You Wanted Me as Your Mistress, So I Became His Bride

NORA'S POV

Halewood House had taken eighteen months to bring back from the dead.

I knew every inch of it. The plaster medallions a family of artisans from Vermont had recast by hand, the staircase rail we'd stripped down to the original walnut, the stained glass in the east hall that a seventy-year-old craftsman named Walt Pruitt had rebuilt piece by piece from photographs.

Tonight, Walt stood beside me in a rented tux, tugging at his collar.

"I feel like a fraud in this thing," he muttered.

"You rebuilt that window from a 1922 postcard," I said. "You're the least fraudulent person in this room."

He laughed, and I was steering him and two of the plaster crew toward the bar when I heard a voice I'd have known anywhere.

"Excuse me. You."

Vivian Caldwell stood near the fireplace in gray silk, Nathan on one side and Sloane on the other. Sloane's ring caught the chandelier light every time she moved her hand, which was often.

Vivian held out an empty champagne flute toward me without really looking at my face. Then she did look, and her mouth curved.

"Nora. Of course. I should have guessed you'd end up working events." She pushed the glass closer. "Since you're staff tonight, make yourself useful. We need seats at the main table, somewhere near Arthur Bennett. Nathan's firm is pitching for the harbor project, and I'd like him to have a real conversation, not a handshake in a hallway."

Walt glanced at me, then at the glass.

I didn't take it. I lifted two fingers toward a passing server, a young guy named Marco who'd been on the catering team all week.

"Marco, would you get Mrs. Caldwell a fresh drink? Whatever she'd like."

"Of course, Ms. Lane."

Vivian's hand stayed out a second too long before she lowered it. Her eyes narrowed. "That's not what I asked you."

"I know," I said. "The seating is handled by the host's office."

---

Nathan stepped forward then, smiling the easy smile he used on clients. A small group had drifted closer, two developers from Nathan's circle and a woman from the historical society I'd met twice.

"Don't mind my mother," he told them. "Nora's my girlfriend. She's been buried in this project for months, so she's a little on edge tonight." He reached over and closed his hand around my wrist, the way he used to in crowded rooms, a quiet *stay next to me.* "Right, babe?"

The historical society woman smiled politely. One of the developers looked at Sloane's ring, then at Nathan's grip on me, and decided to study his drink.

I didn't pull away yet. I wanted everyone close enough to hear.

"No," I said. "I'm not your girlfriend, Nathan. We broke up three days ago, in front of your birthday guests. You were there."

His fingers tightened. "Nora."

"And since we're doing introductions." I looked past his shoulder.

Adrian was already crossing the room, a glass of sparkling water in one hand, people stepping aside for him without seeming to realize they were doing it. He stopped beside me.

"This is Adrian Vale," I said. "My fiancé."

The little group went quiet in the way people do when they're memorizing something to repeat later.

Sloane recovered first. She laughed, light and pretty. "Wow. Three days. That has to be some kind of record." She tilted her head at Adrian. "No offense, but she does move fast when there's money in the room."

Vivian set her hand on Adrian's sleeve as if they were old friends. "Mr. Vale, I say this as someone who knows her. Be careful. She's a perfectly sweet girl from nowhere in particular, and she spent years attached to my son for a reason. Don't let a pretty face make your decisions for you."

Adrian looked down at her hand until she removed it.

He didn't explain me. He didn't say *you're wrong about her family.* He turned to Nathan.

"You're holding her wrist," he said evenly. "She didn't ask you to. Take your hand off her."

Nathan's grip didn't move. "This is between me and Nora."

"Then she can tell you to stay." Adrian waited. "I don't hear her doing that."

The developers had stopped pretending not to listen. Nathan's face went red along the jaw, and he dropped my wrist like it had burned him.

I rubbed the spot once and said nothing. Adrian didn't ask if I was okay. He just shifted half a step closer, enough that his shoulder was near mine.

---

"Nora, sweetheart. There you are."

My grandfather came through the crowd in his old navy blazer, his cane tapping on the floor Walt's crew had refinished. Vivian's whole posture changed. She straightened, smiled, and stepped toward him with her hand already out.

"Arthur. What a beautiful evening. I was hoping—"

"Good to see you, Vivian." He shook her hand briefly and moved past her to put an arm around my shoulders. He turned to the small crowd, which had grown, because people always gather near Arthur Bennett.

"I don't think everyone's met my granddaughter properly," he said. "Nora Lane. My daughter's girl. As of this month, she's the controlling shareholder of Whitmore Estates, and this house is hers in every way that counts. She ran the Halewood restoration from the first drawing to the last nail."

Nobody said anything for a moment. Sloane's hand, mid-gesture, froze with the ring still turned toward the light.

Nathan opened his mouth.

"Nora," my grandfather went on, before he could get a word out, "the craftsmen have been waiting all night. I think the thank-yous should come from you."

He handed me the microphone someone from the events team had brought over.

I walked to the foot of the staircase. The crowd followed, the same people who'd been laughing at Nathan's jokes ten minutes ago, now turning their backs on the fireplace to face me.

"Thank you all for coming," I said. "Before anything else, I want you to know whose hands are in these walls." I pointed out Walt, the plaster crew, the stonemasons, the woman who'd matched the original wallpaper from a scrap found behind a radiator. Each name got applause. Walt turned pink to the ears.

When I finished, the dinner bell rang.

The main table sat beneath the restored chandelier, the one Vivian had wanted to get near so badly. The place card at the head read *Nora Lane.* The card beside it read *Adrian Vale.*

Adrian pulled out my chair. Across the room, the Caldwells were being led to table nine.

---

Nathan found me between the main course and dessert, crouching beside my chair like a guest saying a quick hello.

"Can we talk alone? Five minutes."

"We can talk here."

His voice dropped. "You never told me any of this. Six years, Nora. You let me think—"

"I let you think I was enough without it," I said. "You didn't need to know. Now listen, because I'm only going to say this once. If Caldwell-Cross wants to bid on the harbor project, submit it through the normal process like every other firm. It'll be reviewed fairly."

Relief flickered across his face.

"But you don't speak for me," I continued. "Not to my grandfather, not to my board, not to anyone in this room. You don't call me *babe*, you don't put your hand on me, and you don't let one person think there's anything between us. If I hear otherwise, I'll put the misrepresentation before the bid review committee."

He stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. Maybe he hadn't.

The quartet shifted into a waltz. The lights over the dance floor warmed.

Nathan stood up fast and held out his hand to me, loud enough for the nearby tables. "One dance. For old times."

Adrian rose too, but he didn't reach past Nathan or crowd him. He stopped a step away and offered his hand, palm up, and simply waited.

Two hands. Every eye at the head table on me.

I stood, walked past Nathan, and set my hand in Adrian's.

His fingers closed around mine, warm and sure. As he led me toward the floor, he bent his head close.

"There are a lot of reporters here tonight," he said quietly. "If you want, we can tell them after this dance. Officially. Or we wait. Your call."

Behind us, I heard a chair scrape hard against the floor.

"Tonight," I said. "Let's tell them tonight."

Adrian's hand settled at my back, and the music swept us into the center of the room, while somewhere behind me Vivian Caldwell's voice rose, sharp and shaking, saying my name.