Xander stared at the intercom, jaw slack. “What? A livestream? Of what?” The questions rolled out in a single breath.

“Something about ‘the truth behind your bachelor facade,’” Denise replied. “Also, another one is trying to bribe the janitor for your floor plan.”

He muttered a string of words that would’ve scandalized his mother’s prayer group, then grabbed his blazer like it was a riot shield. “I need an escape route. I have to get out of here ASAP.”

“I already tried the freight elevator,” Denise said. “Blocked. They cornered the florist and took over the west corridor.”

“Oh, come on—”

“And the coffee guy.”

“No!”

“Espresso machine’s a hostage now. Sorry.”

Xander paced in a tight circle, dragging a hand through his hair. “This is insane. This is fine china-throwing, diamond-stiletto-wearing insanity.”

“You could try pretending to be in a coma,” Denise offered. “Or we call your mother and ask her to collect her pawns.”

“That’s not a solution. That’s inviting more chaos in heels.” He stopped pacing. His mind, finally clearing through the caffeine and panic, latched onto one name. One person.

Someone who’d always been better at handling drama than he ever was—who could negotiate with protestors, disarm passive-aggressive sorority presidents, and debate professors into stunned silence.

Someone who could walk straight into a storm of high-maintenance socialites and come out holding their handbags and their loyalty.

Bieber Waverley.

The thought dropped into his brain like a lifeline. Bieber Waverley—not the pop star. His real Bie, as he fondly called her. The no-nonsense, sharp-tongued, former college best friend and academic savior.

She’d always seen through his charm and posturing like it was cellophane, and she’d never been afraid to call him out.

In fact, if she saw this current disaster, she’d probably fold her arms, raise one brow, and declare, “Congratulations. The meat parade has circled back.”

He actually smiled at the thought. Back in college, when he was still a half-baked jock with more opinions than brain cells, she’d been his compass.

While his Apex League brothers were busy drafting ego-soaked oaths and making girls sign “consent contracts” written in cocktail napkins, Bieber was helping him outline anthropology papers and dragging him to tutoring sessions.

She was sharp. She was sane. And—God bless her—she didn’t own a fur coat.

Why hadn’t he thought of her earlier? He stopped pacing and headed straight for his desk. “Denise,” he said, suddenly sounding far more confident, “Hold the line. I’m calling in a specialist.”

She sounded curious. “Security? PR? FBI?”

“Bieber Waverley.”

Pause.

“The pop star?”

“No. The real Bieber.” He flipped open his ancient Rolodex—yes, he still had one—and scanned the B's like a man on a mission. “Let’s hope she hasn’t blocked me,” He muttered, punching in the number.

Denise remarked, “She?..... Wow, you're full of surprises, aren't you boss?”

Ignoring her comment, Xander concentrated on the task at hand. It was his only hope out of the mess he had found himself in.

First ring. Second. Then—click. “Harrington, Pembroke & Associates. This is Ms. Waverley’s office,” A crisp voice answered, sounding very formal.

Not her voice. Not his Bieber's.

Xander straightened, clearing his throat. “Is Bie in, please?”

“Ms. Weaverly,” The woman said, each syllable starched and pressed, her voice dipped in corporate disapproval, “Is in a client meeting. Is there some way I can help you?”

That tone. The kind that could curdle milk and dissolve weak men.

Xander adjusted his grip on the phone. “Do you know how long she’s expected to be in the meeting?”

“I really couldn’t say.” The iciness on the line was unmistakable. If this receptionist had access to lasers, he’d be a pile of ash. What the hell had he done to offend her already? He hadn’t even flirted. Well, not yet.

“Is there something I can help you with?” she repeated, this time with more frostbite.

He could practically hear her mentally labeling him ‘Annoying Male Caller #47.’

Xander leaned back, spinning his chair away from the rising noise in the lobby. It now sounded like a stampede. Or maybe a revolution.

Something involving heels, hairspray, and high-pitched threats.

He lowered his voice. “Just… please tell Bie that Xander called. Ask her to get back to me as soon as she can.”

There was a pause.

Then came the chill. “Would that be Mr. Alexander?”

“Alexander McQueen,” he said flatly. “But I doubt she knows more than one Xander with a reputation for poor timing.”

“And this is regarding…?”

“It’s personal.”

“And would she have your number?”

“She has it,” He snapped, getting impatient.

“Still, I should write it down. She might not—”

“She has it,” He cut in. “Thank you.”

Before she could recite the company’s privacy policy, he slammed the receiver down with enough force to make the desk vibrate.

God.

First the society heiresses, now the gatekeeping Ice Queen of Legal Towers.

