22 Years Later

 

When his phone rang, Ethan hardly gave it a passing glance. He knew exactly who was calling, and why they were calling, and it was far too early in the morning to get yelled at - at least, in his humble opinion. He’d barely gotten up five minutes ago, and he needed a cup of very strong coffee before he was ready to tackle the day. Before that, it would be physically impossible to take any phone calls.

He pulled on his robe and shuffled into the shower, looking forward to the espresso that awaited him when he got out. Rosita made the best cup of coffee in the city, and he was lucky to have her putting up with his bullshit.

At least, that was what he thought until, halfway through his shower, came a knock on the bathroom door. He poked his head out to glare at the closed door. “What is it?”

Rosita cracked open the door to poke her head in. It wasn’t as if he had ever been ashamed of showing his goods to anyone with two x chromosomes, but Rosita was different. “Sorry Mr. Kensley,” she extended his cordless office phone through the crack in the door. “It’s Mr. Alistair. He says it’s very important that he talk to you.”

Alistair? Wasn’t Alistair in the mid-west somewhere? What the hell was he doing calling Ethan at this hour of the morning? With a groan, he reluctantly shut off the shower, reached for a towel to wrap around himself before stepping grudgingly onto the slick tile floor. No sooner had he taken the phone from Rosita’s outstretched hand than he was barking into the receiver.

“Alistair, what could you possibly want at this hour?”

“Me?” A deep highland brogue came back brusquely, making Ethan wince at its volume. “I don’t want a bloody thing!” With his accent - still heavy even after almost two decades stateside, the statement sounded more like ‘I dinna wan a bluidy thin’ - but Ethan, unlike many people Alistair ran into, had no problem deciphering his brother’s way of speaking. “It’s four in the morning here, Ethan, and I just got a call from Vlad who asked me to call you because he knew you wouldn’t pick up your bloody phone.”

Well, that was a dirty trick. Ethan hadn’t thought that Vladimir would try an alternative way to contact him, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. When it came to getting work done, Vladimir was one of the hardest task-masters in existence. “Well, shit.”

“Shit is right! It’s the arse-crack of dawn here. Call the madman and let me go back to sleep!”

“Right, right.” Ethan, normally guiltless in every endeavor, couldn’t help but feel a little guilty on this one. If there was anyone in their family who was less of a morning person than he was, it was Alistair. Of course, Vladimir had preyed on that particular detail.

The bastard.

Apologizing once more, Ethan hung up to silently fume for a moment. His first impulse was to call Vlad out on his sheer nastiness. One of the caveats of having a brother who was also your boss was shit like this. The only reason Ethan didn’t immediately call the older man was because he recognized that, in part...well, if he was honest, this situation was kind of his fault anyway.

Raking a hand through his damp hair, he leaned against the edge of the sink to call Vlad’s private number. His older brother picked up on the first ring. “Alistair was angry, wasn’t he?”

Ethan didn’t know what infuriated him more - that his brother knew exactly how to play all his siblings, or that he always seemed to have the upper hand in an argument. That was, perhaps, because Vladimir didn’t often engage in arguments he didn’t think he could win. “That was cold, Vlad.”

“What’s cold,” his brother returned in an irate tone slightly colored with his Slavic roots, “Is not answering a call when there’s something important to discuss.”

Ethan repressed a groan. Somehow, Vladimir’s idea of “important” differed greatly from his own. “Vladimir, we finalized those figures yesterday.”

“I’ve made some adjustments,” Vladimir returned succinctly, making Ethan’s eyes widen.

“What kind of adjustments? Those ledgers were perfect. Vladimir, what have you-”

“I suppose you’ll know when you reach the office.” Ethan glared daggers at the phone, cursing his brother’s curious mix of wile and gall. “I’ll wait for you. See you soon, Ethan.”

And then he hung up, leaving Ethan to gape at the phone like an idiot. How...How did he always let Vlad back him into a corner? Wasn’t it enough that the man was just as ruthlessly intelligent as he was (if not as mathematically inclined)? No, Vladimir just had to get under his skin.

He forced himself to take a deep, calming breath. This, he reminded himself, wasn’t Vlad trying to be vicious or underhanded. No... this was just Vlad being Vlad - and if he, as his brother, hadn’t come to terms with that after almost two decades of getting to know the man, then he was the one at fault.

