Sienna's POV

The AC in the bridal suite was set to arctic, and the only thing within reach was the black jacket I'd stolen four hours ago.

So I put it on. Over the sage-green dress. Like an idiot.

Across the room, Olivia sat at the vanity while a makeup artist dabbed highlighter on her cheekbones. She caught my eye in the mirror and raised one perfect brow.

"That's not yours."

"It's a loaner."

"From who?"

Before I could invent an answer, the door swung open and my brother walked in, tie half-knotted, holding a bouquet of white garden roses like it might detonate.

"Liv, the florist says these are yours, and I'm not allowed to see you, so I'm going to stare at the wall." Then Noah stopped. His eyes landed on me and narrowed. "Where were you last night?"

"Sleeping."

"Where?"

"In a bed, Noah. That's where people usually sleep."

He set the bouquet down and walked over, tugging the lapel of the jacket between two fingers. "This is a men's jacket."

"The hotel had a lost and found. I was cold." I shrugged. "They let me borrow it."

"The hotel let you borrow a three-thousand-dollar Italian jacket."

"It's a very nice hotel."

I shoved my hands into the pockets to look casual, and my fingers closed around something small and cold. I pulled it out before I could stop myself.

A silver cufflink. Engraved with a tiny number seven.

Noah looked at it. Then at me.

I closed my fist. "Also borrowed."

He sighed the way he'd been sighing at me since I was twelve, then reached for the bridesmaid brooch pinned crooked on my strap and straightened it, his knuckles brushing my collarbone. Gentle, even while he was annoyed.

"Today matters to me," he said quietly. "So please. Be normal. And stay away from my friends, Sienna. Especially the drivers."

"I'm twenty-seven."

"I'm aware."

"So why am I still getting the rules you gave me at fifteen?"

"Because at fifteen you kissed my lab partner, and at twenty-two you dated my roommate, and he cried on my couch for a month." He tapped the brooch. "Jacket off. Ceremony in twenty."

He walked out. Olivia was biting her lip to keep from laughing.

I slipped the cufflink into my clutch and told myself I'd mail it to the hotel.

Anonymously.

---

The ceremony was on the cliff terrace, white chairs lined up facing the Mediterranean. My job was to walk Olivia's niece, Lucy, down the aisle without letting her eat the petals.

"Slow," I whispered, squeezing her sticky hand.

"I *am* slow."

White gauze hung from the wedding arch, and the sea wind kept lifting it into the air like a sail. Noah stood beneath it, grinning like a kid. Next to him, his back to the aisle, stood a tall man in a navy suit.

Broad shoulders. Dark hair curling slightly at the nape.

My heels slowed on their own.

Lucy tugged my hand. "Aunt Sienna, *walk*."

The man turned around.

Kai.

Freshly shaved, in a different suit, since the other one was currently in my suitcase. His gaze moved over my face, then slid, slowly, down to my left shoulder, right where his mouth had been last night.

The ring box in his hand tilted. Noah caught it before it hit the ground.

"Dude. Hands."

"Sorry," Kai said, still looking at me. "Got distracted."

I made it to my spot somehow. After the vows, after the kiss and the cheering and Olivia sobbing mascara onto Noah's lapel, my brother threw an arm around Kai's shoulders and steered him straight to me.

"Sienna, this is Kai Mercer. My best friend."

Kai held out his hand. "Sienna."

He said it like he was tasting it. Like he was filing away that it wasn't Nora, the name I'd given him at the bar.

I shook his hand. Firm, quick. "Nice to meet you."

"Is it?" he said.

---

The photographer wanted the full wedding party, and of course I ended up beside the best man.

"Closer, closer," she called, waving us in. "Bridesmaid, lean toward the gentleman."

I leaned approximately one inch.

Kai bent his head, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "So. Do you always take everything a man owns, or was I special?"

"Smile for the camera."

"I had to leave that hotel in a bathrobe, Sienna. Security walked me to my car."

"Sounds like a you problem."

The flash went off. I kept my teeth showing.

"You owe me a suit, Sienna."

"You owe me your silence," I said through my smile. "Last night doesn't exist. Not to him, not to anyone. Say one word and I'll tell the press you cry during rom-coms."

"I do cry during rom-coms."

"Then I'll make it worse."

"Tighter!" the photographer called. "Sir, put your hand on her back."

His palm settled at the base of my spine, warm through the thin silk. Exactly where it had been on the sofa, before the zipper tore. My whole body remembered before my brain could stop it.

The flash fired again. His thumb moved, barely.

"By the way," he murmured, "I'm missing a cufflink."

"Okay, that's enough." Noah appeared out of nowhere and wedged himself between us, one hand on each of our shoulders. "Let's get one with the groom in the middle. Groom loves the middle."

The photographer shrugged and kept shooting.