He was one interruption away from pulling a full Gatsby and disappearing forever.

He’d barely exhaled when the phone rang again.

He pounced. “Bie?”

“No,” came Denise’s low hiss. “It’s me. I got the police to come out—but the second I told them what was happening, they started laughing. One of them asked if we were shooting a reality show.”

Xander pinched the bridge of his nose. “Perfect.”

“That’s not the worst part,” She continued. “Ferdinand Levee just got here.”

He froze. “Ferdinand?”

“Yes. And he’s not helping. First, he tried to get the cops to lay odds on which woman would reach your office door first—then he hijacked my phone and called his friends to set up a betting pool.”

Xander’s stomach dropped. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“He’s calling it The McQueen Matrimonial Sweepstakes,” She said, voice tight with disbelief. “Entry fee, fifty bucks. Winner gets naming rights to your firstborn.”

Xander slumped in his chair. “Of course he is.”

“And now,” Denise continued grimly, “One of the women’s publicists just arrived with a camera crew. They’re filming testimonials. Apparently they think this is some underground matchmaking competition. One just called it The Bachelor: Billionaire Edition.”

Xander’s head hit the desk with a thud. “They’re printing hashtags, boss. Hashtags. I saw a sign that said #McqueenWife2025.”

He groaned. “Did anyone bring a tranquilizer dart?”

There was a pause.

Then Denise asked in a whisper, “What do you want me to do?”

He lifted his head slowly. “Bet the farm on ‘no wedding and no bride.’ And maybe get Ferdinand off my property before TMZ shows up.”

Denise sighed. “I already tried. He offered the police chief court side seats to a Lakers game.”

Xander blinked. “Did they take them?”

“They’re considering it.”

For a long, horrifying second, Xander just sat there, listening to the chaos on the other side of the wall.

He could make out shrieking, champagne corks, what sounded suspiciously like a ukulele, and a woman shouting, “I brought a prenup with gold trim!”

How had it come to this? And worse—how had Bieber seen this coming five years ago?

Somewhere in the mess of memories and regret, he heard her voice again. Calm, sarcastic, smug. “Someday, Xander McQueen, this League nonsense is going to backfire so hard, you’ll need a rescue team.”

Well, the explosion had arrived. And unless he wanted to be married by sundown, his best bet was calling in the one woman who knew how to detonate this circus with surgical precision.

Bieber. She’d mock him. She’d definitely roll her eyes. But if anyone could disarm a war room full of designer stilettos and overactive ovaries, it was her.

Now if only her secretary would pass on the message.

He stood up, squared his shoulders, and rubbed his temples.

Just then, the building's fire alarm started blaring.

Denise’s voice buzzed back through the intercom. “Okay. Slight update. Someone just pulled the fire alarm to get the other women out of the way. It was the one in the Valentino dress.”

Xander swore. “Which one is she?”

“She brought a lawyer.”

Of course she did. He stared into the middle distance.

This wasn’t just a crisis. This was a full-blown, high-gloss, glitter-dusted apocalypse.

And he was smack in the middle. He reached for the phone again. If Bieber didn’t call back soon, he might need to start a GoFundMe to rebuild his career.

Bieber Waverley was having a very good day. A deft bit of manoeuvring here, a persuasive phone call there—and voilà, she’d secured a £4.5 million settlement for one of the firm’s most high-profile clients.

No court appearance. No depositions. Not a single motion filed. Just strategic brilliance and a voice like velvet over the phone.

The client had been rich to begin with, of course. Now, he was richer—and so was Harrington, Pembroke & Associates, that walked away with a neat one-third of the total.

“All hail Ms Rainmaker,” Bieber murmured with smug satisfaction as she swept into her elegant, compact, office in the heart of London’s legal district.

She was about to kick off her pumps and bask in the three-degree glimpse of the Thames from her window when she noticed a human blockade in the form of her new secretary—Phyna.

The young lady was practically vibrating with disapproval. “Your phone has been ringing off the hook,” Phyna snapped, holding out a fan of pink message slips like they were toxic. “I thought you’d never get out of that meeting.”

Bieber barely masked her irritation. Phyna had been with her for barely two weeks but had already scaled Everest in the ‘Most Annoying Person on Earth’ competition.

Condescending, gossipy, and constantly clutching her pearls over imagined impropriety, she was the workplace equivalent of a migraine.

“Who called?” Bieber asked, scanning her mental shortlist. “Clington Muller? Ryan Chase? Larry Locke?”

