Since he wasn’t dying, at least not tonight, Caleb made his dinner meeting at a restaurant in the financial district with his attorney, who also happened to be one of his four sisters. The restaurant had a view of the bay and great food, but his mind wasn’t on either.

Hannah looked at him in shock. “Why are you all wet?”

“Because it’s raining.”

“Smartass.” She handed him a stack of files and ate his nachos while he signed several new contracts for various partnership and new venture agreements.

“Could’ve done this in the office in the morning,” he said, pushing the files back to her.

“But then I couldn’t have eaten your nachos.”

“I pay you a fortune. You can buy your own nachos anytime.”

She shook her head. “My own nachos would come with calories. If I eat yours, the calories don’t count because they’re yours. You see?”

He stared at her. “Where did you get your law degree again? Online?”

“You know where. Stanford. Because you paid for it.” She scooped his last chip, stuck it in her mouth, and licked the cheese off her thumb. “Thanks for that, by the way. How’s Naoki?”

“Going to see him after this.”

“Long day,” she murmured.

“They all are. I’m fine,” he added when she started to open her mouth again.

“But—”

“Hannah.” He put his hand over hers. “We dreamed of this, remember? Of not living week to week? And here we are.”

She let the worry drain from her eyes and smiled. “And here we are.”

Thirty minutes later, Caleb hit his last stop of the day. This one was personal, and something he did as often as he could. The steep streets were no joke in the Russian Hill neighborhood, not that he could get a spot on the street if he wanted one. He pulled into the small alley spot reserved for him next to a Victorian building, took a deep breath, and headed inside.

The woman at the reception counter smiled in welcome. “Mr. Parker, he’s waiting up for you.”

“Caleb,” he said, as he did every time. “How’s he doing?”

Her smile faded a little. “Depends on the day. You got today’s doctor’s report?”

“Yes.” And it hadn’t been good. “He’s comfortable?”

“Absolutely,” she said with conviction and he nodded with relief and headed down the hall.

The old mansion had been renovated several times in the past hundred years, most recently about five years ago, and turned into a very cushy top-notch retirement home.

One of the night nurses met him in the hallway. “Just brought him his tea,” she reported. “Thanks for having it sent special from the UK, since we couldn’t find it here for him.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, it came in anonymously. Your secret’s safe, Mr. Parker.”

“Caleb,” he said. “And how did you know I’d sent the tea?”

“Because I’ve seen you with him. You’d do anything for him.” She paused. “Including buying this facility and renovating it to higher specs for specific needs so you could ensure the best possible home in which to keep him safe.” She smiled. “He’s lucky to have you.”

Actually, she had that backward. Caleb had been lucky to have Naoki in his life. When the nurse continued on her way down the hallway, he entered the room.

The old man was sitting in the chair in front of the window, a throw blanket across his legs. He turned and eyed Caleb with suspicion. “Who are you?”

A pang pierced through Caleb, the same pang he got every single time at that question. Why, he had no idea. Naoki hadn’t remembered him at first sight in at least two years.

Caleb stepped into the room. He’d left his still-wet suit jacket and tie in the car. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off.

The old man’s gaze dropped to Caleb’s torso, slowly taking in the tattoos. Naoki had many himself, a lot more than Caleb, but the living trees on the backs of their left shoulders were a near-identical match. So was the Japanese character just beneath them. Naoki, whose name literally meant tree , smiled at the sight of it, which cut through the barriers of dementia and age-battered memories.

Caleb returned the smile and shrugged back into his shirt, covering his own family emblem on the inside of his left bicep and the lettering down his right side that read Carpe Diem . He took one of the chairs at the small table near the bed and brought it to the window, then turned it around to straddle it as he eyed his old sensei.

“I know you?” Naoki asked, his voice tremulous with age.

Caleb nodded. Once upon a time, Naoki had saved his life. Actually, he’d saved Caleb’s life many times over if he was keeping count. And Caleb always kept count.

“You have some of the same tattoos as I do,” Naoki said.

“Yes.”

“You’re . . .” The old man’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “You’re the boy who ran into my dojo because other boys, bigger and meaner boys, were chasing him.”

Hating the memory, Caleb nodded.

