“Marcello’s. Smart.” Miles’s green eyes widen with delight as he spies the paper bag in my hand. I stopped by Henry’s favorite sandwich shop on my way in and the guy behind the counter ran it out to the car. More sage advice from Raj.

I hope so. I’ve never surprised Henry at work before, and he’s not a big fan of people hijacking his calendar. I follow Miles into the elevator.

Miles waves his key card against the pad, hits the top-floor button, then flops back with an exhale. “I am so glad to see you.”

I smile despite my worries. Henry hired his lanky male assistant after our breakup midsummer when I transferred to Outdoor Crew and he left Wolf Cove. It was a smart move, given his history with female assistants. I can’t lie and say I wouldn’t have been insanely jealous had he replaced me with another. “Is he still being weird?”

Miles pushes a hand through his curly mop of brown hair. “I spilled a folder full of paperwork in his office, and he helped me pick it all up without a word.”

I burst out with laughter. “So, what you’re saying is he’s not his usual asshole self.”

“Exactly. But don’t tell him I said that.” His gaze flickers to my finger. “It fits.”

“It does.” I hold out my hand to admire the ring that apparently Henry sized on me one night while I was sleeping. Another sign that his proposal wasn’t hasty. But wait … “You knew he was going to propose?”

He grins. “Who do you think was fielding all the calls between the jeweler?”

“And you didn’t warn me?” I give him a playful shove.

“He threatened to have my balls chopped off if it got out.”

I picture Henry delivering on that threat. I’m sure it sounded convincing. “He was only kidding. He doesn’t do that sort of thing.” I pause for effect. “Dyson, however …”

Miles blinks rapidly. The lawyer and general fix-it guy may be intimidating but he hasn’t maimed anyone as far as I know.

The elevator doors open, and Miles leads me down the main hall of the executive floor, lined with assistants’ desks and private offices screened by frosted glass. It’s simple and clean and quiet, save for the tapping on keys and the odd ringing phone.

“I said don’t approve that!” a man yells from behind one of those doors.

“That’s Sunjit. He’s always yelling at someone on the phone,” Miles says.

“Fun.” Outside Sunjit’s office, his middle-aged brunette assistant sits at her desk, staring over her glasses at me. In fact, they’re all watching. Suddenly, I feel eyes crawling over me from every direction.

“Does everyone know?” I whisper.

“That the big boss is marrying his twenty-one-year-old ex-assistant who he met this summer? What do you think?”

My cheeks flush. Are they saying the same things that reporter alluded to? Is there a tally running for how long before Henry recovers from his near-death shock and dumps me?

I keep my focus ahead, lifting my chin slightly. It doesn’t matter what any of them say. Henry and I love each other. That’s all that matters. Besides, I may be twenty-one, but he just turned thirty-two, not fifty.

We pass a door with the name Scott Wolf etched into it and I stifle a shudder. The assistant’s desk outside sits empty.

“Have you been to Henry’s new office?” Miles asks.

“Not yet.” William Wolf kept it for himself right up until his death.

“That’s it there.” Miles gestures toward the heavy glazed doors ahead. “I would knock first. He doesn’t like being barged in on.”

“Yes, I remember.” Hotel staff weren’t even allowed in the penthouse cabin at Wolf Cove, but that’s because he was also living there. My knuckles clunk against the glass.

“Come in,” comes the deep voice.

I ease open the door and step through, my stomach fluttering with a mix of nerves and excitement over seeing Henry again. I hope this never goes away.

Inside is nothing short of opulence. I expected a grand office for the man behind all of Wolf, but this is outrageous. It may as well be an apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows reaching two stories high close off the far side, showcasing the city’s skyline beyond. To the left is a sunken living room area with plush caramel leather furniture and lamps. Behind it is a mahogany and chrome bar with crystal decanters. Henry’s posh scotch collection.

Opposite the seating area is a wall of bookshelves filled with spines and, in front of that, a desk large enough to accommodate four guests on one side.

My heartbeat quickens at the sight of Henry slouched in his chair, a pen perched between his lips, his attention locked on something beyond the window.

Oblivious to me, though he granted me permission to enter.

“Henry?” I call out tentatively.

He snaps out of his daze, spinning his revolving chair toward me. “Abbi, what are you doing here?” He frowns. “Is something wrong?”

I hold up the brown bag. “I brought your favorite for lunch.”

His eyes drift over the simple black tunic dress and heels I threw on after thirty minutes of questioning how Henry Wolf’s future wife should dress for a visit to his office. “Thank you,” he offers quietly.

