Chapter 1 - Don’t Marry Him
She Tried On Her Wedding Gown and Asked, “How Do I Look?”—The Crime Boss Said, “Don’t Marry Him.”
The gown arrived on a Wednesday.
I knew because Wednesdays were the only days Gideon Ferris kept his office door open, a deliberate signal to the 43 people who worked on the executive floor of Ferris Group that he was available, approachable, human.
By 9:00 that morning, he had already reviewed 3 acquisition proposals, declined a meeting with a city councilman whose interests did not align with his, and taken a call from someone whose name never appeared on any official company roster.
I had worked for Gideon for 5 years, long enough to know which phone line to answer and which one to let ring. Long enough to understand that the man behind the glass partition, dark-haired, broad-shouldered, with eyes the color of slate in winter, ran 2 versions of the same empire.
One was printed on letterhead and filed with the SEC.
The other was kept in a very different kind of ledger.
He had hired me when I was 23, fresh out of UMass with a business degree and more confidence than sense. I had called his personal line instead of going through HR.
He had asked me why.
I told him that if I had gone through HR, I would have been screened out before he ever saw my name.
He hired me that afternoon.
5 years.
In all that time, I had never once let him see what happened to me when he walked into a room.
The gown arrived at 2:30.
A courier brought a garment box wrapped in matte black packaging and tied with a thin satin ribbon the color of champagne.
I signed for it at the front desk and felt something cold settle in my stomach.
My engagement gown for the Hartwell Gala.
Alister had chosen it.
He had sent his personal stylist, given her my measurements, and written a check to a designer whose name I recognized from the society pages.
He had not asked what I wanted.
He rarely did anymore, not about the small things and increasingly not about the large ones either.
“Personal delivery, Nash?”
Gideon’s voice carried from the open doorway of his office.
He was leaning against the frame, jacket off, sleeves rolled to the elbows in the particular way he did when he had been working for hours and forgotten to notice.
“The gown for the Hartwell event.”
I kept my voice even.
“I apologize for having it sent here. My building’s package room has had 3 thefts this quarter.”
“Alister Pemberton’s charity gala.”
He said it the way he said most things that displeased him: flatly, without inflection, which was somehow worse than if he had raised his voice.
“This Saturday?”
“Yes.”
Something moved behind his eyes and disappeared before I could read it.
“Try it on.”
I blinked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The gown.”
He gestured toward the small conference room at the end of the hall, the one with the full-length mirror installed for client presentations.
“Try it on. Make sure it fits. If it needs alterations, you’ve got a few days. If you wait until Friday night, you won’t.”
It was practical.
Sensible, even.
Exactly the kind of observation Gideon made about everything.
“Mr. Ferris—”
“Emery.”
He used my first name rarely enough that when he did, it stopped me cold.
“Try on the dress.”
I carried the box into the conference room and told myself my hands were not shaking.
The gown was beautiful.
Floor-length silk charmeuse in deep midnight blue, with a bodice that draped and gathered in a way that required a great deal of money and an excellent eye to achieve.
Alister’s stylist knew what she was doing, even if the entire exercise felt less like receiving a gift and more like being costumed.
I changed quickly, reached behind me for the zipper, and managed it on the 3rd attempt.
Then I looked in the mirror.
The woman staring back wore the gown as though it had been made for her body, which it essentially had.
She looked composed.
Polished.
Exactly right for a fundraiser at the Hartwell Hotel, where Alister Pemberton would stand at a podium and talk about his Senate campaign while I stood beside him and smiled.
She looked like a very well-dressed prop.
I remained in front of the mirror longer than I intended.
5 years of early mornings and late nights in that building.
5 years of work I was genuinely good at.
Problems I had solved before Gideon had even finished asking me to solve them.
5 years of building something that mattered.
And in 6 months, I would become Mrs. Alister Pemberton, expected to lunch at the appropriate clubs, say the appropriate things, and absolutely not continue working for a man with Gideon Ferris’s particular kind of reputation.
Alister had been clear about that.
Kyle had needed him.
That was how all of it began.
My brother’s biotech startup had collapsed 18 months earlier.
A promising concept.
A catastrophic Series B.
A pile of investor obligations that would have taken him a decade to crawl out from under.
Alister Pemberton had appeared the way certain men do, with a solution already prepared.
He had paid off $280,000 in outstanding obligations.
He had asked for 1 thing in return.
I had said yes because Kyle was my brother.
Because I had not seen another option.
Because I had spent 5 years talking myself out of wanting something I could never have.
And because maybe some part of me had decided this was what practical looked like.
This was what you chose when the thing you actually wanted would never be on the table.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Emery.”
Gideon’s voice was just outside.
“It’s been 20 minutes.”
20 minutes.
I had not noticed.
“Everything fits,” I called. “I’ll just be—”
“Can I see it?”
The question landed so quietly that I almost missed it.
In 5 years, Gideon Ferris had never asked me anything personal.
He had never crossed the line we had both carefully maintained.
The line that made it possible to work side by side for 8, 10, sometimes 12 hours at a stretch without everything between us becoming unbearable.
“That’s probably not—”
“Probably not,” he agreed.
Then, after a beat,
“I’m asking anyway.”
I opened the door.
He stood in the hallway with 1 hand braced against the frame.
At some point, he had put his jacket back on.
When he saw me, his expression became something I had no name for.
Not in any professional vocabulary I had ever developed.
He went completely still.
Not the controlled stillness he used in negotiations.
Something else.
Something that, for just a moment, looked like a man who had stopped being careful about something very important.
“Well?” I asked.
My voice came out smaller than I intended.
“What do you think?”
He did not answer immediately.
He looked at me the way I had sometimes felt him looking at me in my peripheral vision.
Steady.
Complete.
More than I knew what to do with.
“Don’t go with him.”
3 words.
For a moment, I thought I had heard him incorrectly.
“I’m sorry?”
“Saturday.”
Gideon’s jaw was tight.
“Don’t go to the Hartwell Gala with Alister Pemberton.”
“Mr. Ferris—”
“Don’t marry him either, while we’re having this conversation.”
He said it quietly.
That somehow made it worse.
Or better.
I could no longer tell.
I stared at him.
“You can’t just—”
“I know.”
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He turned away and dragged 1 hand through his hair.
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