All Chapters of Resisting my father’s best friend : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

The terrace of my father’s Hamptons estate glittered with string lights and the kind of effortless wealth that never needed to announce itself. Two years. I had been gone for two years, and yet nothing had changed, it was the same elegant crowd, snobbish as always and looking for the latest gossip on whose husband was sleeping with who.Everything was exactly the same, except me.“Bella! Oh my God, you’re finally here!” Lily Chen rushed to my side in a flash of crimson, her dark eyes sparkling, she pulled me into a fierce hug. “Two years is too long. I’ve had to endure your father’s parties without you, and do you know how boring these people are when you’re not here to mock them with me?”I laughed, some of the tension in my shoulders easing. “I’ve missed you too.”“How was London? Did you become impossibly sophisticated? Should I curtsy?” She stepped back, looking at me with the scrutiny of someone who had known me since freshman year at Columbia. “You look… different.”“Older,” I s

Chapter ThreeDay two of pitch prep, and I was drowning in research.The Martinez Architecture office was silent except for the hum of air conditioning and the occasional car horn from the street below. Everyone else had gone home hours ago,it was past midnight, the city lights glittering through the floor to ceiling windows like scattered diamonds.I’d been at this since dawn, and my eyes felt like sandpaper. The conference table in front of me was buried under blueprints, historical documents, renovation case studies, coffee cups in various stages of abandonment. I’d read everything I could find about Ashford Tower, studied every detail of its Art Deco glory, analyzed Marcus’s previous projects to anticipate his approach.He’d go modern. Sleek. Minimalist. All about efficiency and maximizing rentable square footage. I’d stake my degree on it.Which meant I needed to go the opposite direction.I turned back to the original 1929 blueprints, spreading them across the table under the ha

The necklace felt like a brand against my skin as I stood outside Dominic’s penthouse at eight fifty seven. Three minutes early, but I couldn’t bring myself to knock yet. My reflection stared back at me from the polished brass of his door number, the Art Deco diamonds catching the hallway light, throwing tiny rainbows across my throat.I had changed clothes four times. Settled on a simple black dress that could pass for professional or personal depending on how you looked at it. My armor and my surrender all at once.At exactly nine, I knocked.The door opened almost immediately, like he had been waiting on the other side. Dominic stood there in dark slacks and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, no tie. He looked different without the full suit, more human somehow, but no less devastating.His eyes went straight to the necklace. Something dark and possessive flickered across his face before he locked it down.“You wore it,” he said quietly.“You told me to.”“I shouldn’t hav