Another deep breath - slow and easy.

The elder man could be infuriating as all get-out some of the time, but he still loved him, still did his best to meet his never-ending demands.

And that was what he was going to do now.

Quickly, he toweled off and dressed in one of his favorite suits. Rosita, bless her, was waiting with his very large latte in a to-go cup. With his first grin of the morning, Ethan pressed an affectionate kiss to the older woman’s cheek. “I love you, Rosita.”

“You love my coffee.” Rosita winked at him. “Hurry up now.”

As if he could do anything else. Ethan all but jogged towards the entryway of his penthouse apartment, stopping just before he opened the door to take a peek at the floor length mirror in the entryway. His father and brothers might call him vain, but he didn’t think there was anything wrong with wanting to look good. He hadn’t got to spend nearly as much time on his hair as he would have liked, but in his favorite dark gray suit, he would say he cut a pretty charming figure.

Ethan always liked to tease his mother that, because he was the only American-born of the five adopted Kensleys, he had to work harder to be appreciated by the ladies. He didn’t have an exotic accent or get to jet away to far-off lands often; instead, he relied on his looks, his good taste, and a rather warped brand of chivalry.

Ethan’s car was parked in a private garage and he would never argue when someone called him anal about his vehicle. It was the first major purchase he made when he began work at his father’s company, and it would always be near and dear to his heart. Apart from that, it was absolutely gorgeous.

The silver Aston Martin glinted in the shadows, it’s headlights blinking when Ethan unlocked it. The moment he slid into the driver’s seat, he found some of the morning’s stress melting away. In his car, it didn’t matter if he was in traffic or not, he could be at ease.

Which was a blessing, considering that he and Vlad were probably going to bump heads the moment he stepped into the office. The mere notion was enough to give him a headache, so he shoved it aside in favor of contemplating what he would do when he was finished with work.

If Ethan was going to have a stressful day, then the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with stress when he came home. He’d want to unwind; and for Ethan, unwinding meant company. It always had.

His lips curved upward into an indulgent smile as he pulled out of the garage and onto Park Avenue. The question was: who would he call? He had a ready-and-waiting list of women in his dossier, each of whom had their own particular merits. There was a fiery redhead named Stephanie who was a Wall Street Banker, a blonde with French origins - Lunette - who liked to dress up.

But, if he were really honest with himself, Ethan knew who he would end up with. He had a thing for dark-haired women, and Carmen was the most alluring one he’d ever met. She was vivacious, witty, and always willing to go another round.

And it was she who he would call on tonight.

**

To be fair, Ethan’s day was only about half as stressful as he had imagined it would be. Vlad had only wanted him to come in early so he could personally tell him why the reiterated figures were shit - and so he could pile another project onto his already huge pile. Whenever he could, Vlad plotted to get Ethan into the office early - no small feat when one considered that the man slept until noon on his off days.

Though Ethan might give off the image of a slacker, he held his family - and the enterprise bearing their name, in high regard. While he was at work, he was working - and nothing else. He ran the accounting department that not only ran figures for the New York City hub and other cities in the US, but the international cities as well. It was a lot of paperwork - but it helped that Ethan was nothing short of a human calculator.

He’d been a savant with numbers as far back as he could remember - not that he liked to remember too terribly far into the past.

Ethan hunkered over his desk all day, stopping only to have one of his favorite sandwiches, a Rueben, for lunch before diving back into his workload. By the time he finally finished all the figures Vladimir requested, it was about an hour after he had asked Carmen to meet him.

But she, as always, was extremely flexible - no pun intended.

She met him at the entrance of his apartment complex and Ethan was struck, as always, by her effortless beauty. Tanned skin, gleaming ebony hair braided halfway down her back, and exotic, almond-shaped hazel eyes. He could imagine that when Carmen entered the courtroom, more than a few witnesses found themselves tongue-tied at the mere sight of her.

After several encounters, Ethan was happy to say that he knew just how to handle the silver-tongued vixen.

“You always keep me waiting, Ethan.” Her voice was low and smooth as honey as she embraced him, kissing him on the cheek warmly. “What am I going to do with you?”

