CHAPTER ONE

ASHTON HARRINGTON TRULY NEEDED BETTER friends.

Or at least, friends who gave better references. Friends who weren’t trying to ruin his reputation. Friends who weren’t half the reason for his rapidly escalating stress levels. Friends who, at the very least, gave a damn about his ability to function as a human being.

Friends who gave a damn, period.

Perhaps, in this hypothetical universe where he had such friends, he wouldn’t be staring at this flinty-eyed, utterly cold behemoth of a man who stood stiffly before his desk—and apparently thought Ashton was going to give him a job.

Ashton offered a thin, formal smile and lifted a finger. “If you’ll hold a moment, please,” he said, fetched his cellphone from his inside breast pocket, and pushed the third number on his speed dial.

Vic picked up on the second ring; Ashton didn’t have to see his face to know he was grinning from the sound of his voice. “I was waiting for this. Hullo there, Ash.”

Ashton narrowed his eyes. “You ass,” he hissed, then flicked another glance at the motionless man.

His stone-set expression hadn’t changed, lips thinned as if he already disapproved, eyes narrowed behind rimless, reflective glasses. It was like being raked over by one of his old professors, that I don’t know what it is yet, but I know you’ve done something wrong stare that could cut down to the bone, and it made Ashton’s stomach flip.

He flashed a frozen smile, then dropped his voice and spun his desk chair around to face out over the broad glassed-in wall and the glimmering New York City skyline. “I ask you for a PA and you send me—” Conan the Barbarian “—this?”

“I’m telling you. He’s worked for my family for years. Brand’s amazing.” Vic’s cultured British accent made everything he said sound utterly polite and reserved, even when he continued, “Maybe he’ll help you get your shit together, Ash. Something’s got to stop your downward trajectory into pure fuckery.”

“I’m well aware,” Ashton grit out through his teeth. “Hence why I asked you to find me someone. If he’s so amazing, why isn’t he still working for your family?”

“Mum and Dad went back to the old country. Brand wanted to stay. And me, I prefer my personal assistants a little…leggier.” Vic snickered. “Not that Brand couldn’t be absolutely fetching in a short skirt, but I do believe that’s more to your taste than mine.”

“Oh my God, fuck you.”

“Now, now.” Vic clucked his tongue. “Hardly fitting language for the newly anointed heir, now is it?”

“I hate you.”

“You’ll learn to love me again. Give him a shot. You won’t regret it.”

“You’re a liar and an asshole.” Ashton sighed, risking a glance back, peering around his high-backed leather chair. The man—Brand, Brand Forsythe according to the resume on Ashton’s desk—was practically a statue, barely even breathing. “I should go.”

“…he’s standing right there, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Vic let out a laugh that bordered on a cackle. “Oh my God, Ash. Go. Jesus fucking Christ, you cheeky little bugger. Get your shit together.”

“I’m trying,” Ashton snarled, then slammed this thumb down on the screen and ended the call. Taking a deep breath, he tried to exhale his scowl like smoke, smoothing his expression, forcing a smile—then spun his chair once more.

Forsythe eyed him with one brow lofted as he meticulously adjusted the perfectly, blindingly white cuff of his shirt, just barely visible past the crisp lines of a precisely tailored black three-piece suit. The man was so sharply put together it was as though his edges had been cut out with scissors, the streamlined, graceful flow of his suit giving his bulk taper and trim.

Even if he was still imposing as fuck.

He had to be at least six foot four, maybe more, his shoulders all broad, hard angles tapering down to a narrow waist and long legs. The subtle, quiet grace of his angular features was offset by a stubborn, clean-shaven jaw, the glasses at odds with his brutish body to give him a quiet, formal, bookish appearance made only more severe by the white gloves on his long, graceful hands. The late afternoon sunlight through the office’s windows glinted off his glasses, and gave a subtle gloss to the backsweep of smoothly combed, glossy hair in a muted, soft pale golden brown touched at the temples and scattered throughout with threads of silver.

With deliberated calm, he settled his shirt cuff, refastened his cufflink, then folded his hands together behind his back. His icy regard fixed on Ashton again, dark green eyes cool. “I assume my credentials have checked out, then,” he said smoothly.

Where Vic’s British accent made everything he said sound posh and polite…Brand Forsythe’s accent added a note of cultured, chilly disdain, deep and rolling with lyrical inflections. Ashton flushed, resisting the urge to reach up and pull his uncomfortable suit collar away from his burning-hot neck. That…would probably be a bad idea, anyway.

Considering he still had a bite-mark bruised against his throat from the man he’d kicked out of bed this afternoon without even asking his name, so Ash could throw on something decent and make it to this interview on time.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbled, then swore at himself mentally. He was the one in charge here, wasn’t he? But God, this man had to be almost twice his age, and he was looking at Ash like he was dirt. Fuck. Ashton cleared his throat, straightening in his chair. “Er. I mean. I simply had to check one of your references.”

“I understand you and young Master Victor have been acquainted since boarding school,” Brand replied neutrally.

