I turned my back to Jessi and walked away, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but seeing her like that, there was no way I could have stayed and kept my composure. My smirk fell away and changed into a look of relief once I was out of their sight.

That was too close.

I was impressed that she’d had the courage to speak up to me when she’d usually just cowed or ran away before. It had taken all I had not to let my eyes drop to her luscious body. I vividly remembered feeling her pressed up against me, even for that short moment when she’d run into me. I’d wanted to close the space between us, reach for her and hold her to me again, only longer.

Shit.

“Don’t lose your head now, Trent,” I said to myself, pausing when a maid walked past me with a giggle.

I’d slowed down without realizing it, then speed-walked out of there with my chin held high.

Why had I even bothered to go to the staff area? I was taking over the higher management of the hotel, but I could always leave the little things to the hotel manager. My meticulous nature just wouldn’t let me. I hadn't gotten as far as I had in my career by letting other people do jobs for me.

When can I go back to that again? I thought wistfully about the past, and how I just wanted to get back to my own business as quickly as possible.

Then I remembered what Jessi looked like as she told me off: her blonde-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail with wisps falling around her face, her cheeks were lit up a light-pink, and there’d been this small furrow in her brow as she scowled at me. I, of course, found the picture completely endearing because I was a masochist.

Don’t even think about it!

I growled the thought silently to myself, feeling more relaxed as I walked into the elevator for it to take me up. “She is not the woman for you. You decided that long before you left.”

I hadn't been nice about it either.

No matter how rude I’d been to her—was still being, in fact—I’d always liked her. Back before I left, when I was dealing with a lot of family shit, she would always seem to be there when I turned around, no matter how much I kept telling her to leave me alone. Something about her just bugged me.

Her sweet eyes… Her light-brown eyes that always looked at me with so much understanding made me uncomfortable as a teenager when I was more than ready to push away anything and everything in my hurry to get away. Even before she confessed that she wanted me just as much as I wanted her. It wasn’t a surprise. I’d known, just from the look in her eye. It had always made me uncomfortable that she might expect something like that from me.

I knew I wasn’t the loving kind, so when she finally plucked some courage and told me, I had been cruel to her to get her to stop. Fucking, definitely, but loving? I didn’t believe in that shit, and I’d known I couldn’t give her what she wanted.

Love only ever ended badly as far as I’d seen or cared. I had a dad who was absent more often than not and yet complained that I wasn’t there for the family, one I wanted no part of. There was my stepmother, who I couldn’t stand, yet was so eager to please Dad that she’d try to get along with me even as I rebuffed her. I’d known the moment Dad brought her home I wasn’t going to give her a chance to be my stepmother, but that fact didn’t matter.

I hated her, and that was it. There was no reason to think it over; no matter how many times both of them insisted I did.

“Stop being such an arrogant pig!”

The whole thing was driving me fucking insane. I was having conversations with myself in public, and I didn’t even realize it as the elevator doors opened.

“I’m sorry?”

The woman who worked as my dad’s secretary stood on the other side with a shocked expression on her face. I quickly cleared my throat and to stop her thinking that I’d gone insane, I changed the subject.

“Is there any news from my father?” I asked, stepping out of the elevator, and she fell into step beside me as I headed for the office.

“Not yet, sir. He’s still refusing to see you.”

I frowned because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was hoping that there’d been some change, but it was clear that there was none.

“Did you at least get a reason as to why?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Were you talking to me?”

Fuck!

I need to get my thoughts back to the business and nothing else. Otherwise, I will go fucking insane.

“Forget it,” I said. “Tell me how things are going and if there’s something I need to do that Dad was supposed to be doing.”

I grumbled to myself silently as she started listing things out beside me and I listened with half an ear. What exactly was the old man planning?

Would Dad continue to refuse to see me until I got so impatient I just knocked his door down? He was lucky I didn’t pack up and go home. If he didn’t want to see me, what reason did I have to stick around?