He had several ideas - and all of them involved going up to his penthouse. “We can discuss it over dinner,” he chuckled lowly before lowering his mouth to bite at the place where her neck met her shoulder indulgently. “We can order from that absurdly expensive seafood place you like so much.”

“I don’t need dinner, Ethan.”

One of Carmen’s best qualities, in Ethan’s opinion, was that she was direct. She knew what she wanted, and had no hesitation in taking it.

So why should he hesitate in taking her?

Ethan barely lasted until the front door of the penthouse. Luckily for him, Rosita had already left for the day, so they had the apartment completely to themselves.

Carmen wasn’t big on kissing - at least not his mouth. The moment they were through the door, she was on her knees, lithe fingers working at his slacks. Ethan’s fingers slid through her gleaming, dark hair, loosening her braid a moment before divine, all-encompassing warmth enveloped his erection straight to the root. A low groan of pure satisfaction escaped him as he leaned against a nearby wall, all too willing to let Carmen work her magic.

And what magic it was - she was a goddess completely and wholly devoted to the task of worshipping his cock. Hot, wet suction bobbed over the length of him, over and over, until Carmen took him entirely down her throat and he cursed lowly as the adept muscles there contracted around him. As tempted as he was to let her continue this all night, he needed more.

Taking hold of her shoulders, he jerked her upward, turning to pin her against the very wall he’d straightened from. He cut off Carmen’s husky chuckle of triumph with one of the kisses she so shied away from. He was rewarded with a brief play of her tongue against his before his mouth fell against her throat.

He licked and sucked at the tender skin there, creating a line of marks that soon had her writhing in his arms as he worked her skirt up and over her hips.

She wore no panties beneath, and Ethan hissed lowly at the discovery. Carmen always liked to be risqué. Once she had even let him fuck her in an empty courtroom - one of the more thrilling moments in his thirty years.

One of the best things about Carmen, however - besides the fantastic tits he was in the process of bearing to his hungry gaze - was that she had never mentioned anything about them being more than this.

When Ethan lowered his mouth to take a plump nipple between his lips, Carmen shuddered. When he suckled, she shuddered, arching against him in a silent plea for more. Ethan enthusiastically obliged, biting and sucking at the distended peaks as his hand snaked downward over the soft curve of Carmen’s stomach. When he found her soaking wet, he groaned in satisfaction.

He slipped two fingers inside her, marveling at how tightly her inner muscles grasped at the invasion as he stroked her from the inside out. Carmen arched against him, clutching helplessly at his shoulders as he exploited a single spot deep within her that soon had her begging for succor. But Ethan wanted to see her topple over the edge. He wanted to feel her clenching around him...and so he sucked, hard, at the nipple he still held captive, his thumb finding and rubbing over her clit almost brusquely.

Carmen came apart with a sharp cry, her curvaceous form jerking against him as sensation suffused her body. The look on her face... he lived for that look. He hungered for it. There were few things in the world more beautiful than a woman’s face suffused with pleasure.

She was still trembling when he lifted her into his arms to make his way to the nearest flat surface - which happened to be a leather couch. But Carmen was never one to lie idle, even when she was recovering from a blissful high. She reached for him even as he straddled her atop the sofa, and the moment her fingers closed around his cock, a low hiss of ecstasy escaped him.

This was what he had been waiting for all day...something to drown out the doldrums of his workday and burn everything else away so he could just feel.

Though she was tugging him upwards in an attempt to have him inside her, Ethan had other plans. He situated himself between her thighs, tugging them apart a moment before he lifted her hips bodily from the sofa. Carmen’s breathless laugh of delight echoed through the living room for a moment before it was cut off by a moan of delectation as he mouthed her roughly where she needed it most.

He wasn’t left to his own devices for long - which Carmen most likely wouldn’t have been able to withstand anyway. Ethan could have gladly kept up the attentions of his talented tongue for the rest of the night, but his chosen partner had other plans.

“Ethan-God!” She squirmed in his grip as he lapped at her hungrily. “Just fuck me, for God’s sake!”

He had never been one to refuse a lady.

Ethan, using his superior strength, flipped her over onto her stomach. Almost immediately, Carmen raised her delectable behind into the air and he groaned, kneading it for a moment before smacking the plump, inviting flesh indulgently. He shucked off his suit jacket and shoved his slacks down just enough to slam home within her, and Carmen’s cry of pleasure rang around the apartment.