“You’re welcome.” I have an overwhelming urge to touch Henry, to feel his body against mine. To know that whatever inner turmoil he’s facing, it has nothing to do with our future. And if these past few months have taught me anything about Henry, it’s how to get answers out of him without asking.

“Nice digs.” I close the distance, setting the lunch bag aside.

“It’s my father’s taste. I’ll have to update it at some point when I have time.”

I round the desk and perch myself on it, next to him. Toeing off my heels, I rest my feet on his chair between his splayed thighs.

“My fiancée sitting on my desk isn’t the most professional start to my week.”

My heart swells at the label. He wouldn’t use that so freely if he was regretting it, would he? “And you’re all about professionalism.”

“Always.” He traces his bottom lip with his index finger as he studies the sheer black pantyhose I tugged on at the last minute. “I seem to recall a certain assistant despising nylons so much that she peeled them off and flung them across my cabin halfway through her shift.”

“Yes, but these are way more comfortable.” I hike up the hem of my dress, enough to show off the lace elastic band holding the thigh-highs up but also to give him a glimpse beneath, to the fact that I skipped panties for my visit here.

His sharp inhale fills the room, but he doesn’t make a move. “As pleasant as this surprise is, why are you here, Abbi?”

Miles is right. Something is seriously off with him today. “I needed to see you.”

He hums to himself. “Did Miles call you in a panic to tell you he’s worried about me?”

“Why would he do that?” I press my lips together to hide the truth. I don’t want him getting into trouble for reporting to me on Henry’s mental health.

Henry smirks. “Because I can’t seem to focus on anything today.”

Focusing is something Henry excels at, even under extreme stress. I scramble for an explanation. “Maybe you have a concussion?” The scrape on his forehead is minor and the doctor at Wolf Cove cleared him, but sometimes these things take a few days to reveal themselves.

“No, that’s not it.” He looks around aimlessly. “I nearly died a few days ago.”

“Yeah, I remember.” The worst, longest twenty-four hours of my life, waiting for an answer from the search teams. I smooth my foot along his thigh for comfort.

“And now I’m back here, dealing with this”—he casts a hand toward a stack of reports—“juggling a million decisions as if it never happened.”

“You didn’t have to come back so soon. You’re the boss. You can take time off.”

“I wish that were true. But everything is in turmoil. This shit my brother pulled is costing us millions to fix.”

I don’t know the first thing about what he’s up against. “But you don’t have to do it all on your own. That’s why you have this floor of executives to handle the work. Get Sunjit on it. He’ll yell at anyone you want him to.”

Henry snorts. “They’re all swamped with their own jobs. I need new people. I fired Scott’s entire team.”

“All of them?”

“Everyone at the management level. If they missed what he was doing, I can’t rely on them. If they didn’t miss it, I can’t trust them. HR is scrambling to promote who they can and recruit for the rest, but I need someone competent to run the entire metals business. I don’t know it. My father knew it, Scott knew it, but I never put effort into it. I was always focused on the hotels.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It felt more manageable before, when my father was around, as much of a pain in the ass as he was. Now it’s just me.” His eyes wander out the window again. “And is it even worth it anymore? Is this how I want to spend the next however many years of my life?”

This was not what I was expecting when I decided to come here today. “I think this is what they call an existential crisis.”

He barks out a bitter laugh. “That, or a good old-fashioned midlife crisis.”

“You’re only thirty-two. You still have all your hair.” A lush, thick mane that my fingers are itching to crawl through.

“Yeah …” He doesn’t sound convinced. “I keep thinking about that girl that showed up last night.”

“Violet?”

“What if she is Scott’s?”

“Then you have a niece?” I shrug. “That’s kind of nice.” Though the girl seemed terrified of him. Who knows what Scott’s told her.

“She’s not Wolf blood.”

Because Scott was the product of his mother’s affair with William Wolf’s accountant. “But she’s still blood.”

His lips twist and when he speaks, it’s in a quiet, forlorn tone. “I’m all that’s left of my bloodline, Abbi.”

That knot in my stomach flares. Henry is feeling the weight of his family’s absence, as Luca suggested. I reach down to collect his hand from its resting spot on my knee and squeeze. “For now, yeah. Not forever. We can make as many little Wolfs as you want.” We’ve already talked about having children—enough to know that we both want them—but we’ve never delved into the specifics. When do we start? How many do we want?

A pensive look flickers through his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything. With a heavy sigh, as if dismissing that line of thought, he asks, “So, what have you been up to all morning?”

“Oh, you know … Dodging a reporter’s call, letting my mother plan our wedding.”

