His biggest business rival.
This wedding, their union, made it feel like pieces were finally fitting together. Like the pieces of his life had united into one smooth picture, the end of the plan in sight.
Everything he wanted. Everything he’d worked for, in his grasp at last. His reward for rigid control, for never deviating from the path since he’d first put his foot down on it.
But Rachel hadn’t seen things that way. Obviously.
He supposed, if he thought about it, it made sense. Rachel was passionate. About life, about everything. But she’d never been passionate with him. And she’d never been bothered by his reserve with her. He’d imagined she was responding to the way he was naturally. Now he wondered.
Still, pride wouldn’t see his plans come to fruition. They wouldn’t bring Rachel back, either. Refusing Leah was of no benefit to him. It simply wasn’t logical.
However, he had a hard time thinking of her as a wife. As the sort of woman he would share his life with, take to events, take to bed.
Leah was not the woman he’d imagined himself with. Not ever.
“Well, come on, Ajax, don’t keep a girl waiting like this,” she said, a small smile curving up the edge of her lips. As though she were unruffled. As though all of this was just an interesting diversion. He wondered when she’d become so calculating. When she’d traded in that sweetness for the hard, cutting edge of a businesswoman.
“I accept.” There was no logical reason not to. And above anything else, he was a man of logic. Emotion could never be allowed to rule. “I will make a call and have the seamstress come and fit Rachel’s dress to you.”
Leah’s cheeks turned pink, although her expression remained stone cold. “Could you cut a foot off the hem and add the fabric around the middle?”
She was exaggerating and yet, she had a point. Rachel was long and angular, while the top of Leah’s head came just below his shoulder. It could not be ignored; she was certainly a larger size than her sister. Though she wasn’t proportioned unattractively. Round in the appropriate places. He’d just never given it much thought.
“What size, then? I will order you a new one.”
“I’ll make a call,” she said, her cheeks still pink. “It will have to be off-the-rack, of course. We only have two hours, but it’s doable. All things considered, the fit of my dress will be the least scandalous thing about this wedding.”
“You are still a Holt heiress,” he said.
“Yes, we’re practically interchangeable. Except, clearly, for the dress size.”
“That is not what I meant. You are not interchangeable.” He gritted his teeth. “You are not Rachel.” Rachel, who, in his mind, was the embodiment of his perfect life. He’d imagined that when he reached this day, when he reached her, standing at the head of the aisle, his struggle, his fight to stay on the path, to stay in control, would be over. That he would finally have reached a destination instead of walking endlessly.
He’d never touched her, not beyond a casual kiss, but things between them had been understood, for the past six years. They hadn’t spent all of their time together, hadn’t acted as a couple. Rachel hadn’t wanted to feel tied down. She’d wanted to live her life. But he’d been confident that in the end she would come back to him.
He had been wrong. And he hated being wrong.
“I’m sorry about that. Not that I’m not her, but that she left. I am.”
“Of course you are. Now you’re stuck with me.”
She looked up at him, whiskey-colored eyes glittering. He didn’t know why she looked like she was about to cry. Because of the situation? Though she had been part of creating it, it wasn’t like he had asked for her to stand in. Or because of his comments? Either way, he didn’t like it.
Joseph Holt had become a mentor to him when he’d been a teenager, and his family had, in many ways, become his family. He would never do anything to hurt the Holt family. Ever.
“It is not too late to back out, Leah. I will not hold you to a rash statement made in the heat of an emotional moment.”
“It is all very emotional.”
“I meant for you.”
She blinked. “For you, as well. Do you feel nothing?”
“I feel—of course I do. But I do not make decisions based on emotion, which is why I’m prepared to marry you instead of Rachel. It’s logical.” It kept his plan going until he could shift things. Until he could get everything re-sorted in his mind. Planning kept him on point, in control, and control was everything.
He knew what happened when control was lost. Knew what happened when a man lived for feeling.
“Yes. Well, while the situation overall might be emotional, I didn’t offer out of a sense of emotion.”
“Holt is mine. By right. By promise. I’m not family by blood, but your father trained me for this.”
“I know. And I’ve worked too hard to elevate Leah’s Lollies to this position to see it mowed down in a firefight.”
He looked at Leah and wondered if he’d underestimated her. He knew she had a business mind, whereas Rachel most certainly put the social in socialite and had used the money her father had given her to become a silent partner in a few ventures that helped expand her web of personal connections.
It was one of the reasons Rachel had been such a valuable prospect for a wife. She did what he did not. She connected with people, made friends easily, and used charisma to make happen what she wanted to see done.
She was, in essence, the perfect accessory to his life. Leah on the other hand, was more focused on the business end. She would possibly want a hand in the decision making at Holt, which would be her right, since ownership was to be shared between him and his wife.
But then, he would get a stake in Leah’s Lollies, which, in spite of his line of questioning, he knew was quite successful. And with his assets? Mass production of her products was entirely possible.
In terms of how he would benefit, there was the chance it could be very profitable for him. As for Leah...it could be extremely profitable for her.
“What else do you know, Leah?” he asked.
“A lot. I see things. I know how much this means to you. I know you didn’t spend years working under my father to not end up as head of Holt.”
It was true. Joseph Holt had become his mentor when he’d been a sixteen-year-old boy with little schooling and no money, working on the grounds of the opulent Holt Estate in Rhodes. He’d only just left his father’s mansion, fled the island he’d grown up on, which was filled with so much corruption not even the police could help him. He’d been rooming with other teenagers who’d been disowned by their families, for varying reasons. Working. Paying rent. And he’d protected them all, because he’d known about the evil that was out there waiting.
They’d lived and worked like that until better jobs had taken