He did just as she had asked of him, working up a jacking rhythm - fucking her almost mindlessly until they were both lost to raw need.

He took her on the couch, against the wall, and then on the kitchen table - with a small pang of guilt at the shining Rosita had given it earlier. By the time the pair was finally spent, it was the wee hours of the morning - and Ethan was starving.

He ordered from a deli down the street - even as Carmen lamented over the loss of her grand seafood spread, before joining her in bed. Thankfully, she didn’t want to cuddle or make lovey-dovey - he wasn’t good at that kind of stuff anyway. After a lingering kiss at the base of his neck that almost roused him to attention again, Carmen stalked back to the living room, naked and glorious, to check her e-mails on her phone.

Ethan did likewise - it wasn’t usual for Vlad to send him something in the middle of the night and expect that he had checked it by the next morning. At the sight of an upcoming notification, he frowned.

Shit.

He couldn’t believe he had almost forgotten.

“What’s put that look on your face.” Carmen returned in short order with her phone, distracting him for a moment with her magnificent breasts. “And don’t tell me it’s the sex, because I’d know you’re lying.”

Her snark brought a momentary smirk to his face. Indeed, there wasn’t a single thing wrong with the sex - it pained him that he would momentarily have to put the sex aside. “Nothing important.” He tossed his phone on the bedside table with a frown. “Just a family event coming up. Not looking forward to the planning stages. Means we won’t be talking for a while.”

Carmen arched a brow as she took a sip of water from the bottle she’d swiped from the fridge. “How long is a while?”

Ethan shrugged, swiping the bottle from her to take a long gulp. “Dunno for sure. A couple weeks?”

“Is it the charity thing?” Carmen arched a brow in inquiry, her expression carefully casual. But he saw right through her in a heartbeat.

The charity thing to which she so lightly referred was the Children’s Charity Ball - one of the most exclusive yearly events in the city - made so by the fifteen-hundred-dollar buy-in per plate. This, of course, wasn’t to benefit the charity staff itself. Every penny went towards supporting orphans all around the world. It was a cause near and dear to Jackson Kensley’s heart. Every year, Ethan’s father liked to do things up in style. “Taking other people’s money to funnel it to where it’s really needed,” he called it - and the fact of the matter was that he paid for most of the ball accoutrement himself. The donations all went to the cause itself. Jackson wouldn’t have it any other way.

Being a Kensley son, Ethan went every year - his entire family went every year; at least, whoever was stateside. But tickets, despite being as expensive as all get-out, usually sold out within the first few days that they were announced and, shortly after, people started doing anything they could to get admission. As casually as she acted about it, Carmen would probably kill to get in.

Ethan wasn’t black hearted. In a perfect world, he’d offer Carmen an in. She would certainly look good on his arm at any high-class function. The caveat in this particular case was that his family would be in attendance - and Ethan knew better than to show up anywhere with a woman on his arm when his father was involved. Jackson would be all over him like white on rice, and then he’d have to go through the process of explaining to his father that it wasn’t like that, he didn’t want to get married right now, he was still young - yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Yeah,” he finally answered Carmen with a matching casual air. “Boring beyond boring, I know. Somehow, I’ll survive.” He did his best to pretend he didn’t see her crestfallen expression. This, he knew, would disappoint her, which might make her reluctant to deal with him in the future.

It was something he’d dealt with a hundred times, and, somehow, he would weather it now.

If he was lucky, Carmen would let him call her again. If he wasn’t, well...there were plenty of other fish in the sea.

**

As Ethan might have expected, the next few weeks were some of the most hectic of the year. His workload was always heavier in January and February, and atop that, he had to help plan the upcoming charity ball.

Luckily, when it came to aesthetic choices, his mother was more than willing to help out. In fact, Ethan went from seeing her once a month or so to stumbling across her every day when he went to check on the charity ball. He knew that she sometimes felt a bit isolated at home when her husband continued to work himself into an early grave and her sons had all left the nest. This was cathartic for her - and his father liked having her around.

Thankfully, Ethan wasn’t treated to too many days of their lovey-dovey behavior at the venue or in the main offices before the night of the event finally arrived. After six weeks of being run ragged, Ethan finally allowed himself a moment to relax. After all, by this point, all the figures had been run, and all that was left for him to do was relax and enjoy the party.

