The CEO And The Wedding Planner: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 201) Read online

  “About Mason Mackendale?”

  “What?” I say, a blush creeping into my cheeks despite myself. “Of course not. That was just a friendly conversation. I was networking, Gertrude, that’s all.”

  “Is that why you looked so smitten afterward, hmm?”

  “You’re evil,” I laugh, shaking my head and returning to my chair with a sigh. “Anyway, as if a man like Mason freaking Mackendale would be interested in me. It’s a silly thing to even think.”

  “And why’s that?” Gertrude says fiercely. “You’re intelligent, you’re beautiful, you’re fierce … need I go on?”

  I sigh, deciding to let the matter drop.

  When Mason was looming over me in the corridor, all six-foot-seven of him clad in his tight-fitting gym clothes, his stark blue eyes like shards of ice biting into me and his body hulking and seeming to pulse muscularly – with his silver peppered hair slicked to the side, and his clean-shaven jaw shaping his smirk – something crazy and ridiculous hammered through me.

  For a second as I breathed in the heat of him, I thought he was going to grab my shoulders and push me up against the wall.

  I imagined what it would feel like to have those pectorals pressed right up against me, solid and rock hard, pushing into me firmly, irrepressibly.

  I actually felt his rough lips all over my body, phantom sensations that caused extremely real tingles to dance over my skin.

  But he looked almost angry, his jaws tight, his eyes hard.

  Even as we bantered – it depends what you’re saying yes to – I sensed that I’d done something wrong.

  Somehow.

  Even if we’ve never met until now.

  “I never had children,” Gertrude says, pulling up a spare chair and sitting down next to me. “All these years spent planning weddings, and my dear Markus was taken from me before we got the chance to plan ours. And yes, maybe I’m just a silly old romantic for never moving on. But with you, Melody, working with you these past six months … it’s like finding the daughter I never had.”

  Tears prick my eyes as guilt swirls nastily through me.

  If she knew the truth, all of it, would she feel this way?

  Would she be able to say these loving, touching words?

  If she knew the danger I was putting her in just by being here, she might throw me to the curb and spit in my face.

  “I love you, Melody,” she whispers. “And any man would be lucky to have you.”

  “I love you, too,” I sob. “Thank you so much for everything.”

  She smiles and reaches across, smoothing my tears away with her thumb.

  A few days later, I’m riding the silent glass elevator up to the Spark offices again. Lately, Gertrude has been sending me to more and more client meetings alone, entrusting me with a responsibility that makes me feel intimidated, but also invigorated.

  I’ve never had time to even think about my passion in life, but the more I work with Gertrude, the more I think wedding planning might be it.

  I love the sense of reward I feel when I get to see a bride and groom happily married, confetti flying through the air and their smiles wide and beaming.

  I love the frantic pace of it, always keeping me on my toes as another bridezilla changes her entire plan at the last minute.

  I love having a purpose beyond simply surviving, and I love being there for Gertrude and making her proud.

  The Spark offices are extremely modern, with an open-plan design and so many windows it feels like we’re floating in the sky. I pass a beanbag area, a games room, a theater, and even a bowling alley as I try to remember my way to Natalie’s offices.

  I’m normally good with directions, but something about the run-in with Mason has thrown off my compass, and somehow I end up near the gym again.

  I check my phone, thankful that I gave myself an extra forty-five minutes.

  When I look up, I see a giant swaggering across the gym, his tight-fitted t-shirt soaked in sweat. The muscles in his back are rippling and as Mason leans down to pick up another weight disc, his shirt lifts up to reveal a slice of marble carved muscle.

  Everything about him is hard and unyielding, and I can’t help but stare like the biggest Peeping Tom in the world. My heart hammers in the back of my throat and my mouth goes dry as I watch him lie down on the bench and lift a ridiculous amount of weights from the brackets.

  Everybody talks about how Mason Mackendale doesn’t fit the usual mold of a so-called tech geek. He’s devastatingly handsome with his steel hair and his easy smirk. He’s as smart or smarter than every single one of his competitors, but with the aura of a hunting jaguar and the eyes of a man who’d break your heart.

  How many women does he have per month?

  The thought stabs unfairly into my mind.

  Women must throw themselves at his feet like sacrificial lambs, ready to do anything he commands them to, and it’s just self-torture for me to even indulge any silly thoughts.

  And yet as he grunts and grits his teeth, his shirt riding up higher to show an enticing slab of hard-packed belly muscle, my whole body tingles, and I wonder what it’d be like to stride in there and sit on his lap.

  Just sit on it like a confident woman, not like the shy girl circumstances have so often warped me into.

  Sit on him and drag my fingernails down his sweaty chest, grinding against him, make him moan and growl like he is now, but deeper, in pleasure this time.

  Mason finishes his set and then sits up, looking straight at me.

  I flinch and almost leap out of the way to hide.

  But it’s too late. I stare back at him and wonder if I should mouth the word sorry, but then that would be admitting that I was basically just ogling him.

  He smirks at me, his glistening blue eyes unreadable, and then swaggers over to the door and opens it.

  I turn to him, my nose filling with his sweaty, somehow alluring scent.