“You were beat all to shit,” Naoki remembered. “You had no idea how to defend yourself.”

Caleb nodded again. “Beat all to shit” was putting it mildly given that he’d had a broken arm, a battered face, and a concussion—that time.

“I taught you to fight,” Naoki said.

“You did. It took a while.” He’d been small. And asthmatic. And weak.

“You’re big and strong now,” Naoki said, eyeing Caleb’s build. “I bet no one messes with you anymore.” He seemed pleased by this. “What became of you? I never saw you again.”

This wasn’t true. Caleb had gone to that dojo every single day that year. And the next year. And the year after that. He’d learned discipline, he’d learned self-control, he’d learned so damn much from this very small, very frail man that it hurt his heart to be here.

But he came anyway. Because once upon a time, this man had been everything in Caleb’s small life, and now for the rest of his, he’d want for nothing. “Do you need another blanket?” Caleb asked. “Are you warm enough?”

Naoki waved this off. “Tell me about my dojo. No one here can tell me anything about my life, and—” He shook his head. “I can’t remember. The dojo’s still there, yes?”

“Yes, and it’s very successful.” Only a partial lie. Naoki had been forced to sell the dojo back when Caleb had been seventeen due to financial problems in a downturned market and shitty economy. The place had been turned into a gym and gone through many owners before Caleb had been able to buy it back almost a decade ago.

Naoki yawned. His eyes drifted shut and his head fell forward.

Caleb watched him sleep for a few minutes and then stood up to help him into bed. The minute he moved, Naoki’s eyes flew open and once again narrowed on him.

“Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded.

A nurse entered the room before Caleb could speak. Naoki pointed at him. “I told you, no male nurses!”

She smiled easily at Naoki. “I’m sorry, sir, but he’s not—”

“No worries.” Caleb moved to the door. “I’ll leave you in good hands. Sleep well.” He paused in the hallway, reminding himself he’d gotten a good five minutes this time. It was more than he’d had in months.

Not ready to go home, he ended up at his offices, which occupied a ten-story building in the financial district. All was quiet and mostly dark. He encouraged his employees to go home after eight hours. It had nothing to do with paying overtime and everything to do with making sure his entire team had a life, which was hopefully made easier by generous benefits packages, including paid leave for philanthropy efforts.

His office was on the tenth floor. He went straight to the tall windows overlooking the city and wondered where Sadie and Lollipop were now. Were they dry and fed?

And why did he care?

He was rubbing his aching forehead when he heard someone come into his office.

“You look exhausted.”

He turned to face his oldest sister, Sienne, who was his right hand when it came to work.

And his left. “I’m fine,” he said, wondering how many times a day he told that to one sister or another. “And busy,” he said pointedly.

She snorted and came in. “You’d say you were fine even if you had a limb falling off. When you were little and bullied all the way home from school, you’d stagger into the house bleeding at seven years old and say you were ‘fine.’ When you were so sick you couldn’t get enough air in your lungs, leaving you with black circles under your eyes and perpetually short of breath, you were ‘fine.’ And now, these days, with your world worth so much and a billion balls in the air at all times, you’re still ‘fine.’”

“And I’m neither bleeding nor wheezing for breath,” he said.

“I’ll call Mom if I have to.”

He dropped his head and laughed while rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m thirty-two and you’re forty, and you’re really going to call Mom and tattle on me?”

“Hey,” Sienne said, “I’m thirty-nine for two more months and you know it, so say forty again and die. And yeah, I’d call Mom. She’s the only one who could ever talk any sense into you.”

“Mom’s on that cruise in Greece, the first vacation we’ve talked her into ever. Leave her out of this.”

“You talked her into it by buying her the ticket and guilting her into going by saying you didn’t want the money to go to waste.” Sienne gave him a reluctant smile. “Which was incredibly deceptive of you. I feel so proud. It was also sweet, given that you spend a fortune supporting all of us these days.”

“You earn your keep,” Caleb said. “But even if you weren’t, it’s my turn, remember? I was a hell of a burden on you guys.” For years. And he could say they’d all moved on without being scarred, but he’d be lying. He knew this was where his inability to accept help or let anyone take care of him in any way came from. He took care of himself these days, thank you very much. “I’ll never forget all you did for me.”