And what a party it was.

Olivia Kensley had outdone herself as head of the decorating committee. The MET’s main ballroom was decked out in hues of rose gold and cobalt blue - the colors of the charity to which they were donating. Impeccably dressed waiters with trays of champagne and canapes circled around the pre-dinner crowd. The attendees themselves were one of two groups - those who thought it was their God-given right to be there, and those who couldn’t believe where they found themselves. Ethan greatly preferred to mingle with the latter. Despite growing up the son of a successful multi-billionaire, as well as being host to his own, self-made fortune, the vast majority of people with money made his stomach curdle.

His father called it Too rich for their britches, and the phrase had made Ethan laugh since he was a child. Jackson Kensley made certain that no son of his was too rich for their britches. They each had a chore list growing up and they only got allowances when all their chores had been done. If any of them thought they would just coast by on their father’s name, they’d quickly been proved wrong.

To be fair, Ethan thought they’d grown up well. To be standing where he was today was enough to put a smile on his face - and all his brothers had similar stories.

But, of course, Vlad wasn’t smiling. When Ethan all but ran into him, he sighed at the look of suffering on Vladimir’s face. He had never liked social functions, and atop that, Alistair told Ethan that Vlad had just gotten some very intimidating news: Their father was slated to retire within the year, and Vladimir would take his place.

Of course, that was no surprise to anyone in the Kensley family, but Vladimir. Despite being one of the most efficient men Ethan had ever met, had a crippling fear of failure; something about worrying he would sully the name of the family that had taken him in. Of course, he never listened to all of them telling him that was impossible. The man had never missed a day of work in his life. But tonight, he was determined to frown his way through one of the best evenings of the year.

“Well, you look absolutely miserable.”

Vlad rolled his eyes - somehow the dark-haired man managed to make even that imposing. “I’m not miserable. I can just think of a hundred other things I could be doing to prepare for my trip to Los Angeles.”

Ethan arched a brow incredulously. “What the hell does this have to do with Los Angeles? Vlad, this is about tonight. You’re not going to LA for weeks.”

“I have a ton to finish before I leave,” Vlad’s blue eyes all but gleamed with worry. “It will take me ages.”

“Dude,” Ethan clapped him on both shoulders. “You need to take a chill pill, Vlad. Kick back - relax. This is supposed to be a party. Don’t you need to take a breather?”

“Not when there’s work to do.”

Ethan sighed, long-sufferingly. He shouldn’t have bothered to ask. When it came to work, Vlad was completely and totally single-minded. He acted as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders which technically, in many ways he did. It wasn’t, however, as if he didn’t have a decidedly large family to support him in any endeavor he might seek to pursue.

“Vlad,” Ethan squeezed his shoulders firmly, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need a woman.” It was something their father might say - even though Ethan meant it in a completely different way.

Vlad groaned, taking hold of Ethan’s hand to remove it. “The answer is always a woman with you, Ethan. Some of us are built differently, you know.”

The last time Ethan checked, all men were the same. Wired a bit differently, for sure, but the build was never an issue. Of course, he didn’t expect Vlad to find a girl to let off some steam with just because Ethan told him to. Especially not with LA and Father’s retirement hanging over his head. Even under the best of circumstances, Vladimir wasn’t the kind of man who went out to bars and picked up women. It just wasn’t his style.

Didn’t hurt to suggest a bit of a different approach, though. “Just don’t worry yourself into an early grave, ok, Vlad?”

Vlad merely grunted in reply, grabbing a glass of champagne from a nearby waitress before stalking off into the crowd. It wasn’t long before he was overtaken by the family of a major investor in the company, and Ethan only hoped that maybe they would be able to cheer his brother up a bit.

It was nice to see the people he spent time with in the office let their hair down - have the investors come down from on high and spend time with the little people. Ethan always thoroughly enjoyed hobnobbing with the city’s elite. He did this as much to make fun of them as he did to observe them, thankful that the Kensleys were so very different.

Having had quite a few glasses of champagne before dinner, Ethan was pleased to be seated between his mother and a very attractive brunette. When he began to lean towards her, however, Olivia Kensley squeezed his hand. She looked resplendent in a red ball gown - just as attractive in her sixties as she had been twenty years earlier. “Married, dove. And her husband is very possessive.”