But the truth was that he wouldn’t be in the office, and my stepmother could hardly handle those affairs. Supposedly all my brothers had been called, but I arrived first because I was the closest, and the other two were yet to get there. I couldn’t just leave the handling of the hotel to the secretary, so took it upon myself to handle my dad’s affairs, or I wouldn’t have been at the hotel at all.

By the time we got to the office, she finished giving me the run down. I listened half-heartedly, my thoughts of the girl from the past now on my mind. I needed to stop thinking about my cock and just my head; there was too much at stake to get distracted by Jessi. I rounded the desk, took off my jacket and draped it on the back of the chair before sitting down. Then I looked back up at my secretary.

“Put off my dad’s meetings for the next couple of days. If he doesn’t improve by then, I’ll see what I can do about it.” I couldn’t just go into his meetings without preparation. I knew my dad, and if I blew things for his precious hotel—though I was confident enough in my abilities to know I wouldn’t, it didn’t hurt to be cautious—he’d make me pay for it. “I’ll need some paperwork from the manager, so call him and ask him to bring them up. Where can I find everything else I need to take care of?”

“I’ll bring the files over to you and call the manager,” she said, making an about turn and marching out of the room without another word or quibble.

One thing about Dad was he had good taste, that was for sure. One wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Dad hired his secretary based on her looks and nothing else. This one was different, she was efficient, which was more than could be said for the others.

I tried to work and looked over contracts with business partners and sheets with hotel costs, but the interlude with Jessi this morning just wouldn’t leave my mind.

I could try to deny it to myself, but she had really got to me with her defiant beauty and courage. She gave me just as much venom as I’d given her at the same time, and it turned out it was a combo guaranteed to make my blood heat up. I’d shake my head every now and then to try to focus, only I’d remember the way she glared at me all over again. In another hour, I hadn't done much, and I was a little hard in my slacks. I groaned to myself and wondered if I’d been alone too long. When was the last time a woman graced my bed?

But as I tried to imagine the kind of women I usually brought home for a little fun, Jessi’s image wouldn’t leave me alone. Instead, I thought back to when she’d been a teenager, one of the last times I’d seen her before I left town.

Even back when she’d been all gangly, clumsy and awkward, there would be times when I would find myself looking at her. I remembered the kiss she gave me. I hadn't been able to forget it for months, and it took finding a multitude of girls to distract me before I was sure I’d put her behind me, only sparing the occasional thought for Jessi over the years.

But that kiss, I remembered it. I’d kissed and been kissed before, sure, but something about the way she did it, so soft and sweetly, followed by a confession, had thrown me for a moment. It had started this longing in me for everything I’d lost when Mom died, made me want so much more from life than money and women on my arm as temporary distractions from life, because even as a teenager I’d done that. If Jessi had known just how many girls had kissed me before she did, she might have thought twice about it.

She didn’t though, and I had an annoying memory to deal with for the rest of my life because I’d known my longing was only foolish. What I’d needed in my life was the ability to lead it on my own, how I wanted to. I’d pushed Jessi away, laughed in her face to make her run from me because I knew I couldn’t have a woman like her. Things would just end terribly for the both of us.

The starlets, models, and socialites that I went out with in public and occasionally warmed my bed, then left without complaint or trying to be clingy, were the most I deserved as far as companionship went. I couldn’t treat a sweet woman right, and the women I went for were never hurt by how I treated them. I wasn’t disrespectful, but it was rare I ever called them back. We’d meet at some big party later with someone else on my arm, and none of them would bat an eyelash.

Maybe I should call one of them here, I thought to myself.

But I hadn't seen anyone in three weeks because I’d been busy at work. I may not be doing my job at the moment, but that was still true. Besides not having the time for it, it was the wrong time even to be thinking of romance with my dad being ill.

“Even if that old man refuses to see me,” I growled.

A knock on the door made me look up. I thought it might be the secretary, or someone from the hotel coming to ask about something important, but the door opened without me calling for it too, and my brother Mason walked in.

“When did you get here?” I asked in not quite a greeting.

He grinned, pulling off his shades. “About an hour ago. I stopped by the house but there was no news, and Emily let me know you’d be here.”

Mason looked like his usual self, though it had been a few months since I’d seen him last. But then, he never really changed, did he?