  It’s crazy, it makes no sense. But I feel something deep inside of me thrumming and screaming at the sight of him, as though my womb is begging me to somehow get this man into bed, to drink in every drop of his seed he’s willing to give me.

  It’s a deep, primal urge.

  It’s the sort of urge women must’ve had tens of thousands of years ago when they saw the alpha of the tribe, their body’s telling them, Him, now, get him, hold onto him, he’ll protect you from the wolves and the dark and the cold and the hunger.

  “Are you lost, Melody?” he asks, still smirking, looking so handsome and cocky I want to slap and kiss him at the same time.

  “No,” I lie, hoping I imagine the quiver in my voice. “I was actually thinking of getting in a quick workout before I met with Natalie.”

  “Really? Because the only thing it looked like you were working out was your eyes.”

  “Yeah, keep dreaming,” I sass, rolling my eyes, masking nerves with banter. Or trying to, anyway.

  Am I flirting with Mason Mackendale?

  No, no.

  What a stupid thought.

  “Anyway, I won’t keep you,” he growls after a moment, that same look of fury flickering across his face again.

  “Um, okay,” I murmur, but he’s already turned around and strode back into the gym.

  I stand there for a moment, feeling foolish for thinking there was ever a spark of chemistry between us.

  Of course there freaking isn’t.

  He’s Mason Mackendale.

  That’s like some peasant in medieval times thinking the prince was interested in her.

  Maybe it happens in fairytales, but not in real life.

  I still can’t work out what I’d said to make him angry, though, as I navigate through the office and finally find my way to Natalie’s door.

  Maybe he’s just having a bad day, I assure myself.

  It probably has nothing to do with me. He’s got a lot on his mind, especially with the newspapers enjoying an absolute all-you-can-print buffet over the malfunctioning cellphone.
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br />   I take a deep breath and knock on Natalie’s door, trying to push Mason from my mind.

  And then I have to laugh under my breath.

  Yeah right.

  Like I’m going to be able to stop thinking about him just like that.

  Already my mind is going over how he looked in the gym, his sweat-slick clothes, the spark in his fjord-colored eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mason

  I let the shower water blast over me coldly, my manhood still rock hard even after ten minutes of standing under the icy flow. I try to tug my mind away from the way Melody sassed me, the spark in her expression, the vivaciousness imbuing every part of her.

  When I saw her watching me in the gym, it took everything I have not to charge out there and drag her over to the weights’ bench.

  Bend her over.

  Strip her bare.

  And take her, take every part of her.

  I’ve never had this level of lustful captivity over a woman before, never even knew it was possible, but as my mind returns again and again to Melody I just can’t help myself anymore.

  I grab my cock and picture her in her tight-fitting black skirt, hugging closely to hips that were made for grabbing and for bearing me beautiful, intelligent children, whilst hammering into her sweet wet heat.

  I imagine spinning her around and hiking her skirt around her hips, taking her dirtily right there in the hallway, tearing a …

  Fuck, oh, fuck.

  Tearing a goddamned hole in her tights and then yanking her panties so they snap, revealing the precious pinkness of her pussy. I imagine the way she’d moan and writhe and beg for more as I pumped my cock inside of her, crushing those round full ass cheeks.

  I grunt as my come shoots all over the wall of my private shower, already regretting wasting the seed on the wall when the only place it belongs is inside her greedy womb.

  I finish my shower and then get dressed in a sleek silver-colored suit, trying to make myself think about the hacking, which the diagnostics team has now confirmed it was.

  Somebody planted malware on the phone. But it’s advanced stuff. It’s going to be a while until we know more.

  What was the point of being one of the most advanced tech companies in the world if people could pull shit like this?

  “They’ll get it, bro,” Nat said to me last night as she cut into her steak, Lyle nodding his support. “Just give them time.”

  But more time is the last thing I need, with the press hounding me, and with Melody hounding my thoughts.

  I need to focus on this PR hell-storm and yet I can’t not think about Melody, as though my mind is pure metal and she’s a magnet, pulling me to her again and again.

  I end up at my desk, logging into the CCTV feed and rewinding to about forty-five minutes ago when Melody would have been arriving.

  I navigate to the garage footage and see her walking toward the elevator with a harried, cute-as-fuck look on her face.

  If I thought the self-indulgence in the shower was going to douse my flame for her, I was dead wrong, because the second I see those wide alluring hips again I turn feral.

  I have to bite down to stop from letting out a carnal groan.

  There’s a hungry need inside of me, an urge I’ve never felt before and know I can’t ignore, not even if I wanted to.

  I close the CCTV footage and open the internal Spark messaging system.

  Sis, can you ask Melody to swing by my office before she leaves?

  My finger hovers over the ‘send’ button, and then I stand up and walk to the window, putting my hands behind my back as though that will stop me from making this play.

  I’ve always told myself that entanglements will only lead to complications, that I have to be completely focused on the business unless I want to open a Pandora’s Box of relationship crap I have no desire to deal with.

  But when my mind flows over Melody, her sassiness, her fieriness, the nerves hiding behind her mask, and a body that would be hot even in the most furious fire, I feel my attitude toward it all shifting.