Call him a scoundrel, but he wasn’t the type that let marriage get in the way. He didn’t want to replace any woman’s husband, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t oblige a lady if she threw herself at him.

It would be rude, in fact.

But his mother was right - a dinner table packed with New York’s elite was hardly the place or the time. When he caught Olivia’s eye with a sheepish grin, she merely sighed. “I’m sure this isn’t what your father meant when he told you to pick a nice woman and settle down.”

Ethan made a face, even as his mother reached out to straighten the collar of the starched shirt he wore beneath his impeccable black tuxedo. “Mother, I’m thirty. I can’t just produce grandchildren on demand.”

“That is not what he meant, Ethan,” Olivia sighed, “for God’s sake.” But then they were cut off when dinner service started. Jackson Kensley himself sat at the head of the table, a few seats away, flanked on his right by Vladimir and his left by Lucas - his youngest son. Lucas looked just as in awe of his position as several guests who were probably coveting it; but anyone who knew anything about Jackson Kensley knew that he valued his family above all else - and it always showed.

Dinner was delicious, as it always was - five full courses of the things his father most liked to eat, such as garlic chicken with rosemary potatoes, and grilled asparagus salad. Ethan couldn’t complain, as he, and most of the table, came away completely satiated, fully prepared for the list of speeches and recognitions of donation that were to come afterward.

“What was Mum scolding you about?” Lucas managed to sneak up on him as they were reconvening in the ballroom, and Ethan merely grinned at him. Since they were younger, Ethan liked to tease Lucas about the remnants of his British accent. Even at the age of 28, it hadn’t quite disappeared. In truth, as a teenager, Ethan had been slightly envious of it. Unlike Lucas and his other brothers, Ethan had been born and bred on American soil. There was nothing exotic or interesting about him. At least, in his opinion.

“None of your business,” Ethan jibed playfully, elbowing his brother in the side. Despite being younger, Lucas was of equal size, and the blonde man took it like a champ.

“Enjoyed basking in the limelight, sitting next to Dad at the head of the table, did you?”, Ethan asked.

Lucas’s wide green eyes took on the expression of a deer in headlights. “I don’t know how you guys stand it. Everyone looking at you. Everyone whispering.”

“Well, Vlad doesn’t stand it. He hides away and leaves the rest of us to tackle his media absence.” Ethan jibed. “Maybe you should take a leaf from his book.”

“Ethan,” Lucas frowned, “You know Vlad has his...issues.”

“Somewhere, there’s an entire volume written on Vladimir’s issues,” Ethan returned with a small smirk, “but we won’t address that now.” His expression softened somewhat. “You think he’s going to be alright? He’s walking around like a goddamned zombie. News of Dad’s retirement hit him pretty hard.”

“He’ll be fine.” Lucas’s lips curved upward into a confident smile. “Probably the most stressed he’s ever been in his life. Vlad’s only reacting accordingly.”

“Yes, well...maybe I should tell him Dad’s considering Alistair as CEO. That might turn him around pretty quickly.”

Lucas’s expression turned to one of horror. Their eldest brother’s temper and propensity for daredevil stunts was legendary. When they were younger, he had told his father that he would sit in an office and be beholden to stockholders over his dead body. Jackson had only laughed at this proclamation. Anyone with an ounce of thinking power knew better than to try and tie Alistair down in an office. He belonged outdoors, doing all the crazy stuff he liked - which was why he was head of land acquisition.

And damned good at his job.

Speaking of someone damned good at her job...Ethan was eying the decorative chair who had worked with his mother. She was about two decades younger and wearing a dress that showed off her awe-inspiring chest to the hilt. He must have been staring, as Lucas smacked his arm in reproach, a knowing smile playing about his mouth. “Don’t get into too much trouble, Ethan.”

The light-haired man chuckled, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “You should get into more trouble, Lucas. I’m sure it would serve you well.”

Any further conversation they might have had was cut off when their father stepped up to the podium to make his speech.

Even in his seventies, Jackson Kensley cut an imposing figure in his starched suit and tie. He stood tall and proud, at the podium, gazing over everyone assembled there. When he spoke, he didn’t need a microphone for his voice to resound through the ballroom.