Noah turned his head toward Kai, still smiling for the lens, and spoke under his breath. "That's my sister, man. She's not some girl at the paddock party you get to chat up."

Kai's smile didn't change. "Understood."

But when Noah looked away, Kai's eyes found mine over his shoulder.

He didn't look understood at all.

---

Dinner was served under strings of lights, the band playing something soft and French. I waited until Noah was trapped in a conversation with Olivia's grandmother, then cornered Kai by the bar.

"Here." I pressed the cufflink into his palm. "Take it. We're even."

He looked down at it, then closed my fingers back around it. His hand stayed over mine.

"Even? You've got my shirt, my pants, my jacket, my belt, and my favorite cap." He tilted his head. "So maybe we talk about compensation. Tonight."

"There's nothing to talk about. Last night was an accident."

"An accident."

"A one-time, never-happening-again accident."

He stepped closer. He smelled like cedar and something sharper underneath, the expensive cologne his sponsor probably paid him to wear. His mouth came close to my ear.

"Funny," he said. "You weren't this cold last night. Last night you were pulling me by my tie and telling me not to stop."

My face went hot. "Keep your voice down."

"Why? Afraid someone will hear?"

"What are you two whispering about?"

I spun around. Noah stood right behind us, a glass of red wine in his hand, his smile a little too pleasant.

Kai didn't move away. He just leaned back against the bar, completely relaxed, and looked at me with those dark, amused eyes.

"Go ahead," he said softly. "Tell your brother how we met. I dare you."

Noah's gaze went from Kai to me. "Met?"

My hand jerked. The cufflink slipped from my fingers, hit the rim of the champagne flute I was holding, and dropped straight in.

It sank through the bubbles and landed at the bottom with a tiny clink.

Silver. Engraved with a seven.

Noah looked down at the glass.

Then, very slowly, he looked at Kai's bare left cuff.

Sienna's POV

The cufflink spent the first dance at the bottom of my champagne flute.

Olivia had dragged Noah onto the floor two seconds before he could finish his question, and I'd escaped with the glass like a thief carrying evidence out of a crime scene. In the bridal suite, I fished the cufflink out with two fingers, dried it on a tissue, and wrapped it in my fist.

Then I opened the door and walked straight into Kai.

He was leaning against the hallway wall, scrolling through his phone. His jacket hung open, and his left cuff flapped loose where the missing cufflink should have been.

"Perfect timing," he said, and turned the screen toward me.

It was an email from the hotel. *Dear Mr. Mercer, we sincerely apologize for this morning's misunderstanding on the twenty-third floor. Our security team has confirmed there was no harassment of any guest...*

"They're comping my suite for the rest of the month," he said. "Apparently, nearly arresting a championship contender is bad for business."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you. I had to describe your stolen outfit to three different managers."

Down the hall, Noah's laugh carried out of the ballroom. I glanced toward it. Nobody was watching.

That's when I noticed the clear garment bag folded over Kai's arm. A flash of red silk showed through the plastic. My dress. The broken zipper sat right on top, exactly where I'd left it.

I reached out and touched the bag before I could stop myself.

"You kept it?"

He shifted the bag out of my reach and tucked the loose edge of plastic back in place.

"You stole my clothes and almost got me arrested. At least let me keep the evidence." He tilted his head. "Be honest. Did you plan to humiliate me? Is there a rival team paying you?"

"Yes. I'm a very expensive corporate spy."

He laughed, low and easy, and something in my chest tugged hard.

Last night, before anything happened, he'd stopped with his hand on my cheek and asked if I was sure. No smirk, no line. Just a real question, waiting for a real answer.

I didn't like how clearly I remembered that.

"I need to get Olivia's bouquet," I said, and walked past him.

---

The bouquet was waiting on a side table by the terrace doors, wrapped in ivory satin ribbon. Next to it sat a crumpled printout of the old wedding schedule, the version Noah had made before Olivia vetoed his idea of a forty-minute slideshow.

The terrace door was half open. I reached for the flowers and heard my brother's voice.

"I'm serious, man. Don't flirt with her. Not tonight, not ever."

"I was being polite," Kai said.

"You were standing four inches from her at the bar."

"Noah. Why are you so wound up about this?"

There was a pause. Through the gap in the door, I could see Noah's hand resting on the railing, his new wedding ring catching the string lights.

"A few years ago, a guy I knew humiliated her," Noah said quietly. "One of my friends. I brought him around, and he made her a joke in front of a lot of people. She pretended it didn't matter." He exhaled. "It mattered."

My fingers curled around the satin ribbon until it creased.

I remembered Noah sitting on the edge of my bed that night, still in his jacket, saying, *I won't let any friend of mine hurt you again. I promise.*

I'd loved him for it then.

Now I was twenty-seven, and he was still guarding my door.

"She is off-limits, Kai."

I pushed the door open.