  I look down over the city, this city that was once my prison and is now my playground, and then I turn and walk back to my desk and hammer the send button so hard I’m surprised when the keyboard doesn’t snap in half.

  Natalie fires back after a couple of minutes.

  Of course, I will, lover boy.

  I groan, rolling my eyes and yet smirking despite myself.

  So Natalie has sensed something, perhaps a change in me since I ran into Melody the last time. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. My little sister knows me better than anybody.

  We were all each other had growing up, after Mom and Dad …

  I shake my head and grit my teeth.

  Why the fuck would you want to go there?

  I return to my computer and get some work done, but my gaze keeps straying to the door, and instead of wearing headphones and blasting music like I normally do, I keep my hearing clear to listen for Melody’s knock.

  It comes about forty-five minutes later, an uncertain tapping, as though she’s wondering why the CEO would summon her.

  “Come in,” I call, my voice far snarlier than I’d intended.

  But she just brings this out in me, this long-dormant desire, so that I feel like an animal stalking my prey.

  The door opens and immediately my manhood rushes with blood and desire, turning as hard as a fucking promise in a matter of milliseconds.

  I swallow as she shuts the door and walks across my cavernous office, her hands worrying at each other, and yet she wears a combative smirk as though she’s hoping to sass her way through her anxiety.

  I can respect that.

  “You wanted to see me?” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, standing up and walking around the desk.

  I pause, wondering what exactly my excuse is for summoning her. I just wanted to see her again, in the most basic sense of the word, to let my eyes roam over a body made for craving. Then I gesture to the leather couches at the far end of the office.

  “Take a seat, please,” I say. “Would you like a drink?”

  I swagger over without waiting for an answer, remembering the moment outside the gym, and how I had to get her to leave before my restraint snapped and I mauled her right there.

  I drop down and put one hand over the back of the couch.

  I’m aware that I must look like a cocky asshole.

  And I’m also aware I don’t give a damn.

  “No, I’m fine,” she says, sitting opposite me across the glass coffee table.

  Every time she fidgets, her breasts jiggle slightly in the prison of her shirt, and her buttons tug open just a tiny bit, revealing the pinkness of her bra.

  Fuck.

  And if I look closer, I can just about make out the outline of her bra through the shirt.

  I wonder if her nipples are the same shade of pink or if they’ll turn red as I suck them, suck them hard, as though I’m teasing the milk from them that will only gush out when she’s getting ready for our children.

  “I suppose this is pretty odd, eh?” I say, trying for a laugh.

  She smiles with relief at the sound of my laughter.

  “Well, I do sort of feel like I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office.”

  “Why? Have you done something wrong?” I banter.

  Her cheeks flush as though the joke hasn’t landed, and briefly, I wonder if she has done something wrong.

  A crazy, absurd thought strikes me.

  She’s involved with the sabotage.

  I banish it a moment later.

  As little sense as it makes, I just know that that isn’t true. Melody isn’t like that.

  The future mother of my children isn’t like that.

  She finally places her hands in her lap, with conviction, as though she’s decided to stop fidgeting.

  “This office is amazing,” she says, glancing around. “I mean, it’s just so big. I guess that’s
the best statement you can make in a city where real estate is so expensive, right?”

  “Right,” I agree. “That’s exactly it.”

  I’m finding it hard to talk, to focus, when this sex goddess is sitting across from me.

  Fuck it.

  “Melody, I want to take you to dinner.”

  Her mouth falls open and she stares at me for long moments, as though trying to make the words fit in her head.

  When they won’t, she blinks several times, looking so cute I almost let out a lion’s roar.

  Does she not know how beautiful she is? Does she have any clue?

  “What?” she gasps. “I’m sorry. Um, why?”

  “Why?” I mutter, leaning forward now, elbows on my knees as my eyes take in every inch of her. “Because you’re beautiful, that’s why. Because you’re interesting.”

  “Really?” she whispers, lips trembling slightly. “Because nobody’s ever said any of that to me before, Mason. And it’s a little hard for me to believe that—well, let’s just be honest—that a man like you would think any of that about me.”

  Something in my belly drops.

  And something else flares.

  I want to find the person who convinced her she isn’t deserving of praise, of worship, and crush their head like a watermelon. I want to make them beg for her forgiveness, bow at her feet in supplication.

  “Let me make it simple then,” I say with a smirk. “If you don’t come out to dinner with me, I’ll tell Natalie to fire Eternal Bond and find somebody else for her wedding. There. You’re being blackmailed. Now you have no choice.”

  My wolfish grin lets her know that I’m joking, I’d never actually blackmail her or get involved in the wedding planning, and I’m glad when she smiles broadly and leans forward.

  “Oh, is that so?” she says with an ironic note in her voice. “Well, I guess if I really don’t have a choice, then I have to endure dinner with you, Mason.”

  “Endure?” I chuckle deeply. “Is that really the word you want to choose?”

  “I think that’s the perfect word,” she fires back, even if there are still shimmers of anxiety glinting in her eyes. “And, you know, it’s pretty convenient. If this turns out to be some horrible trick, I can say I was forced into it.”