Page 7 of Beautiful Revenge
I knock on the door to the suite. “Ms. Madison? It’s Devon Donnelly. We met last night. It’s time. I’m here to take you to the ceremony.” I take two steps back, stuff my hands in my trouser pockets, and wait.
Nothing.
Dammit.
“Ms. Madison?” I rap two more times. “Is everything okay?”
Long, stagnant moments pass, and I wonder if I’ll be forced to use my master key to burst in and make sure she hasn’t passed out from an overdose of hairspray.
I’m about to swipe the master keycard over the lock when a click breaks through the silence.
The door opens, and I find it difficult to breathe.
Harlow Madison is a beauty. Even to someone like me who doesn’t pay attention or give a shit about celebrities or the wealthy who pretend to be celebrities. I knew who she was before I got the call from the Madisons’ public relations team demanding to book the wedding on my property.
I’ve heard of her, but after that call, I did my research. This woman spent her teen and early adult years in the public eye thanks to Patrick Madison’s second wife. Her mum, Effie Madison, died of a rare cancer when Harlow was just a girl. Effie was from Winslet proper and met her husband when he was a mere millionaire.
I skimmed the details—Effie was younger than Patrick when they met. By the time they had Harlow, Patrick was deep in his forties. And since I didn’t skim the details aboutthe bride standing before me, I know she’s twenty-nine, which puts her dear, old dad in his seventies.
Rumor has it, the last year has not been easy on him. Unlike his second wife, it appears he likes to keep his shit tight. His business is on the up and up, so there are no scandals nipping at his heels. Hell, the man has a fleet of private planes—because what billionaire doesn’t—but he flies commercial when he can. Even the tree-huggers don’t hate him as much as they could.
Though that might have to do with his daughter’s philanthropic ways more than the man himself. Patrick Madison may be the most boring billionaire on earth.
I may not give a shit about the wedding couple, per se, but I do need their big day to be picture-perfect to elevate my new venture. I’ve gone from an MI6 operative making my living hiding in plain sight to being the face of The Manor at Winslet. I knew it wouldn’t be a garden stroll having the world know who I am. And since there’s nothing better than a wedding of the rich and famous, I figured I’d accept their big bucks to springboard my new venture onto the world stage in an instant.
It turns out, it’s not easy. It’s a pain in my arse.
To the general public, Harlow Madison and Albert Humphries are a perfect match. Hell, the masses are fawning all over them. It’s proven by the fact I had to quadruple my security and hire drone pilots to canvass the surrounding areas in addition to the families’ security requirements.
The town of Winslet hasn’t seen this kind of activity since the gold rush.
The Humphries family conducts most of its business outside the U.S. If rumors are true, it’s for good reason. There’s no way they could run the profit margins they do in the States. They take every advantage of cheap labor and little oversight. Albert has made a name for himself as being different from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.
He might come from a long line of arseholes, but he’s done everything he can to set himself apart from them.
Even still, how he managed to win over the American beauty—whose only job is to heal the sick, feed the poor, and protect mother earth—is beyond me.
And a beauty she is. She took my breath away last night when I saw her in the flesh for the first time, but that’s nothing compared to this moment.
There’s nothing traditional about this woman. Her gown fits every slight curve and hangs on her in a way that makes me wonder if she’s wearing anything beneath it.
I have no fucking idea what the hair and makeup army were doing in here for so long. She doesn’t look like she needed them. Harlow is natural and effortless. Her eyes are so dark and sultry, they stand on their own without any help, and her lips are the perfect shade of pink against her fair skin. Her blond hair, which was blown and mussed by the time I delivered her back last night, is pinned low to the back of her head with loose curls kissing the skin around her face.
Harlow tips that perfect face to the suite behind her. “I was about to call you, Mr. Donnelly. Come in.”
I narrow my eyes. “I thought we were past themister.”
She turns back to me and hikes one perfect brow. “That was before you pulled themisson me.”
“Fair enough.” I force myself to look away from the bride who’s momentarily blinded me from this hell I call reality to glance at my watch. “You’re late.”
When she turns away, I have to catch the door so it doesn’t slam in my face. She doesn’t do what she needs to do, which is to get the fuck in gear. She retreats into the suite and goes straight for the dining table that sits in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens, lake, and mountains.
It’s also the perfect view of the ceremony that’s set to begin. She stares down at the more than four hundred guests and chamber orchestra.
Let it be known I had no fucking idea what a chamber orchestra was before the Madisons and Humphries entered my life in the form of a never-ending migraine.
But I do now.