“No. Just one man. And it wasn't a business call, if you ask me.” Phyna sniffed. “He kept calling you Bee or something, which is terribly unprofessional. I answered, ‘Ms weaverly’s office,’ very properly, of course. But he just barreled through, Bee this and Bee that. Quite disturbing.”

Bieber stopped listening from the point where Phyna mentioned Bee. Bie. Not Bee.

A cold ripple of dread ran down her spine. Only one man ever called her that.

Alexander McQueen.

“Please, not Xander. Not today.” Her heart flipped and flailed like a fish out of water.

She’d only just said ‘yes’ to Michael Reed, political golden boy and her freshly-minted fiancé the preview day.

They were going to have clever, ethically-minded children, a Georgian townhouse in Islington, and the kind of high-octane marriage featured in The Economist's wedding section.

Perfect. Predictable. Sensible. Three words that had never, ever, applied to Xander McQueen.

“Tell me it wasn’t Xander,” she said, her voice tight.

“Oh, it was Mr Xander McQueen,” Phyna said with relish, peering at the slips. “Seven calls in two hours. Honestly, doesn’t he have a job? And what kind of name is Xander? Sounds like an app meant for transferring documents.”

Bieber clenched her jaw. “It’s a family name. It's short for Alexander Grey McQueen, the fourth.”

“Well, la-di-da.” Phyna narrowed her eyes. “Is he a friend of yours? Or maybe an old flame?”

“No,” Bieber lied instantly. “Just someone from university. Wycliffe College, Oxfordshire. We... occasionally keep in touch. Not consistently.”

Not consistently was one hell of a way to put it. Chaotic intrusion was another.

Just yesterday, she’d made a solemn vow: no more letting Xander crash into her meticulously crafted world like a wrecking ball in designer loafers. She was done. He was over.

Bieber dropped into the nearest chair, dizzy from the emotional whiplash.

Xander McQueen, back again. Always him. She had hated him at first sight. Back in their first term at Wycliffe College, he and his band of charming, over privileged rogues had sauntered around campus like they owned every courtyard and lecture hall.

She, meanwhile, had been nicknamed Egghead, a no-nonsense law & literature student with a plan and fierce desire to change the world.

He was rugby and cashmere and chaos. She was Austen and ambition and early library closures.

They were two worlds apart and would never have crossed path. But she was assigned to tutor him by the institution agency where she crashed at.

She hadn’t wanted to take the gig. But she needed the money. So she’d turned up with a stack of Shakespeare, ready to freeze him out with intellectual disdain.

Only, Xander wasn’t what she expected. Not completely. He was intriguing. He was distractingly gorgeous. But under all that swagger, there was something wounded, something unknowable.

A hint of Byron, a whiff of Hamlet, a touch of Heathcliff—without the brooding moors but with all the maddening contradictions.

He was clever, but scored less in examinations. Rich, but always skint.

He’d show up for poetry readings with hangovers and quote Keats between belches.

He was brilliant and careless, wild and soft, confident yet constantly on the brink of falling apart.

And Bieber, poor little fool, had fallen hard. She’d spent entire evenings deciphering him like a tragic Victorian novel—an emotional project she hadn’t realized she was taking on until it consumed her.

But no more. No. More. She squared her shoulders, trying to summon the steel she usually kept on standby for opposing counsel.

She was Bieber Waverley, future senior partner, soon-to-be-wife of a man poised for Parliament, builder of an orderly, respectable life.

There was no room in that life for reckless, ridiculous, heartbreak-in-waiting Xander McQueen.

So she stood, straightened her spine, and handed the pink message slips back to Phyna. “Tell him I’m unavailable,” she said calmly.

“For how long?”

She squinted her eyes in thought. Wasn't it said that discretion was the better part of valor? For her own good, she knew she had to avoid the return of trouble by all means.

Pursing her lips, she answered, “Indefinitely.”

Just then, Phyna's desk phone started ringing. She rushed over to answer it while making a big show of her speed, as she remarked, “I bet that’s him again. It's a good thing you can speak to him yourself this time. Maybe he'll stop calling once he hears that you aren't interested in a conversation with him.”

“No!” Bieber exclaimed, her voice sounding too loud and panicked even to her own ears.

The thought of Xander being on the other end made her knees weak, her heart raced, and she felt dizzy.

This was exactly what she wanted to avoid. “Tell him I’m in a meeting or busy. Just say anything to make sure he doesn’t get through!" She hurriedly instructed. "But please, don’t put him through!”

As she hurried back to her office, she heard Phyna say, “Ms. Weavely’s in conference. May I take a message?”

Bieber hesitated for a moment. Maybe it wasn't Xander after all.