“Thank you to all my esteemed guests, my friends and my family - everyone in attendance who helped make this night an event to remember. I am always heartened to see so many of us come together to help those in need.”

That, Ethan knew, was not the primary reason most people had come to the event. They came to see and be seen - but that was beside the point. Their money was still going to a good cause.

“Every year,” Jackson went on, “I travel the world for both business and pleasure. Both in our own country and abroad, I see the difficulty that orphaned children endure. It is imperative that we help provide for those children who can’t provide for themselves, so that they might lead bright and prosperous futures.”

Polite applause greeted this statement - with a few pockets of strength from those people who actually believed in the cause to which they donated. Ethan and his brothers applauded the most heartily of all - with good reason.

“As all of you know,” Jackson went on, his expression simultaneously solemn and proud. “Each of my five sons was adopted. Their circumstances were different, and, as men, they are vastly different people, but all they required was an opportunity to shine. They make me prouder than I can imagine every single day - even if they continue to grind my nerves on an off day every once in a while.”

That incited a smattering of chuckles and Lucas caught Ethan’s eye with a grin. Vlad was off in a corner somewhere, no doubt lamenting that he would ever cause their father any trouble. Toshiro was God knew where -Switzerland, the last Ethan heard, and Alistair was, no doubt, jumping into the Grand Canyon. It was a shame, as both of them could appreciate a good party.

“I implore you,” Jackson continued, his expression turning serious once more, “to educate yourselves on the state of our young people. In many cases, these children come from broken families. Abusive families. Parents who can’t put food on the table...or some convoluted combination of the three.”

His words stirred unwelcome memories in Ethan, and the young man frowned, his champagne glass stilling halfway to his mouth. Thoughts of his biological mother were rare these days, but he still got them - floating in like a disease in his subconscious. Though she was the one who had given birth to him, Ethan had long stopped considering her his mother. Olivia Kensley was the woman who taught him what having a proper mother was like. She was the balm that soothed his exhausted soul when, at the tender age of eight, he’d been scooped up from a nasty foster family.

He shuddered at the mere memory before downing his entire glass of champagne. He didn’t want to think about this. He always got into a funk when he thought of his life before the Kensleys, and that was the last thing he wanted now.

Ethan was, in fact, so wrapped up in the past that he barely heard the rest of his father’s speech. He barely snapped back to the present in time for Jackson to thank everyone for coming again. Ethan applauded automatically, taking a fresh glass of champagne from the first waiter he could find.

At times like this, he needed a good stiff drink, and a warm, soft woman. He knew from experience that when his past started creeping in, there was only one sure-fire way to banish the unwanted memories.

While Lucas went to congratulate their father on raising over five million dollars, Ethan made a beeline for the dessert table, where several beauties had already congregated. He made small talk with one of the premier attorneys in the city nearby - suspecting the man had the same intent that he did. All the while, Ethan watched a particularly gorgeous blonde out of the corner of his eye. She was there with her husband, it seemed, laughing while he suggested various desserts to her.

Usually, when a woman was married, he wasn’t the one to initiate contact. He let them come to him.

But the memories plaguing him unsettled him enough to make him bold. The moment the man left her - which no good husband, he justified to himself, would really do, Ethan excused himself from his conversation with the attorney and sidled over to her. He admired her long, slender legs in the short cocktail dress she wore for a moment before addressing her. “Big sweet tooth, huh?”

The woman lifted her head to fix him with breathtaking cornflower blue eyes and Ethan’s gut twisted in raw desire. When she smiled, it was slow and inviting. “Maybe a little bigger than most. You’ve got quite the spread here, Mr. Kensley.”

It seemed his reputation preceded him. That could be good or bad, really, depending on what kind of woman he was dealing with. “Well, we like to have a little of everything. Never really know what people’s tastes will be.”

“I see.” The blonde took up a saucer of creme brulee, breaking the crystallized sugar crust with a small silver spoon before taking a lingering bite. Ethan forced himself not to watch her like a starved man - despite his desperation. “I’m Loretta, by the way.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Loretta.” He extended his hand for her to shake and the young woman laughed, taking it briefly.

“Are you this charming with all the ladies, Mr. Kensley?”

She had no idea.

“Only with the ones I can’t take my eyes off of.”