“What reporter?” Henry’s voice turns hard.

“Some guy named Luca from the Tribune. He was asking me questions about Wolf Cove and when our relationship started.” I falter. “And he asked about Ronan and Michael.”

His jaw clenches. “If those fuckers are selling stories—”

“Ronan’s not.” I messaged him immediately after I got off the phone with Miles, and he had no idea what I was talking about. I believe him. “And a few people knew I was there that night with Michael. It could have been one of them.” Or someone they told. It’s impossible to pinpoint. Gossip in the Wolf Cove staff quarters spreads like an army of ants after its hill has been kicked.

Henry knows this as well as I do. “Unknown number?”

“Yeah. I didn’t answer any of his questions, but I have a bad feeling.”

“Deny everything. It’s none of anyone’s fucking business. Luca what?”

“Just Luca.”

Henry scribbles down the name. “We’ll get you a new number today. Don’t give it out to anyone but close family and friends. People you know you can trust.”

“Okay. Thank you. Speaking of family …” I steel my shoulders. “We’re going to Greenbank for dinner on Saturday.”

His eyebrow arches. “Are you asking me?”

“No. I’m not.” I’ve never had the nerve to make plans for Henry without his okay, and by the hint of annoyance in his tone, he’s not too keen on it. “It’s sort of an engagement celebration.”

“Will I be setting up picnic tables and fending off frisky church ladies?”

Clearly, he’s still clinging to memories of Daddy’s homecoming party and all the hens flocking around him. “No, and to be fair, you weren’t invited. You crashed that party.”

He pushes the hem of my dress upward a few more inches. “If I recall, it was worth it.”

My cheeks flush. That’s the night Henry fucked me on a hay bale. That’s also the night Jed caught us mid-act and then ran off to Mama to tattle. “It’ll be us, Aunt May, and the Enderbeys, of course.” There’s no Saturday night dinner without them. I warned Mama that if she invited anyone else, we’d turn right around and head back to New York.

“Saturday night with Fuckface. Even better,” he grumbles.

“Jed’s not that bad.” Now that he’s given up on us getting back together.

“No, you’re right. We need to remember to thank him in our wedding speech for cheating on you.”

At least Henry is sounding more like himself and not that lost, forlorn man. “Whatever. Jed isn’t the problem, it’s Mama, and the best way to deal with her is face-to-face, with witnesses so she has to weigh her words before she says them out loud.” Mama has always been good about keeping her mask on when others are around.

“You’re really selling this to me.” Henry grins. “Should be fun.”

“It’s going to be painful. But if I don’t do this now, our wedding will be in a barn with my second cousins as bridesmaids, wearing gingham frocks, and I will be miserable by the time next spring comes. Please, Henry.”

“Relax. Of course, we’ll go. It’s your family, and it’s the right thing to do.”

“Thank you.”

He squeezes my thighs before leaning back in his seat, collecting my foot. “What are gingham frocks?”

I revel in the feel of his thumbs working over my heel. “Remember that dress Celeste Enderbey made for Daddy’s homecoming?”

“The one from the set of Little House on the Prairie that I ripped off you?”

“Exactly.”

“I hated that thing.”

“Well, now imagine it made with a picnic tablecloth.”

He cringes.

“Right? Nothing I want my bridesmaids in.”

“Not even second cousins?”

“Ugh! They are not my bridesmaids!” As awkward as having that conversation will be, seeing as Mama’s already asked them.

He switches to kneading my other foot. “Who will you ask, then?”

I hesitate. “I was thinking about Margo. Is that crazy?”

A soft smile touches Henry’s lips. “No. I think that’s a great idea.”

“So do I.” Despite Henry’s—and my—past with her, in the short time that I’ve known her, she has become a friend like no other. She dropped everything and flew up to Alaska to comfort me during the worst ordeal of my life. If that isn’t a grand gesture of true friendship, I don’t know what is.

“Who else?”

“Autumn.” We text almost every day now.

“The concierge?”

“And my roommate.” I pause, unsure if I should broach it. “And I was thinking Ronan?”

Henry’s hands stop his ministrations as he glares at me. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Maybe?” I bite my bottom lip. “Would it be that bad, though? He is one of my best friends. And he helped save your life.”

Henry’s jaw clenches as if he doesn’t want to be reminded of that.

“I trust him like no one else. Except you, of course.”

Henry sighs with exasperation, the pressure returning to my feet with renewed force. “Only if he wears the picnic tablecloth.”

I giggle. “Come on … of everything we’ve asked him to do, having him in our wedding party is what you’d take issue with?”