“I can hardly hear you,” Phyna complained in her usual formal tone. “Could you speak up? What was your name again? Can you spell that for me?”

Bieber shot a quick glance at her. She thought Phyna was being unnecessarily overbearing. What happened to simply telling him that her boss wasn't around to take the call?

Phyna continued with a sing-song tone, “X-a-n-d-e-r. Got it.”

Bieber dashed into her office and slammed the door shut, pressing herself against it.

She realized she was acting completely irrationally, but she didn't care. She was determined to do whatever it took to stay away from Xander.

************************************************

Why hadn't she called him back yet? She was his final hope. He relied on her. He needed her. It wasn't like his good old friend, Bie, to leave him in the lurch like this.

This was so uncharacteristic of her.

Wasn’t she the queen of responsibility? She took on her tasks, met her deadlines, and always returned every call.

Why was it different today?

Meanwhile, his ever resourceful secretary, Denise, who was definitely getting a big raise as soon as he could afford it, managed to persuade the police and Ferdinand Levee to leave, taking several of the women with them.

Then she told the remaining ones that Xander had slipped out the back door. Even though there wasn’t a back exit, they all rushed out to look for him while Denise promptly locked the door behind them.

Finally, peace and quiet returned to Vault Point.

But Bieber still hadn’t called him back. “If I didn’t know better,” he thought inwardly, “I’d say she’s trying to avoid me.”

Just then, Denise yelled, “All clear!”

“Are you sure they’re not lying-in-wait outside the door?”

“I’m sure. I saw the last one drive off in her Porsche. But listen up, Xander: if any of them come back here tomorrow, I’m done dealing with them. I’m outta here.”

“Take tomorrow off just in case,” Xander replied from his office. “But right about now, I’m outta here.”

He really shouldn’t be celebrating since he had lost both a potential client and what he hoped would be a huge sale amidst all this chaos. But he still felt victorious just to be free of all those wild women.

Without wasting any time, he rushed to his car, eager to speed home where he could relax in peace.

However, as soon as he left the parking lot, he heard an odd noise coming from the back seat.

Not wanting to take his eyes off the road for even a moment amidst the usual heavy traffic and reckless drivers, he quickly glanced back.

"Oops," said a sultry young woman in a low voice. "I guess you caught me." She tossed aside a blanket, sat up straight, and moved right behind him.

The twenty-something brunette, who wore enough make-up for a TV soap opera, leaned over the seat and started playing with his hair.

"Do I know you?" Xander asked while swatting her hands away. It felt like déjà vu. Hadn’t he spent most of the day asking unfamiliar women who they were?

"Oh, you naughty boy! I know you remember me. From the club. You were playing tennis," she said smoothly while moving closer and whispering in his ear, "And I was admiring your little white shorts."

He groaned as the memories flooded back. What was her name? It was something that started with N. Nora or Nana or maybe Nelly.

She had kept making terrible jokes about the love match they could have and how much she admired his ‘strokes.’

At that moment, he thought she was just really young and bored, so he didn’t take her silly comments seriously.

However, it became a bigger issue when he was speeding down a main highway at fifty miles an hour, trying to drive while getting her tongue out of his ear at the same time.

"Knock it off!" he shouted. But she ignored him.

As she decided to get even closer, climbing into the front seat, a fast minivan zoomed by, honking loudly.

To avoid crashing, he swerved sharply to the right, sending Nelly and her tiny jeans crashing into the steering wheel and nearly launching them over the curb and through the window of a Kensington Red Hots restaurant.

"Find a seat and sit the hell there!" he growled, giving her his meanest look. He had been taught that a McQueen should always be polite and charming, no matter the circumstance but today, his manners were definitely wearing thin.

"Oh, come on—" she began as she started to scoot closer to him.

"Just sit still and be quiet." Xander pushed her away with one hand while steering with the other.

He took the first exit into a parking lot of a small strip mall filled with outlet stores that you could find along every highway in suburbia.

He brought the car to a halt. "Look, I don't know what you thought you were doing sneaking into my car..."

She began to respond, but he raised his hand to stop her. "But I can guess pretty well. Did you happen to speak with my mom yesterday?"

"Yes, I did. She mentioned how you always talk about me—"

"Talk about you? I don't even know your name!"

"Oh, come on," she said with a laugh. "There's no reason to hide it anymore, hon. Your mom already told me."

Pouting her lips like she was going to kiss him, she leaned over and pinched his cheek. "Once I found out about you, I had to do something! You're so adorable, and I'm such a romantic. So here I am, Tripp. Take me—I’m yours!"

“What?” Xander asked with deeply furrowed brows.

“I'm all yours, hon!”