Loretta chuckled softly, taking another bite of her dessert. “And tell me, would it happen to deter you if one of your conquests was spoken for?” Well, she’d come right out and said it. She was astute - up front. He liked that in a woman.

“If it doesn’t bother her,” he answered lowly, taking a step closer to her, “It doesn’t bother me.”

Loretta’s intrigued smile turned to one of blatant amusement as she arched a brow. “And if it did matter to her?”

Fuck. Had he read this entire situation wrong? Ethan had been so sure this woman was giving him all the signs he looked for. It was possible, he supposed, that his mood had thrown his entire game off. Ethan didn’t know quite how to answer her inquiry, so he merely eyed her in desirous query.

Possibility turned to certainty the moment Loretta finished her dessert, handing the empty dish to a passing waiter. “As tempting as your offer is, Mr. Kensley, I’m spoken for - and I like to keep things monogamous.”

Ethan’s heart sank. Well, that was that. He supposed the chase, at least, had been exciting. As much as he wanted to run his hands over her decadent curves, he knew that pushing Loretta any further would be blatantly disrespectful - and he had never gone quite that far where a woman was concerned. “You’ll have to forgive me, then, Loretta.” A bit of his desperation faded in lieu of embarrassment. He didn’t think he’d ever been turned down so...politely.

The blonde merely grinned, reaching past him to select another dessert. As she did, she brushed past him, and Ethan swallowed a groan at the feel of her ample hips whispering past his own. “You know, Mr. Kensley, I was really rooting for you and the ballerina.” She straightened to daintily nibble on the corner of a petit-four.

Ballerina?

Fuck. It had been a while since anyone mentioned that.

About two years ago, he had dated Sylvia Martin, a prima ballerina for the New York Ballet. It was the closest he’d gotten to a relationship in a while. He slept with her exclusively, took her out to every public function and, at one point, had even contemplated introducing her to his parents. Contemplated being the key word. In the end, he found out that she had been shaking up with one of her fellow dancers and she and Ethan had parted ways. Ethan had been surprised at just how relieved he was. He had liked Sylvia, but he certainly hadn’t loved her.

She was, however, the woman he’d been seen with the most in recent years, so he supposed that it wasn’t that unusual that her name came up. “Yeah, well, I was rooting for us for a while too,” he replied. He chose a dessert himself, placating his body with sugar for the time being.

“I know this is going to sound silly,” Loretta glanced up at him hesitatingly before continuing. “But have you ever considered having someone help you find a partner?”

At the very notion, Ethan snorted with laughter. Did they even do that anymore? This was 2017, for God’s sake.

Thankfully, instead of being offended, Loretta took his reaction in stride. “I know it sounds insane...but a woman matched me with my husband. It was eerie how fast we clicked. Almost like she was psychic.”

Ethan was more thankful by the minute that he hadn’t slept with this woman. He couldn’t see a conversation about matchmaking and fated love going well between them. To her merit, however, Loretta didn’t come off as overly invested in the idea of star-crossed lovers.

Just the matchmaker herself.

“I know it’s not my place to tell you anything about women,” Loretta laughed softly, “But you might want to try giving her a call. Just for shits and giggles. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

He was sure that it could, at the very least, hurt his wallet. He’d heard about so-called modern matchmakers a handful of times, and they weren’t cheap. He couldn’t imagine having to pay to get laid. He didn’t have any problems finding compatible women on his own. What could a matchmaker possibly do for him?

“I can tell you’re enthusiastic about the idea,” Loretta teased at his skeptical expression. She reached into the small evening bag beneath her arm to fish out a single red business card, which she extended to him with two fingers. “Just take it. Doesn’t mean you have to call it, or anything, but it might be nice to have in your repertoire.

Ethan stared at the card for a brief moment before taking it with no small amount of reluctance. He read the name on the front:

Harper Jones

Discover Your Perfect Match

Call to reserve your free consultation.

It sounded like complete and utter bullshit.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any more time to debate the pros and cons of hiring a matchmaker with Loretta, as her husband returned - and he didn’t look happy to see Ethan by her side, Kensley or not. The light-haired man beat a quick retreat to find another glass of champagne.

And start the hunt for another conquest.

He tucked the card Loretta had passed him into his jacket pocket and promptly forgot about it. After all, Ethan had much bigger fish to fry.