Both of them stopped talking at once. Noah straightened so fast he nearly knocked his wine off the railing.

"Sienna. Hey."

"Hey." I held up the bouquet, ribbon crushed in my fist. "Don't stop on my account. You were just getting to the part where I'm fragile."

"That's not what I said."

"I'm twenty-seven, Noah. Not seven."

His jaw worked. For a second, he looked hurt, and I hated that I could tell.

"I know how old you are," he said.

From inside, Olivia's voice called his name. Cake cutting. He looked at me, then at Kai, then back at me.

"Five minutes," he said, and went inside.

---

The terrace went quiet except for the band and the sea.

I opened my palm and held out the cufflink.

"Dried it myself. You're welcome."

Kai took it, his fingers brushing mine. "It's still damp."

"It went for a swim. So did your dignity this morning." I leaned against the railing. The metal was cold through my dress. "How long did security keep you? Did they make you hold the towel with both hands?"

"One hand. The other one was holding your dress."

"The housekeeper will be telling that story at Christmas for twenty years."

"She asked for a selfie once they cleared it up."

I laughed. He pushed back his sleeve to put the cufflink in, and I saw a faded gray fabric band around his wrist, frayed at one edge, the letters almost rubbed off.

"What's that?"

He looked at it for a moment. Then he turned his arm over. A long, pale scar ran from his wrist halfway to his elbow.

"Crash at Suzuka, five years ago. Broke my arm in three places. Doctors said I might not grip a steering wheel properly again." He touched the band. "Your brother gave me this the day I walked out of rehab. Showed up at six every morning for four months and made me squeeze tennis balls until I wanted to murder him."

"Noah did that?"

"Noah did that." He smiled a little. "He's the reason I'm still racing."

The joke went out of me. I looked at the scar, then at the band, and suddenly the man in front of me wasn't just a cocky driver I'd stolen pants from. He was someone my brother had carried when he couldn't stand.

"Are you afraid of my brother?" I asked.

Kai fastened the cufflink and didn't look up.

"I'm more afraid of breaking a promise to him."

Then he took a step back. Just one, but it felt like a line being drawn on the terrace floor.

"After the wedding," he said, "we should probably just stop this. Whatever it is."

It was the right answer. It still landed like a slap.

I reached up and straightened his tie, because it was crooked and because I needed something to do with my hands. The silk was smooth and warm from his skin.

"Relax," I said. "Once was enough."

"Good."

"It was an accident anyway."

"You've mentioned."

I let go of his tie and turned toward the ballroom. The texture of the fabric still clung to my fingertips.

My phone buzzed in my clutch.

Jules. *CONTRACT SIGNED!! Vesper Racing approved the crew. You're shadowing their lead engineer, Mara Ortiz, all season. Full team roster attached. Call me!!!*

I opened the attachment. The documentary contract came first, my signature already on it. Then the team roster.

The first page had a photo. Dark hair, cocky grin, racing suit unzipped to the waist.

*Driver: Kai Mercer.*

I stopped walking. Slowly, I turned around and held up my phone.

Kai glanced at the screen.

His smile froze.

"Then why," he said quietly, "are you on my team's filming schedule?"

Sienna's POV

By ten o'clock, the whole wedding had moved out to the garden for fireworks.

Everyone was crowded on the lawn with sparklers and champagne, Olivia's grandmother shrieking every time a rocket went up. Noah had his arms wrapped around his new wife, both of them staring at the sky like teenagers.

Nobody was watching the house.

I slipped off my heels, hooked them on two fingers, and headed for the back staircase. Ten more steps and I'd be in my room, out of this dress, and done pretending I hadn't just signed a contract to follow my one-night stand around the world for an entire season.

I made it to the third step.

"You're missing the show."

Kai was leaning against the banister at the bottom of the stairs, half in shadow. The clear garment bag hung from one finger, my red dress glowing through the plastic like a warning sign. The torn seam gaped right down the middle.

"I brought your dress back," he said.

"Great. Now bring back my dignity."

"That one's going to take longer." He held up the bag. "I brought it over from the hotel this afternoon. Plain box, my name on the label. Nobody opened it. Nobody saw it."

"You're sure?"

"I carried it up here myself. Your brother thinks it's a spare suit."

I came back down the steps and reached for the hanger. He didn't pull it away this time. But his sleeve had ridden up, and in the porch light that pale scar ran clear up his forearm, smooth and shiny against the tan.

My hand stopped.

I suddenly remembered a phone call years ago, Noah sounding exhausted in a way I'd never heard before. *My friend crashed. He's a driver. They don't know if he'll race again.* I'd said I was sorry and asked if he was eating enough, and then I'd forgotten about it.

I'd never asked for a name.

"What?" Kai said.

"Nothing." I took my hand back. "We need to talk. Not out here."

