Chapter 2 - The Billionaire’s Request**
The ambient chatter of two hundred wealthy wedding guests died down so fast you could hear the gentle hum of the overhead catering refrigerators. Every head turned. Every eye locked onto the path of destruction Emmett Stewart was carving through the heart of the reception.
Nicholas was marching frantically behind him, his face mottled red, whispering frantic, breathless apologies to anyone within earshot.
"Mr. Stewart! Wait! That section is reserved for—for minors and auxiliary staff—" Nicholas hissed, grabbing clumsily at Emmett’s elbow.
Emmett stopped. He turned his head just enough to skewer my brother with a look so glacial it could have preserved salmon for a decade.
"Mr. Vance," Emmett’s deep, resonant voice carried effortlessly across the silent room. "If you touch my arm again, I am pulling our multi-million-dollar logistics contract before the appetizer is cleared. Do we understand each other?"
Nicholas froze, his hand hovering mid-air, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. "I... I didn't... of course, Mr. Stewart. I just didn't want you to be... disturbed."
"I am never disturbed by competence," Emmett replied coldly.
Then, he turned his back on my brother entirely, walked the remaining three paces to Table Nineteen, and pulled out the vacant plastic primary-school-sized chair directly across from me.
The chair groaned softly under his weight as he sat down, folding his large, expensive hands over the sticky wooden surface among the discarded juice boxes and crayon stubs. He looked down at the paper napkin where I had just drawn a green-fire dragon.
A slow, genuine smile broke across his usually austere face.
"Nice wings," Emmett said, his voice dropping into a normal, conversational tone that completely ignored the terrified audience staring at us from the rest of the room. "Though I think the tail needs more cross-hatching to denote structural integrity."
I snorted, picking up a yellow crayon. "Coming from a man whose last structural edit on the Pittsburgh speech nearly caused an existential crisis for your legal team, I’ll take that critique under advisement."
Emmett chuckled, leaning back and resting his broad shoulders against the back of the tiny wooden chair. "Touché. You look stunning, Jenna, despite your brother’s desperate attempts to hide you behind a pillar of Great-Aunt Beatrice's snoring."
"He said I didn't fit the atmosphere," I murmured, staring down at the crayon in my hand. "Too much noise in the background of his aesthetic."
Across the table, Parker looked up from his chicken nugget, his eyes wide with awe as he stared at the intimidating man in the custom suit. "Are you a superhero?"
Emmett looked at the little boy, then back at me. He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a gold-plated Montblanc pen worth more than my first car, and gravely handed it to Parker. "Not today, kid. Today, I'm just an assistant to the real creator."
May you like
My cheeks flushed hot, but before I could respond, Nicholas finally reached our table, panting and sweating through his designer lapels.
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