A Reborn Bride Pearl Emerging from Dust by Sally Garcia

The Next Day

Calliope headed into the office early. She took care of a few things-emails, a call from legal, the usual when suddenly, Lance appeared.

This time, he'd left the whole helicopter stunt behind and just rolled up in a sports car, with an entire convoy of flashy vehicles trailing behind him. Subtlety clearly wasn't in his vocabulary.

He strode straight into Jewell Group.

As luck would have it, he bumped into Valerian Jewell at reception. Valerian had definitely heard of Lance-how could he not, after the infamous helicopter landing on the company lawn last month?

Security was about to stop Lance at the entrance, but Valerian recognized him right away and figured he was here for Calliope. So, with a resigned sigh, Valerian led Lance inside.

They stepped into the elevator together, and Lance gave Valerian a once-over, eyebrows raised.

"You know Callie?" Lance asked.

"She's my sister," Valerian replied evenly.

Lance scratched at his ear, puzzled. "Your sister? Huh. Weird, I've never seen you around. Her brothers I've met are all... well, kind of a big deal."

He sized Valerian up, then suddenly lunged at him-just out of nowhere.

before Lance had him pinned, like it was

"You sure you're her brother? She's a total badass. No offense, but you don't really scream 'family

be legends. And, you know... pretty easy on the

unfiltered. "Actually, you're way less

was about ready to explode. "Those 'brothers' you're talking about are probably her honorary brothers. I'm her real brother. Like, actually

shrugged, clearly

doors pinged open, and Lance strode out

to

going the wrong way," He called after

around. "Not that way? You could've said something sooner!

together, but he knew Lance's reputation-definitely not someone

and led Lance to Calliope's

and Monty Jewell were both waiting

stepped in, both men

immediately put on his best ingratiating smile.

Monty a look. "And who are you supposed to be? Why do you sound like you're auditioning for a

twitched, but he

He'd heard stories about Lance-a

older brother kept him protected, so even though Lance himself didn't have much of an

treated him like