“Uh. Yeah. How did you know I was talking to hi—nevermind.” Ash swallowed, lifting his chin. Calm. Composure. Right. “So how long have you worked as a personal assistant, then?”

“Valet,” Forsythe replied stiffly.

“Pardon?”

“The position is referred to as a valet, where I am from.” Forsythe arched one pointed brow, sweeping Ash over with an assessing look. “It is a position of some station. More than merely a ‘personal assistant.’”

“Here, it’s someone who parks cars,” Ashton retorted, then reined himself in. Him and his fucking tongue. He took another deep breath, then continued, “All right. How long have you worked as a valet?”

“Approximately twenty-two years.”

Ashton stared. “How old are you?”

“Forty-one.”

“So you started when you were nineteen?”

“Dedication begins early,” Forsythe answered smoothly, with another up-and-down look. “In most cases.”

Ashton’s ears burned. He knew how he looked—this twenty-three-year-old piece of shit in an expensive suit that didn’t fit right because he’d never bothered to get it tailored, wet around the nose and ears, sitting in this oversized chair meant for men with more stature than him. He didn’t belong in this chair, and he damned well knew it. He hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t asked for the fifty phone calls a day until he shut the ringer off on his phone. He hadn’t asked for the screaming newspaper headlines, the stack of newsprint on his desk right now charting the chaos and speculation while everyone from Forbes to The Daily Smut Shinedown guessed how long it would take him to crash, burn, and ruin everything his father had worked to build.

But he was stuck with it, and he was going to try to stop fucking up and do this right before he ran his father’s business into the ground.

Which meant he couldn’t let Forsythe get to him, when he hadn’t even hired the man yet. Ashton cleared his throat, folding his hands in his lap and trying to keep his voice stern. Authoritative. He didn’t have the same presence his father had, reverberating and commanding a room, but everyone had to start somewhere.

Maybe he’d grow into it.

“How much did Vic tell you about my situation, Mr. Forsythe?” he asked.

Forsythe’s eyes narrowed, considering. Then he recited, “Your father, magnate of Harrington Steel, Incorporated, has recently taken ill with bone cancer and is currently in hospice.” He recited the words so coldly, as if each one didn’t carry the weight of ten tons of steel rebar dropped on Ashton’s heart. “With your father currently in a comatose state and incapable of making decisions, the provisions in his living will naming you as heir and Chief Executive Officer took legal effect. You, however, have been too busy with your post-university gap year, carousing about with scantily clad young men, to consider anything business-minded, and are woefully unprepared to take the reins or even to function as an adult.” A touch of cold contempt on those words, and Forsythe straightened his shoulders, looking down his gracefully aquiline nose at Ashton. “Therefore, you require an assistant to help you…what were young Master Victor’s words? Ah, yes. ‘Get your shit together before you fuck it all up.’”

The hot burn of mortification scouring through Ash was nothing compared to the sick, heavy, nauseating feeling in his gut. The phantom echoes in his memory of that fucking respirator, wheeze in, wheeze out—and that awful sick death smell of the hospice center. It didn’t matter that it was the best, most expensive hospice center in New York state.

It was still a fucking hospice center.

It was still a mausoleum where you shuffled the dead off to wait until they finally stopped breathing.

Rather than look at Forsythe, he fingered the stack of face-down tabloid papers on his desk, fidgeting them, flipping the edge of one up—but the sight of his own alcohol-flushed face wasn’t any better. Blank-eyed, reeling, he’d been caught draped on Andrew, a casual not-quite-friend who was easy-come, easy-go, no strings attached, no questions, everything he wanted clear in his open shirt and the way his hands grasped so possessively onto Ash’s body in the photograph.

Ash stared at his own empty, vapid face, then slammed the paper down and pressed his lips together. He fought against the lump in his throat to speak, forcing himself to find words, strangled and small. “Yeah,” he said, averting his stinging eyes. “Something like that.”

“I apologize if my words about your father were insensitive,” Forsythe replied, formal and inflectionless.

“It’s the fucking truth, isn’t it?” Ash shot back, sucking in a wet, hoarse, rattling breath. “I’m a rich spoiled fuckup and I’m not ready for this. But my Dad’s dying and he wanted me to do right by his company, so I’m gonna try. You know what the job is. You know what it pays. Are you going to help me, or not?”

Forsythe remained silent for so long Ashton thought he wouldn’t answer, at first. He glanced back at the man, who watched him with unreadable eyes shielded behind the glint of his glasses.

Then Forsythe swept a bow, inclining forward with the grace of a man much smaller, agile and smooth.

“Ask of me,” he said, something in his rich, rolling voice trailing velvet shivers over Ashton’s skin, “and it shall be done, young Master Harrington.”

BRAND FORSYTHE STOOD IN THE doorway of the suite he had been assigned in the Harrington household. Frankly, after a stony, silent ride in the back of Harrington’s hired car—Brand would be putting a stop to that quite soon—he was mildly startled Harrington hadn’t consigned him to a broom closet. Not immodest in size, the suite was rather tastefully furnished in earth tones and linens, textured muslins making up much of the upholstery. Tall French doors to one side of the suite opened out onto a private paved patio, looking out over the lush gardens of the massive enclosed estate. All in all, it was a rather expansive accoutrement for a newly hired valet.

