Chapter 5 : Welcome Home

*Miles*

There were very few things that I enjoyed in life. But getting under my wife’s skin had to be one of my new favorites. I liked watching her get flustered. Her cheeks turned the most adorable pink as she bit down on her lip nervously.

“Sorry?” Her voice went up about an octave higher.

“Are you single, Dove?” I pressed, loving just how flustered she got.

“I…um…” she responded, lifting her left hand to show me the ring that I was dying to get a closer look at. “Married…me…I have husband—man. I mean, I have a husband. Yep, that I do. A whole husband is what I have.”

She turned to her friend for help but her friend was far too busy trying to work out what the hell was going on.

Poor Dove.

“He’s a lucky man.”

“Oh yeah.” She laughed awkwardly. “So about going deeper—I mean the questions going deeper. Oh, my God, my foot is in my mouth today. Tell us about your upbringing?”

Hmm, I knew this one would come up and I still didn’t want to talk about it. My past was exactly that—my past. I had no interest in digging deep into my trauma or awakening old ghosts.

“There is not much to tell. My grandparents took me and my two brothers in when our parents died and my grandfather groomed us in the family business. We learned all there was to know about MSG. We worked at every level and made sure that we understood why we did exactly what we did.”

“That must have been inspiring.”

“That must have been hard.”

Dove’s response was the one that had gotten me. Most people would have responded the way Amy had and called all of that bullshit inspiring.

It was the farthest thing from that.

I make a lot of money now because I was taught to—I was groomed to. This was the path that was laid out for not only me but my brothers as well. I wasn’t meant to be the one to take over but I had been the chosen one.

Huh. Chosen one my ass.

“It was hard. I had a lot of my youth robbed from me.” I stared into those caramel eyes of hers. “What about you, Dove?”

“What about me?” She shifted nervously in her seat.

“What was your upbringing like?”

“Oh, it was fine, I guess. I…I mean it wasn’t perfect but I didn’t have like a bad life if that is what you mean. I love my life actually—well, with my mom that is.”

“I see.” There was something in her tone that told me that there was more to the story than she was letting on to but I didn’t want to push her. In time I would learn more of her. Seeing as she was my wife now.

“And your husband?” I was truly being a menace now.

Dove cleared her throat and shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “I think this is meant to be an interview for you, Mr. Scott. Not me. How about we not talk about me anymore and just focus on you.”

“Fair enough.” I held my hands up. “What else would you like to know?”

“Are you close with your bothers?” Amy said after having watched from the sidelines for far too long. “I believe you have two of them, and you are the youngest?”

I nodded my head. “They’re my brothers, so it’s an unspoken rule that I have to love them. Are they likeable? Yes. But do they get on my nerves? Yes.”

“And why was it you who took over the company and not one of them?”

“It was forced upon me.” The answer was blunt but true. “I didn’t have a choice. Both my brothers were fuck ups who could not handle the pressure of corporate life so it was then placed upon me to take the helm of this ship. Would it have been my first choice? No.”

Dove tilted her head to the side and stared into my eyes. I could see the questions swimming in her mind.

“So what would you have done? What would have made you happy?”

“I don’t know.” Amy had asked me the question but I was looking right at Dove. Her eyes held mine in a stare down, neither one of us wanting to break. “And you, Dove?”

“Me what?” she said in an almost dreamlike state.

“Are you doing what makes you happy?”

The tension between us was palpable. I could quite literally taste the sex in the air.

She was an attractive woman, I would give her that, but she was not mine to have. She was only mine for the moment. She would be a simple memory after all was said and done with this deal with my grandfather.

“I am,” she gulped. “I love what I do.”

“Interesting.”

We continued on with the interview as normal but I could not shake this sensation that travelled through me just then. There was something about this woman that was…intriguing but also dangerous. I needed to be weary of getting too close.

“Before you both leave I have a little surprise.” I pressed a button on my telephone and a few seconds later, in walked my assistant Jennifer. She handed them each their own little gift bags and stood to the side.

Jennifer knew of the plan; she had been the one to help me devise it. But I could tell that she didn’t like my choice of bride but it was not up to her. This was about me and my inheritance.

I watched the way Dove’s eyes followed Jen. There was something behind that gaze of hers. Something a little fiery.

From the time I had known her, I had studied her character carefully. I needed to know more about the woman I was going to make my wife.

There had been many candidates before her and each had paled in comparison to what she could bring me. Grandfather would smell a rat from a mile away and all the other women had been superficial. I needed more than that. I needed something that could appeal to my grandfather’s softer side and she would do just that.

“Oh, you really didn’t need to.” Amy was trying to play shy but I knew a materialistic woman when I saw one. “Oh wow, a pen?”

Jennifer gave Amy the stink eye to which I gave her a stern look.

“Yes, it’s infused with real gold.”

“Oh really?” That perked her up.

I could not fault the woman for liking nice things. At first, when I had been watching Dove, I didn’t care much for Amy. I had previously thought that Dove could do so much better in terms of friends. But after having dug a little deeper and seen the way she interacted with Dove I realized that this was exactly what she needed. She was not a pushover and she protected Dove ferociously like a mother would her cub. She and Sabrina.

“And Dove?”

“Hmm?”

I looked down at the bag in her hand and then back to her eyes.

“Oh, yes, the gift. Well, I was going to open this a little bit later when I’m alone. Besides, it is just a pen.”

I smiled. “No, yours is different.”

I had been wondering how I would do this. I had initially just wanted to hand it to her but there was no fun in that. I loved making her all flustered. The pink tint on her cheeks always managed to make me smile a little.

She was adorable.

I had never used that term on someone before but that was the only way that I could describe Dove. Her heart was too pure for this world and much too good for these calloused hands of mine which was why I was adamant about protecting her from all that I could.

“Open and let’s see, D,” Amy pressed her friend who likely wanted to see if her gift far outweighed hers.

It did.

“Okay,” she relented and began digging into her bag. “Let’s see what we have here. It’s a—what the fuck?”

The sides of my lips tilted upward into a small smile.

The exact reaction I was looking at.

“A key?” Amy looked very confused while her friend looked mortified.

“Yes, a key.”

“To what?” I could see the wheels turning in that head of hers. She knew that there was something between me and her friend but she just wasn’t sure what it was.

Come on, Amy.

“Our house.” I gestured between me and Dove.

Both women looked at me, shock written across their features.

“Your house? As in your house with Dove? The woman you just met today. You two share a house?” Amy asked, looking between me and Dove.

“Penthouse, but yes. Doesn’t every husband and wife?”

Amy’s head snapped to look at her friend, eyes wide, and mouth slack.

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

Looks like the secret was finally out.