he belonged to.

Nikolas had been born into a name that opened doors before he reached them.

He had spent his life making certain no one could close those doors on him.

That night, he was sitting in his own restaurant in Manhattan, enjoying a rare evening without a board meeting, a hostile acquisition, or someone attempting to convince him that their disastrous business decisions were somehow his problem.

Across the table, his younger brother, Marcus Van der Meer, swirled a glass of champagne and regarded him with the weary amusement of someone who had spent twenty-seven years discovering that his brother was, in fact, insufferable.

“You realize people are starting to call you reckless, don’t you?”

Nikolas lifted his glass.

“People call anything they don’t understand reckless.”

“No. They call it reckless when you buy companies just to prove you can.”

Nikolas took a slow sip before setting his glass down.

“I don’t prove it.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow.

“No?”

“I demonstrate it.”

Marcus stared at him for a moment, then shook his head.

“God, you’re insufferable.”

Nikolas almost smiled.

Almost.

Then he looked toward the entrance.

And forgot what Marcus had been saying.

It was not an especially dramatic entrance. No one announced her arrival. No conversation stopped on cue, and no one rushed to greet her.

She simply walked into the restaurant.

Blonde hair fell over her shoulders in polished waves, and her posture carried the effortless confidence of someone who had never needed to compete for attention. She wore elegance without appearing to have dressed for an audience, moving through the room as though expensive surroundings were an unremarkable part of life.

People noticed her anyway.

Nikolas noticed her first.

That, more than anything, irritated him.

He had spent years training himself to recognize what mattered and ignore everything else. He could listen to a presentation while calculating the value of an acquisition, read a man’s intentions from a handshake, and spot a weakness in a negotiation before the other party realized they’d revealed one.

Yet a woman he had never met had managed to interrupt his thoughts simply by walking through a door.

He watched her approach the hostess.

“Table for one, please.”

“I’m very sorry, Miss Belinski. We’re fully booked tonight.”

The woman glanced around the restaurant. If she was disappointed, she gave no indication of it.

“Of course. Thank you.”

No argument. No demand to speak to a manager. No attempt to remind the hostess who she was.

She simply accepted the answer and allowed herself to be directed toward the bar.

Nikolas followed her with his eyes.

There was something profoundly inconvenient about a woman who could be turned away from a room and appear entirely unaffected by it.

He wanted to know whether she was genuinely indifferent or simply very good at pretending.

Beside him, Marcus had gone quiet.

Then he followed Nikolas’s gaze.

“Oh.”

Nikolas didn’t look at him.

“What?”

Marcus leaned back in his chair, his expression shifting into something between amusement and sympathy.

“Oh, this is bad.”

Nikolas finally turned his head.

“Who is she?”

Marcus looked at him.

Then at the woman.

Then back at him.

“That is Nina Belinski.”

“Nina.”

He hadn’t meant to repeat her name aloud. It simply happened, as though he needed to hear how it sounded before deciding what to do with it.

Marcus noticed.

Of course he did.

“The Belinski family,” he explained. “Old money. Hospitals, foundations, medical research, political connections that go back decades. Half the city owes them favors they can’t repay.”

Nikolas glanced toward the bar again.

Nina was speaking to the bartender now, one hand resting lightly against the counter.

“She’s been everywhere lately,” Marcus continued. “Charity galas, children’s programs, philanthropic projects. The annoying kind of rich person who actually does things with her money.”

Nikolas said nothing.

Marcus followed his gaze again.

“You see the dress? The watch? The way she walks around as if none of this impresses her?”

A brief pause.

“She’s expensive, Nikolas.”

That earned him a glance.

“Not in money,” Marcus clarified. “In standards.”

Nikolas’s mouth curved faintly.

“I don’t have standards.”

“No, of course not. You have a collection of lawyers who make sure your lack of standards is legally defensible.”

“I set them.”

“Yes. You’ve mentioned that.”

Marcus took another sip of champagne, watching his brother with increasing suspicion.

“But here’s the interesting part. I’ve never seen her with a man.”

That caught Nikolas’s attention.

He turned back toward him.

“Never?”

“Not publicly. Not at the events she attends, anyway. And trust me, if Nina Belinski were involved with someone interesting, I’d have heard about it.”

“Perhaps she’s private.”

“Perhaps she’s selective.”

Nikolas looked toward her again.

Nina had accepted her drink and was now studying something on her phone, apparently oblivious to the fact that the most powerful man in the restaurant had become entirely distracted by her existence.

Marcus sighed.

“You’re thinking about approaching her.”

“I’m thinking about whether the kitchen has sent out the wrong wine.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I rarely need to lie.”