He was shorter than me by an inch at six foot four, and I stood up as he crossed the room to keep him aware of that fact. We had the same gray eyes, but his blonde hair was a few shades darker than mine. He reached a hand across the desk as he stopped on the other side of it, and after a short hesitation he probably didn’t catch, I shook his hand. Then we both sat down.

“So?” he started saying, and I was already growing impatient, hoping he would just say what was on his mind. “What exactly is going on? I get an urgent call from Emily that Dad had a heart attack, only she seems more nervous than worried and won’t tell me anything about him. Even Mom isn’t saying anything.”

“Are you still trying to talk to your mom?” I asked because I knew I wouldn’t dare do that. It would mean having to acknowledge her existence, and I tried not to do that as much as possible. “She came back with him in an ambulance yesterday when he should probably still be in the hospital. That man is far too stubborn for his own good! Always thinking he’s Superman or something.”

He sighed and tipped his head back. “I tried insisting, but Mom’s just like that. If she doesn’t want to say something, you can't talk her into it, not even her kids.” He raised his head to look at me with an uncharacteristic frown. He was the always ready to party one, so seeing him so serious was nice for a change. “You don’t think it’s really serious, do you? He’s practically retired, though that just means he works here instead of looking into all the branches because he’s not the kind to stay at home idle. It’s probably bad that he’s not here working, isn’t it?”

I frowned as I arranged my thoughts. They were along the same lines as his. We all knew what our dad was like, after all.

“It probably is something serious,” I said slowly. “And he just calls himself retired, but I know he never stopped working.” He just asked me to take care of some of the other hotels and left other managers in charge of what I wasn’t taking care off, adding more to my plate without asking me if I even wanted a hand in his empire. “He’s refused to see me, so I guess we just have to wait until he stops being so damn shy.”

Mason snorted. “Since when was that shameless old man shy?”

I rolled my eyes as he chuckled. “Anyway, while he’s off, there’s a lot of work to do at the hotel. I’ll be looking into the other branches in a few days if we still have no news, but there’s plenty to get done here that he left behind.”

Mason’s expression went serious again as he leaned forward, elbows braced on the arms of the chair and hands linked together over his lap.

“Tell me what there is and I’ll see what I can help you with.”

I gave him a suspicious look. He waved my expression away, looking amused. “Dad taught all of us about the business, not just you, you know.” He waited for my reaction, but I didn’t give him one so he just carried on talking. “I can be of some help. Or if you want, I could leave it all in your capable hands, big bro.” He gave me a strange look. “Though I was kinda surprised to hear you were in the area, Trent. I didn’t believe it, which is why I rushed to get here just to see it for myself.”

“Forget that. Focus on work for now. You might as well make yourself useful while you’re here.”

I showed him the same list the secretary had given me. We divided some duties between us, everyone with their shit to take care of, just as our dad taught us.

Though I’d acted all skeptical about his offer considering what he liked to do with his free time, I wouldn’t doubt his capabilities. Our dad had been a hard man after all, especially when it came to the business. But he taught us, even the other four—Emily too, though she was the least interested—how to be proper businessmen, at least.

“But first,” I told him before he could get his ass out of the chair, “I need help with some of the paperwork right now, or I’ll be lost in it for the rest of the day, and I have other stuff I want to get done today.”

He arched an eyebrow at the papers I already had in front of me, and the thick pile of folders to the side that I’d yet to get to.

“Just how much is there, anyway?” he asked, part curious and partly horrified.

I shrugged. “It must have all been waiting for a week, at least. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well before the heart attack, or he would have done it all himself.”

“Yeah,” he said with a frown as we shared a worried glance. “I’ve never heard of him taking a day off work for anything short of a broken arm. And even then he still shows up.”

I didn’t answer. I was trying not to think too hard or too much about what was going on with our dad, or I’d worry myself to death. Mason didn’t say anything either and we got down to business.

Now, I thought to myself, once Mason was looking over some of the paperwork, if only I could get Jessi out of my mind.

But I knew it would be a futile effort even to try, and I was annoyed at myself for it.