Bride by Default のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

(Adrian)The gentle version undid her.I should have known it wouldn’t stay gentle for long.She was still angry. I could feel it in the kiss: wanting someone you're not finished being furious at. I understood it completely. I was feeling exactly the same thing.She had called me two people. She wasn't wrong. But she'd forgotten to count herself.The anger in Sienna's kiss quickly turned into a storm that consumed me. Her legs wrapped around my waist and I could feel her, hot and wet, through the thin fabric of her bikini bottoms.The ones that perfectly framed that pert ass I had pretended to not stare a all morning.The feel of her wetness sent a jolt of electricity through me.I ground against her, my hands gripping that ass, pulling her closer, needing more. She broke away from the kiss, her grey-green eyes blazing with a fire that mirrored my own.She didn't say a word, just reached between us and pulled down my shorts.I groaned as my cock sprang free, hard and aching.I carried

(Sienna)The briefing document was fourteen pages.I read it twice before six in the morning, standing at the kitchen counter in Adrian's penthouse with coffee I hadn't tasted and the particular focus that arrived when something stopped being background noise and became a direct problem.Page nine.Formal notification received: observer seat requested by registered entity Meridian Capital Holdings, citing accumulated position of 11.2% in Hartwell-linked securities.I set the mug down.They weren't circling anymore. They were stepping inside.An observer seat meant a body in the room. Eyes on the board. Access to information that, until now, had stayed inside carefully managed walls. It wasn't a hostile takeover. It was something more precise: a wedge, inserted quietly, at exactly the point where the merger structure was still soft.Someone had timed this well.Someone had timed this from the beginning.***The strategy session was already running when I walked in.Adrian at the head o

(Sienna)The merger wasn’t finalised. But the control structure was already shifting.That was the first thing Maya said after I finished walking her through the parts that hadn’t sat right in my head.We were still in the same coffee shop, her laptop open between us, the remains of two creamed sconces by our elbows while afternoon traffic moved past the window with the indifference of a city that did not care if your life had just become a mechanism in someone else’s strategy.I had been someone else's mechanism before, or so it was beginning to feel. The difference was I was only now starting to understand whose.“Give it to me again,” Maya asked.“Swift is the acquiring entity,” I said, tapping one of the documents I’d pulled up. “Hartwell’s still legally separate, but operational oversight during integration has already started transferring. Which means if Hartwell starts shaking, Swift feels it immediately.”“So the observer request goes to Swift.”“Because Swift is the one tryin

(Sienna)The apartment was quiet when I got back.Adrian was at the window, jacket off, sleeves rolled, a glass in his hand he hadn't touched. The city stretched out beyond him in gold and movement.Someone had left dinner out. Two covered dishes, wine breathing beside them, cutlery laid with intention.He turned when he heard me. His eyes went straight to my face and stayed there."You're late," he said. An observation, delivered without edge."I had something to follow up.""I assumed as much."That made me pause."You found something in that meeting," he said. “Will you trust me with it?”It was a loaded question. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to skirt around it yet.I set my bag down. Then I moved to the counter, lifted the lid off one of the dishes more for something do that would hide my expression while I sorted my thoughts than out of interest in what was underneath.Steam curled up, fragrant and soft. Something slow-cooked.I reached for a plate. He watched me for a sec

(Sienna)I woke to voices.Low, controlled, professional. The kind that didn't carry panic because panic wasn't part of the brief.Adrian's side of the bed was empty and cold. He'd been up for a while.I pulled on the robe hanging behind the bathroom door and moved toward the sound.The living room had transformed. Three men I didn't recognise were working with quiet efficiency, brandishing handheld scanning equipment and earpieces. They moved in a way that suggested they'd done this before and found it unremarkable.Adrian stood near the window in yesterday's shirt, sleeves already rolled, phone in hand, watching without watching. Taking in the room like he wanted it to spit out answers.He turned when he heard me.Something in his expression shifted. Not relief exactly. Something more controlled than relief."Go back to bed," he said quietly."No."He looked at me for a beat. Then he let it go, which told me the situation was serious enough that managing me was low on his priority l