Chapter 1

COOPER

Home is where the heart is. That’s what they say, don’t they?

That a place, a building, is actually where you can be at peace. Where you can be yourself.

Until I was twenty years old, I didn’t believe in that bullshit.

I knew it to be crap.

Home was where you slept. Where you pressed your head to the pillow and could rest without fear of anyone trying to hurt you.

For nineteen years, I lived in blissful ignorance. Until I met Lauren.

She changed it all. Changed me. And all these years later, I was still trying to figure out exactly how the fuck that happened.

My jaw clenched as I pulled into Willow Hearth, a town where I’d lived during my college years, only twenty minutes away from my alma mater.

It was small, but large enough to have two schools attached to the district. More subdivisions than anything, an IHOP and a couple of ethnic restaurants that were actually better than anything I’d found in the Big Apple.

Weird that I remembered that now as I was pulled over by a cop.

All of a sudden there he was behind me. I wasn’t doing a damn thing wrong, hadn’t been speeding, and sure as shit hadn’t been weaving in and out of the lines—there was zero reason to pull me over, and yet, the douche was.

Grumbling under my breath as I pulled in on the side of the road, just far away enough from the verge so as not to fear for my cherry red Lexus, I waited for the officer to approach.

An old bastard. In his fifties, probably due for retirement, and pissy about it.

“License and registration, please, sir.”

I shot him a tight smile, knowing I’d get further with honey than vinegar. Reaching for my documents in the glove compartment, I passed them over.

“Are you aware your license is overdue, sir?”

I blinked. That was why he pulled me over?

“It can’t be,” I told him, still blinking at him. “My PA handled that last month.”

She had to have done, didn’t she?

I scowled at the thought, then groaned. Fucking Tiffany with her fucking baby hormones.

Jesus, the girl had gone crazy once she’d had a bun in the oven. My competent as fuck PA had morphed into a ditzy bag of estrogen the minute she’d seen the blue line on the pregnancy test.

I’d been paying the price ever since.

Groaning under my breath, I grit out, “I apologize, officer. My PA’s pregnant and is forgetting even the basic sh—” I cleared my throat, gritted my teeth again. “I understand you’ll have to fine me.”

It would serve her right if I docked the fine from her fucking salary, but Jesus, I couldn’t do that.

Tiffany reminded me of Lauren some days. And now she was pregnant, she reminded me of all the things I could have had once but would never be able to have now.

In fact, her baby bump was one of the reasons I was all the way back in Willow Hearth, Maine.

The back end of beyond wasn’t my stomping ground anymore. I was a marketing executive now for an advertising company in Manhattan, one I interned at all those years ago.

Leviathan and Dronig had been my home now for the past eight years, and I was tired of that.

Home being my place of work wasn’t enough anymore.

Seeing Tiffany’s baby belly grow had only cemented that further.

I needed to know what Lauren made of herself.

Badly.

I needed to see where all her dreams and talent had taken her.

I needed to see who she was married to, if she had kids. What kind of jerk had been the lucky fucker to nab her…

Because, I was in no doubt that she’d be married by now. That she’d have kids, and that she’d be a career woman too.

She was like that.

Any guy who she was lucky enough to be with would just never let her go.

Well, that is, aside from me.

I’d been the dumb schmuck who’d let her go free.

The cop blinked back at me, equally as surprised by my equanimity. “That’s all right, sir,” he told me, his accent thick and clogged with that bumpkin sound unique to Maine.

I’d missed it.

“Just make sure your license is arranged as soon as possible.”

I reared back. Seriously? He was letting me go.

I cleared my throat. “I appreciate that, officer.”

The man tapped his cap, then headed back to his vehicle. I waited for him to get behind the wheel and take off, letting two cars separate us before I headed back onto the road too.

Shit, that had been a close call.

Not that I couldn’t afford the ticket now. I could, but still, it would have been a bitch to arrange.

Especially as I couldn’t entrust it to Tiffany anymore.