She set her head on his shoulder and together they both stared out the large window at the San Francisco night. “You were never a burden, Caleb.”

He shook his head. “The doctor and hospital bills said otherwise, as did Mom’s bankruptcy.”

“You were a preemie with medical problems, and then an asthmatic little kid who wheezed for every breath and was beat up for it, and when I think about those days,” she said, fisting her hands, “I still want to murder people.”

“Sienne.”

“Well, I do,” she said fiercely, her hand entangling with his. “I know you work so hard because you want to give back to us. You think we sacrificed so much for you—”

“You did.”

“What we Parkers do for each other, we do out of love,” she said, voice still iron. “And don’t you dare taint it by suggesting you owe us.”

“Sienne—”

“No. And one more thing before I shut up. None of what happened when you were young, not you being sick and not us barely being able to afford your medical care, none of it was your fault.”

He squeezed her fingers and met her gaze. “It wasn’t any of yours either, and yet you all put your life on hold for me.” They’d done whatever they’d had to, including working as many jobs as it took to keep them all together.

Sienne opened her mouth, but he pointed at her. “You promised to shut up now.”

“I lied.”

“Knew it was too good to be true.”

She smiled. “I’ll change the subject to work, how’s that? Two things. You’re updated with today’s progress and tomorrow’s meetings.” She nodded to the iPad on his desk. “Check your files for all the reports.”

She was his director of operations. Not an easy job, and neither was working for him. But compared to some of the things they’d been through together, the job and his business were a walk in the park. “Thanks.”

“Just trying to earn my ridiculously high paycheck,” she said. “Don’t want to be a burden, or have you sacrificing resources for your sister.”

He slid her a glance. “Sarcasm?”

“No. Irony. I don’t want to ever hear again that you feel guilty thinking we sacrificed for you. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

She studied him a beat. “I think you actually believe that.” She shook her head. “But I see a restlessness in you lately. You’re not happy.”

He turned back to the window, uncomfortable that she could read him so well. “I’m not un happy.”

Her voice softened. “You’re working too hard. You logged something like eighty hours last week. You need to pass some of that work down to the rest of us. Take some time for yourself.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You always say that,” she said. “You need to stop thinking and do.”

“You need a life too.”

“I’ve got one,” she said with a secret little smile that told him things were going well with her husband, Niles. “It’s your turn.”

He thought of Sadie in the courtyard tonight, hair and clothes plastered to her with rain, her eyes holding all her secrets. She was as independent as they came, fiercely so, and didn’t need anyone. That was damn attractive to a man like himself. And then, as if he’d conjured her up, his phone buzzed with an incoming FaceTime call from her, making his heart leap. “I’ve got to take this.”

Sienne nodded and headed for the door. Turning his back on her, he answered and found Lollipop staring at him through the screen. She was dry and her eyes were bright, tongue lolling. She seemed much happier than she had earlier.

“She wanted to say goodnight,” came Sadie’s amused voice. “I told her that you were likely out on the town with a date, living the high life to match your suit, but she still wanted a goodnight kiss from Daddy.”

Caleb smiled. “Are you using our child to ask if I’m seeing someone?”

Sadie’s face appeared behind the dog’s. She too was dry, though she didn’t seem nearly as happy to see him as Lollipop. “I’m most definitely not asking,” she said.

He smiled.

“I’m not!” she exclaimed. “I don’t care if you’re seeing someone.”

His smile widened.

She pointed at him. “Knock it off. It’s absolutely none of my business who you’re with.”

“Because you don’t like me, right?”

“Oh good, you know. That makes it way less awkward.”

He laughed, but at the sound behind him, he had to shake his head. He should’ve known nosy-as-hell Sienne wouldn’t actually leave.

“Um, don’t look now,” Sadie said, eyes on something over his shoulder. “But there’s a woman behind you wearing an expression that says maybe you are on a date.”

“Ignore her,” he said.

“Don’t be rude.” Sienne pushed her way in closer to look at Sadie. “I’m Sienne Parker, Caleb’s sister. And you are . . . ?”

“Now who’s being rude?” Caleb murmured. “Sadie, my sister Sienne. Sienne, this is Sadie, who works in the Pacific Pier Building.”

