Page 70 of Bride on the Dotted Line

“How could you say something like that?” I ask him. “Mom would have—” My father’s eyes flash, and I stop, biting my tongue before I can make everything worse by talking about her.“Frank Hayes won a defamation suit. Do you believe every single thing you read?”

“I don’t read, Nicholas,” Victor tells me, mouth thinning. “I have people to read for me. And soon, so will you.”

There’s a viscous, bubbling feeling climbing through me. I lean forward, bringing us closer across his desk. “How did you find out? Did you Google Sienna’s name?”

“Do you really think I have time for something like that?”

I stare at him—the judgmental curve of his eyebrow, the white strands in his hair, his laser eyes—and the truth hits me like a truck. Why didn’t I see it before? The tabloids are always nosy, picking through people’s lives online and paying paparazzi for photos, but they rarely have the resources for an outside hire.

“It was you,” I say. “You hired the private investigator.”

My father examines me for a second more, then shrugs, casting his gaze through the window, over the pool, across the minigolf course. Sky reflects in his eyes. He says nothing.

I stand, the wooden legs of my chair screeching across the floor behind me. “I e-mailed Alvin. He said he didn’t know anything about the PI. He said he’d try to get whoever it was to stop.”

Victor glances at the stack of documents at the corner of his desk, then back at me. His lip curls. There’s pity on his face, like he’s looking at an animal that was stupid enough to walk into a trap—and he’s right. He might as well be looking at a worm wriggling on a hook.

Alvin lied to me. Of course he did. If he hadn’t, I’d have walked into this meeting today with more cards than Victor wanted me to hold.

Fuck.

My whole life, my father has been over my shoulder, looking at my hand.

I stand at the edge of his desk and look him in the eye. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for Sienna to have a PI following her around? Do you know what she went through with her dad? My father-in-law?”

Victor cocks his head to the side. Searches me. Sighs. “Nicholas.”

“No. You?—”

“Divorce her.”

The words are tired, resigned. He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. He’s giving me an order he expects me to follow without question.

“Get it done,” he says. “Quietly, quickly, whatever it takes. I’ll have Alvin dissolve the contract with her lawyer. I don’t want any more scandals, and I certainly don’t want our family name mixed with theirs.”

For a second, I can’t see, I’m so furious. My fingers find the top of my thigh, pushing into the hard muscle there. “We’ll divorce when the contract expires. That was—that was the agreement.”

He gives me a haughty huff. “Plans change.”

“You can’t be serious. Our PR stunt is working. The public loves us, and?—”

“Oh, I’m very serious,” Victor spits. “The public might eat up this little romance now, but they’ll turn on you the second they find out her full name. Besides, it’s done. We spoke with your wife on the phone this morning, before you bothered to wake up. She’s briefed on what she needs to do.”

My heart thuds. I texted Sienna good morning before coming here today, but—I pull my phone out of my pocket to check—I haven’t gotten anything back. I’d assumed she was asleep.

“You spoke to Sienna?”

“Alvin did.”

“What—what did he tell her?”

“That she was to leave your penthouse at once. To cut all contact with you, and to consider her marriage over.”

I can’t breathe. Fuck.Fuck.Sienna. To hear that first thing in the morning, especially after what happened last night …

Dread fills me. It’s all I can do to keep from sprinting back to the penthouse to make sure she’s still there. “Is she okay? I need to make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine, Nicholas. Relax. She’s a grown woman. It’s done.”

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