Thank Christ she was on maternity leave now. I only hoped that when the baby popped out, my ever-competent PA would be back to normal.

Somehow, I doubted it.

Women changed after they had a baby, didn’t they? They became all mushy. Lost their hard edge. At forty-two, I’d been surprised at Tiffany’s news. Had expected her to remain the bulldog she’d always been. Over the past four months, she’d morphed into a mother hen.

Had even bitched at me over how much coffee I was drinking.

I rolled my eyes at the memory, and then, I stopped thinking about Tiffany because I was entering the township and it was exactly the fucking same as it had always been.

Jesus.

This place hadn’t changed a bit.

Arranged around a square with a memorial in the center for soldiers lost to the many wars the US had fought in, a list that was way too long for such a small town, I couldn’t believe how it was like going back in time.

The post office was there, as was the mom and pop restaurant, the pharmacy, and the Mexican and Italian restaurants that had popped up in my first year of school. I could see the IHOP in the distance, then let my gaze drift across the small grocery store that most people bypassed for the nearest Walmart thirty minutes away and yet was still going strong…

The nostalgia and the feels this place gave me was, beyond a doubt, weird.

A good weird, I guessed. But still, bizarre nonetheless.

I was here for work but maybe also pleasure.

I lived at my job, pretty much. Life was bland when it came down to anything other than the excitement of my career. So, this two-week potential break I was taking for myself was more than unusual—the VP, the man I answered to, had nearly choked on his coffee when I’d put in the request.

He’d told me to take three weeks, and a real vacation somewhere, but I’d figured that was too much. Truth was, you knew you were working too many hours when even your bosses were obsessing over your hours.

I guessed, in a way, it was proof of how large of an asset I was to the team. A fact that filled me with satisfaction.

Rubbing my chin, I set my GPS for another destination. I’d had it programmed to take me to the town center, for old times sake. Now, I was intending to deal with work first then maybe get some downtime in.

The drive out of the town toward the Gandy residence took barely fifteen minutes. As the GPS led me out of the center, I picked up the markers, so I wouldn’t have to use the GPS again, and found my way relatively easily to the front gates of a large estate.

Eying it from behind the grand cast iron fencing, I whistled under my breath.

This was why I’d had to come and visit Gandy myself. He should have come to the New York office; it would have been a damn sight easier all told. But, when an assistant had emailed me and told me that Gandy was pretty much a recluse, and then had listed his address… Well, I had to come.

A house call wasn’t something listed on my duties as Advertising Exec, but I was willing to go the extra mile when that extra mile would take me back to my old stomping grounds.

As well as earn me a pretty bundle in the upcoming months if Gandy liked our ideas.

Pressing the intercom, I waited for someone to answer and to open the gate.

I’d surprised myself by making good time. I wanted this project underway.

Either Gandy would be signing the papers I’d brought with me today, or I’d be enjoying the next two weeks free from the pressures of work.

For a second, a sensation akin to panic flooded me.

Two weeks without work?

I’d brought my laptop with me, and there was always shit I could catch up on even from this distance. But no active tasks? No meetings?

I gulped.

Could I cope?

For a second, I wasn’t sure if I could, and then, the other side of the intercom buzzed, and a pleasant voice murmured, “Justin Gandy’s Estate.”

For a second, I was swept back into the past. When a voice tinged with that accent and the perfect amount of sugar had whispered sweet nothings into my ear…

Then, I remembered that was gone. Over. I’d ruined it, destroyed something pure and beautiful to make sure Lauren would have no regrets.

Suddenly, the prospect of being here for two weeks seemed like a nightmare.

What had I been thinking of? Reserving a place for all that time, thinking I’d be able to stay here and relax if Gandy didn’t sign on the dotted line?

I sucked down a breath.

I’d just have to make sure Gandy would sign, and then there’d be no problem.

When a throat cleared, and the voice repeated those same three words, I murmured, “Cooper Daniels. I’m here to see Mr. Gandy.”

Without a word, the gates swept inward, and I drove forward.