“So this is about . . . work?” Sienne asked.

“No,” Caleb said and didn’t further explain, hoping to cut off his sister’s curiosity at the knees. “And you were just leaving, remember?”

“Yes, but I forgot to give you this.” Sienne handed him a food container and a fork. “My famous homemade baked mac and cheese.”

He slid her a look. “You know I’m not ten anymore, right?”

“Physically, no. Mentally?” She smiled. “There are whole days . . .”

He snorted and took the container and the gesture for what it was. The mac and cheese was his comfort food, always had been. There’d been times when they’d lived off boxed mac and cheese because it’d been cheap. When things had gotten better, Sienne had learned to make it from scratch, though these days she usually had to be bribed to do so.

Sienne gave him a long look he couldn’t quite decipher and left.

“Arf!”

Lollipop was back on the screen, demanding attention. Caleb certainly had enough women in his life demanding attention, but he felt a pinch in the region of his heart and smiled at her. “Hey, baby, how you doing?”

Sadie poked her head around Lollipop’s. “We’d be doing better if someone had made us mac and cheese.”

“I deliver,” he said without thinking and . . . the call disconnected and his screen went dark.

Sadie grimaced and shoved her phone into her pocket. “He was going through a tunnel,” she told Lollipop. “Bad connection.”

Her phone buzzed.

Crap.

She pulled the phone back out of her pocket and looked at the screen. Do Not Even Think About Falling For This Guy was FaceTiming.

She bit her lower lip. “Dammit,” she said and answered. “I’ve got bad reception.”

“Clearly,” Caleb said dryly.

He was still in his office, a big-ass fancy one at that, with floor-to-ceiling windows behind him and an incredible view of the city at night. And he was kicked back in his chair, coat and tie gone, sleeves rolled up, eating the mac and cheese, and making her mouth water.

“Wow,” she said, going for sarcasm rather than reveal how it’d felt to get a glimpse into his and his sister’s relationship, which seemed far more real and open and honest than she’d ever had with any of her family. “Spoiled much? I mean you can get a box of mac and cheese for what, a buck?”

But her teasing quip had the very opposite effect than she’d imagined. Caleb’s face closed up to her, including his warm eyes and contagious smile. All gone in a blink.

“You don’t know enough about me to go there,” he said lightly.

“Go where exactly?” she asked. “I was just teasing.”

“You were judging. Again.”

Since that might very well be true, she shut her mouth and put Lollipop back in front of her. “Just say goodnight.”

“Because, let me guess, you have to go.”

Okay, so he was onto her. Still, she held his gaze and stood her ground because holding her ground, small as it might be, was what she did. “I do have to go, I’ve got an early morning. And . . .” She blew out a sigh. “I’m sorry. For hanging up on you.”

“But not for the judging?”

Dammit. “Maybe a little for the judging. But I’m not going to lie,” she said. “I’m probably not done judging you. I mean I’ll try to work on it, but it’ll be a process.”

His mouth quirked. “Fair enough.”

“And you’re sorry too, right?”

“For . . . ?”

“For assuming the worst of me when I was just kidding around.”

He stared at her for a beat. “I do tend to assume the worst and then go to a dark place to mull that worst over.” He paused and some amusement came back into his eyes. “I’ll try to work on it.”

She gave him a small smile of her own. “It’s okay. I’ve been to some pretty dark places myself.” An understatement. A huge understatement. And why she’d even told him such a thing about herself, she had no idea. It made her itchy because really, what the hell was she doing? Flirting with him? It sure felt a whole lot like exactly that and this made her even itchier.

Flirting led to intimacy, even love. But she’d never been loved for who she really was and she was pretty sure she never would be. So she wasn’t about to go looking for it, and in fact she probably wouldn’t even recognize it if it hit her in the face. It was why she’d given up on men three years ago. And in those three years, she’d not found herself interested, not once. She’d promised herself she’d take a long break from hurting people and getting hurt. She’d needed to figure out her own shit.

And yet here she was, tempted by a hot smile. “I’ve really gotta go.” And this time when she disconnected, she also turned off her phone to avoid any further temptation.

A temptation she hadn’t seen coming.