He turned his head, looking down at his new charge.

“No,” he said.

Ashton Harrington—young Master Harrington—blinked up at him, his long-lashed blue eyes wide and puzzled. He was barely more than a wet-eyed pup, his hair a wild disarray of inky black, pale golden freckles scattered across soft amber skin and dotting his fine, delicate nose. Brand had been informed the young Master was a tender twenty-three.

With his lean, wiry frame dwarfed inside an ill-fitted suit at least two sizes too large for him, he looked practically twelve.

And wholly unprepared to deal with Brand, let alone the intricacies of managing a multibillion-dollar global business.

The young Master blinked again. “No?” he repeated.

“No,” Brand said again. “Where are your chambers?”

“Um.” Harrington glanced away, raking a hand through his hair. “I…I was living in the pool house. I haven’t moved up to the main house yet.”

In that awkward admission was an unspoken cry of youthful rebellion. Some attempt at independence, when this man-child had never known a moment of independence or self-sufficiency in his life. He was accustomed to being told what to do, Brand thought—and while he might resist, perhaps sulk a touch, in the end he would do as he was told.

Only now, with his father ill and—from the tabloid rumors—his mother apparently long divorced and returned to her home country, there was no one to tell him anything. He was spinning. Flailing.

And waiting for someone to point him toward something resembling north.

Brand sighed, folding his arms over his chest. “Choose a master suite. One with adjoining servants’ chambers.”

Harrington’s gaze flew back to him. “Wh-what? Why?”

“If I am to be your valet, I must be available to you at all hours. When you call, I come. It makes for a more convenient arrangement if my room adjoins yours.”

A faint flush darkened Harrington’s cheeks. “I don’t…know if there are any rooms like that in the house.”

“It is your house. Find out.”

The boy scowled. The slight inner folds of his eyes, evidence of his mother’s influence, drew tight, turning his angled eyes into irritated, snakelike slits. “I didn’t hire you to boss me around.”

“You hired me,” Brand pointed out, “to get your affairs in order. Since you do not seem to have a plan for doing so, it falls on me to make the decisions until you are ready to do so yourself.”

“How do you know I don’t have a plan?”

Brand arched a brow. “Do you?”

Harrington’s lips parted. His mouth was rather pouty, pink and sullen, and for a moment the tip of his tongue darted over his lips before retreating, disappearing, as he slumped. “…no.”

“When you have one, I will take it under advisement,” Brand said. “Until then, young Master Harrington, I would thank you to trust me to do my job.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Sighing, Harrington curled a hand against the back of his neck, gaze fixed on the floor. “I’ll talk to the housekeeper. She’ll know.”

“I’ll need to be introduced to her as well, along with any other staff. You’ll need to inform me of their pay schedules and employment records. Are their payments managed by direct deposit, or by check?”

“I don’t know!” Harrington flared. “I don’t know any of this, okay?”

“I suggest you find out.”

“I will!” Harrington shot him a glare. His voice became thick, heavy. “Look, two days ago my Dad was right here handling all this. Now he’s…he’s fucking…he had cancer for three years and he didn’t even tell me, he just…he just left me here to deal with all this shit and you think I can just pick everything up and act like nothing’s happening when he could be—he could be—”

His smooth, pretty face crumpled. His mouth trembled, then drew tight; he sniffled, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose roughly and then abruptly turning away—but not before Brand caught the wet gleam of his eyes. Harrington’s shoulders were stiff, his breaths raspy, sound muffled as if he was trying to force it down. He had pride, then.

Pride, if nothing else.

At the very least, Brand understood pride.

He curled his hand against Harrington’s shoulder. “Direct me to the housekeeper. I will attend to what matters I can. Tomorrow, we may regroup to discuss a plan.”

That slim shoulder stiffened under his touch, before a hand knocked hard against his wrist, pushing it away. Harrington turned on him, cheeks wet, looking up at him with hard, flashing eyes.

“Don’t,” he bit off, voice choked. “Don’t you ever fucking pity me.” His throat worked, and he sniffled, looking away once more, glaring mutinously at the wall with his lower lip thrust out. “Fine. Tomorrow. You decide where we’re gonna sleep, I guess. But after this, I make the decisions.”

“Can you?” Brand challenged softly.

Harrington only fixed him with a furious, hateful look that did little to mask the hurt glimmering in his eyes.

The hurt, and a quiet, aching need—one that sparked something inside Brand, a pull like gravity.

But Harrington turned and walked away, leaving Brand alone in the cavernous, empty white hallway of smooth white stone and open archways.

Well.

That was an interesting reaction, indeed.

Brand lingered, leaning against the door of the room, tapping his thumb against his lower lip. He had his work cut out for him, he thought. He would start first thing in the morning.

For now, he supposed it was time to introduce himself to the staff.

One way or another, he would bring the Harrington household back into some semblance of order.

With or without his young Master’s cooperation, apparently.