“That’s what makes it so irritating.”

Nikolas ignored him.

Marcus leaned forward, lowering his voice.

“Listen to me. Whatever you’re planning, don’t do anything insane.”

Nikolas looked at him with mild interest.

“Why would I do anything insane?”

“Because you have the expression you get before you ruin someone’s life.”

“Usually, they deserve it.”

“That is not reassuring.”

Nikolas set his napkin beside his plate and stood.

Marcus stared at him.

“No.”

Nikolas adjusted his cuff.

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“Then I’ll introduce myself.”

Marcus caught his sleeve.

“Nikolas.”

His brother’s tone had changed. Beneath the teasing was genuine disbelief.

“You cannot just decide you’re going to have a woman because you’ve seen her across a room.”

Nikolas looked down at Marcus’s hand until he released it.

“I haven’t decided to have her.”

“Good.”

“I’ve decided to marry her.”

Marcus choked on his champagne.

Actually choked.

For several seconds, he could only stare at his brother while attempting to recover his breath.

“You’re what?”

Nikolas straightened his jacket.

“I’m going to marry her.”

“You’ve exchanged approximately zero words with this woman.”

“Then I suppose I should start with one.”

Marcus looked as though he was considering calling their father.

“You are out of your mind.”

“Possibly.”

And with that, Nikolas walked away.

He crossed the restaurant with the unhurried confidence of a man accustomed to entering rooms where everyone already knew his name. The staff greeted him as he passed. A businessman at a nearby table began to rise, presumably hoping to secure a moment of his attention, but Nikolas gave him a brief nod and continued walking.

For once, he had somewhere more important to be.

Nina was still at the bar when he reached her.

Up close, she was even more striking.

Her beauty wasn’t the sort that depended on a particular angle or a carefully arranged photograph. There was something self-possessed about her, something that made her seem entirely comfortable in her own skin. She wasn’t looking around to see who had noticed her. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

Nikolas found that far more interesting than he should have.

He stopped beside her.

She sensed his presence and turned.

Her eyes met his.

For a moment, neither spoke.

He was accustomed to being recognized. Even people who claimed not to follow business news generally knew who he was, if only by reputation. They tended to react in predictable ways: curiosity, admiration, nervousness, or the particular kind of politeness that suggested they wanted something from him.

Nina gave him none of those.

Her gaze moved briefly over his face, taking in his expression with the same calm assessment he had used on her.

She wasn’t impressed.

Or, if she was, she had no intention of letting him know.

Interesting.

Nikolas allowed a faint smile to touch his mouth.

“Hi. I’m Nikolas Van der Meer.”

She looked at him for another second.

Then she glanced toward the dining room.

“I know.”

Two words.

No breathless surprise. No sudden warmth. No attempt to prolong the moment by pretending she hadn’t recognized him.

Just a simple statement of fact.

Nikolas’s smile deepened.

Most people were eager to tell him what they knew about him. Nina Belinski seemed more interested in deciding whether any of it mattered.

“And you are Nina Belinski,” he said.

“That depends. Are you asking because you know who I am, or because you’ve been staring at me from across the restaurant?”

He should have been offended.

Instead, he laughed.

It was brief, genuine, and entirely unexpected—even to him.

“Both, I’m afraid.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“When it suits me.”

“How reassuring.”

She turned back toward her drink.

Nikolas stood beside her, suddenly aware that he had no prepared strategy for a woman who seemed entirely capable of surviving without his attention.

He could have told her about his company. He could have made some polished remark about their families, their shared social circles, or the extraordinary coincidence of finding them both in the same restaurant.

Instead, he asked the first question that came to mind.

“Are you always this difficult to impress?”

Nina looked at him over the rim of her glass.

“Are you always this accustomed to impressing people?”

He considered that.

“Usually.”

“Then I imagine this must be a difficult evening for you.”

He smiled.

She smiled back, just barely.

And something in him settled with absolute, alarming certainty.

He wanted another conversation.

Then another.

He wanted to know what made her laugh, what made her angry, what she thought about when no one was watching. He wanted to discover every opinion she held that differed from his own, every boundary she refused to cross, every part of herself that money and influence could not buy.

He wanted to know her.

The realization was inconvenient.

It was also unavoidable.

For the first time in his life, Nikolas Van der Meer had encountered something he couldn’t acquire simply by deciding he wanted it.

And rather than putting him off, it made him want it more.

He held out his hand.

“May I buy you a drink?”

Nina glanced at his hand, then at him.

“You own the restaurant, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then isn’t that rather like offering to buy me something with my own money? I’m fairly certain my drink is contributing to your profits.”

He looked at her for a moment.