---

The library on the second floor was empty, lit only by one brass lamp on the desk. Somewhere between the fireworks and the stairs, it had started to rain. Water streaked down the tall windows and blurred the garden lights into gold smears.

I spread the filming schedule across the desk. Jules had already sent the full calendar, and I'd printed it in the bridal suite like a psychopath.

"Bahrain. Jeddah. Melbourne." I tapped each one. "Paddock access, garage access, the team hotel. I'm with Mara Ortiz almost every day."

Kai dropped onto the leather sofa and rubbed his jaw. "I'm back at the factory Tuesday. Simulator work, then media day."

"Which I'll be filming."

"Which you'll be filming." He looked at me. "So we keep it clean. Work is work."

"Obviously."

"And whatever happened in Monaco stays in Monaco."

"Obviously," I said again, and hated how fast it came out.

He watched me for a second too long. The rain ticked against the glass.

"You don't sound sure."

I folded my arms. "Look. We're adults. It was one night, and it was good. I'm not going to pretend I don't want to climb you right now, because we both know I'd be lying." His eyebrows went up. I kept going before I lost my nerve. "But I'm also not going to turn this into some big complicated thing. So if it's still there, we deal with it like grown-ups. We make terms."

"Terms," Kai repeated.

"No dates. No feelings. No one finds out."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Friends with benefits?"

"Strictly benefits."

That got a laugh out of him, short and surprised. "Wow. You're cold."

"I'm efficient."

There was a pad of wedding stationery on the desk, cream paper with *Noah & Olivia* printed in gold across the top. A few white rose petals had fallen onto it from the centerpiece. I brushed them aside, grabbed the black pen next to the lamp, and started writing.

"One," I said. "Noah never knows."

"Agreed."

"Two. We don't mess with each other's work. You don't ask me to cut footage. I don't ask you for inside gossip."

"Fine."

"Three. Nothing in public. No dinners, no walking into the hotel together."

"Four?"

I paused with the pen over the paper. "If anyone gets serious, it's over."

He was quiet. Then he got up, came around the desk, and held out his hand for the pen.

I gave it to him. He bent over the paper, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine, and wrote in neat block letters.

*5. If either of us is uncomfortable, it stops. Anytime. No explanation needed.*

He added *K.M.* beneath the list.

I read it twice. It was the same thing he'd asked me last night, with his hand on my cheek. *Tell me to stop, and I stop.*

"That's a good rule," I said, quieter than I meant to.

"It's the only one I actually care about."

I cleared my throat and took the pen back. "Do you treat every woman like a race? Rules, regulations, penalties?"

Kai tilted his head toward the paper, then toward the pen in my hand.

"Sweetheart," he said, "who picked up the pen first?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing good came out.

I tore the sheet off, folded it into a tight square, and shoved it into my clutch.

"One more thing," I said. "Not a rule. A fact. You are not coming to my room tonight."

"Okay."

"I mean it. Noah's room is next door to mine, and he checks on me when he's drunk."

"Okay," he said again, perfectly easy, already stepping back.

I waited for the argument. The grin. The *you sure about that?*

It didn't come. He just picked up a rose petal from the desk, turned it over in his fingers, and nodded at the door like I was free to go.

It was exactly what I'd asked for. It annoyed me anyway.

"Good night, Kai."

"Good night, Sienna."

I walked out with my heels in one hand and my clutch in the other. I was halfway down the hall before I realized the garment bag was still draped over the arm of that leather sofa.

I didn't go back.

---

My room was dark. The fireworks had stopped, and the rain had gotten louder. I sat on the edge of the bed, still in the sage-green dress, and stared at the folded square of paper sticking out of my clutch.

Ten minutes. That was all it took.

My phone lit up on the comforter, the screen bright enough to make me squint.

*Your dress is still in my room.*

No emoji. No question mark. Nothing I could hold against him.

I typed *Keep it* and deleted it. I typed *Leave it outside my door* and deleted that too, because Noah would trip over it at three a.m. and ask questions I didn't have answers to.

Then I stood up.

The guest wing was at the far end of the villa, down a long hallway lit by a few weak sconces. The tile was cold under my bare feet. Laughter drifted up from the terrace below, and every time a door creaked somewhere, my heart jumped into my throat.

*It's just a dress,* I told myself. *Get it and leave.*

The brass plate on the last door read *Suite 7*. Of course it did.

I didn't knock. The handle turned.

Kai was standing by the window with his back against the frame, rain running down the glass behind him. His jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, the scar pale in the lamplight. The garment bag hung from the closet door, red silk glowing through the plastic.

He didn't look surprised to see me at all.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The lock clicked under my hand.

"This changes nothing, Kai."

He pushed off the window, slow and unhurried, and didn't come any closer. He just looked at me, waiting, the same way he had last night.

"Then come here," he said softly, "and prove it."