The corner of his mouth kicks up. “Let me think about it.”

“Okay.” I pause. “What about you? Who are you going to ask?” Even if Scott were alive, he wouldn’t be welcome at the wedding, let alone invited to stand next to Henry at the ceremony.

He frowns. “Why did you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t have any friends.”

“You mean besides female models you’ve slept with?” Henry has business associates, guys he golfs with while discussing investment opportunities and takeover strategies. I have never—not once—heard him talk about a friend.

“I have male friends, too, Abbi. Several very good ones that I’ve kept since boarding school.”

“Really?”

He smirks. “I’m not the loner you obviously think I am.”

“I never thought you were a loner. A workaholic with intimacy issues, yes—ow!” I squeal as he pinches my pinky toe. “Why haven’t I met any of them?” Why hasn’t he even mentioned one?

“They live all over the world.”

“Didn’t they come to your father’s funeral?” Isn’t that what good friends do?

“Preston was there, briefly. He flew in from London and left the same day. It wasn’t the right time to introduce you two, though. Warner and Merrick were in the Australian outback on an expedition. They wouldn’t have been able to make it back in time, anyway, but I told them not to cut their vacation short.”

Henry is marrying a woman and he’s never introduced her to his friends for their seal of approval? Isn’t that like a rite of passage? All this proves is that I still have so much to learn about my future husband. “Tell me about them.”

Henry rolls his chair closer. “What do you want to know?”

I shrug as I nudge my free foot into the crevice between his legs, feeling the weight of his balls against my toes. “Anything.”

“Anything. Let’s see … Preston is a Brit. He lives in London and runs a two hundred-billion-dollar hedge fund firm—”

“Wow,” I mouth. I have no idea what a hedge fund firm does, but the dollar figure is impressive.

“Don’t say that to him. His head is already too big for his shoulders. Warner’s from Spain, but he currently lives in Dubai, building skyscrapers and chasing after married women.”

I wince. “That’s … not charming.”

“No, and he’s going to pay for it eventually. He wants what he can’t have. Though to be fair, he usually gets what he shouldn’t be able to have. He’s a bit of a rake, but he has always been a good friend to me.” He gives my calf a playful squeeze. “Merrick is … Merrick. He’s not the easiest guy to get close to, but once you do, count yourself lucky. He’s always had my back, no questions asked.”

“Where does he live?”

“California, but he’s been in Vegas for a while, opening a new hotel and casino.”

“That’s not far away. You could have made time for him.” And Merrick could have made time for Henry. Alaska is a straight flight north.

Henry’s brow furrows. “Yeah, he’s been busy with family shit.”

“So, basically your friends are like you.” Filthy rich, complicated men who sleep around.

“Nobody’s like me, babe.” Humor dances in his voice.

“True.” I giggle. “Are any of them married? Besides Warner, obviously.”

“No wives, no kids. No commitments beyond work.”

Which means a lot of fuck buddies. I hum with disappointment. It would have been nice to have wives or girlfriends to connect with. “What do they think about you getting married?”

“I doubt they know yet. They’re too busy to follow gossip headlines. But, don’t worry, they’re going to love you.” His gaze drifts over my chest, but his hands remain where they are.

Will they approve of Henry settling down, though? “I’d like to meet them before the wedding if that’s possible.”

“It is. They’ll be in town at the end of the month for an annual event we always attend together. I meant to tell you about it.”

End of this month? “For Halloween?”

“You could say that.” Henry’s lips twist in thought. “It’s not the best place to meet them though. It’s loud and busy. And there’s a lot going on. Why don’t we invite everyone to our place for dinner beforehand?”

“Like a dinner party?”

He smiles. “Sure, call it whatever you want.”

A strange mix of excitement and nerves swirls through me. I don’t know any of these guys, but if they’re like Henry, they don’t just order pizza. “What would this involve exactly?”

“Not picnic tables and potluck.”

I laugh. “Hey, there is nothing wrong with a good potluck.” I lift my toe, making his entire body jolt.

He grabs my foot, shifting it away from that sensitive area. “If you’re on a farm in Greenbank with two hundred of your closest church friends, sure. Not with this crew. Hire someone. Get Raj to help you. He used to work in catering, so he knows the right people.”

I can’t contain my grin. Our first dinner party as a couple. “Okay. Yeah … this is a great idea.”

“You know what else is a great idea?” His strong hands slide up the backs of my legs as he pushes my thighs apart. His eyes flare as they take in my bare flesh. “You bringing my favorite meal.”

My head falls back with a moan at the first swipe of his tongue.