Two years later . . .

“I hate you.”

I dodged a second plate thrown in my direction. Heart pounding in my ears, I stalked up to Camryn in the kitchen and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You need to get the hell out of my house.”

She took my nearness as an invitation to lean forward and try to kiss me. I turned my face to the side. Her lips landed on my jaw, which stiffened. I held her farther away from me.

“I hate you,” she cried. “You’re a stupid, emotionless son of a bitch, and I hate you.”

I looked at her. “Are you done?”

“Why can’t you change?” she asked between sobs, her body shaking but I still didn’t give. If I gave Camryn an inch, she’d take a yard. For four years, I’d managed to steer clear of anything that would ignite any idea that this could turn into something more and I wasn’t about to give when I was so close to being free of her.

“I can’t change because I don’t love you,” I said simply. “What’s brought this on? Did Roger decide to leave you?”

She narrowed her eyes, yanking herself away from my grasp. “Don’t talk about my relationship with Roger as if you give a shit about me or my emotions. If you cared so much, I wouldn’t have been with him to begin with.”

“I’m asking as a friend.”

“Well, I don’t need a fucking friend.” She turned around, picked up her purse, and stormed out of the kitchen.

“I need you to get your things out of the closet and make this move official,” I called out.

“Fuck you, Rowan.” She slammed the door loudly.

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering how the fuck I got here. My brother had warned me that I’d be miserable. Tessa warned me that I’d be miserable. Hell, I had known I would be miserable. Still, a part of me figured I would be able to handle it, that it wouldn’t be that bad. Work had kept me busy enough most of the time to keep my mind off all of this, but occasionally, on the weekends when Camryn was out with her friends and I was out with mine, I couldn’t help but wonder what life would be like with a partner. A real partner, one who would share the good and the bad with me, not just ask questions with dollar signs in her eyes. It wasn’t her fault she was like that. It also wasn’t her fault that she prioritized the New York nightlife over everything else. I’d made it that way. I’d pushed her away so completely and let her believe there was no room in my life for a sidekick. Truth was, I had room in my life. I just didn’t want her to fill that space.

I picked up my keys and called the nearest locksmith before heading to the bar where I was set to meet my brother.

When I walked into the hole-in-the-wall bar, I walked straight toward my brother, who was sitting by the window, looking at the people walking by. It was a busier weekday than usual here in Brooklyn, with the new art galleries opening around the corner and everyone gearing up for a busy spring. Sam looked up when I reached the table and sat across from him.

“Still sporting a beard and now you’re dressing down?” He smiled. “Brooklyn’s rubbing off on you.”

“I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.” Truth was, I’d been sporting the beard for a while. What started as a November challenge developed into a newfound love of having hair on my face.

“What does your wife think about this leaf you’re turning?”

“The wife I kicked out this morning? She probably hates it.”

Sam chuckled. “What did she say when you told her to move out?”

“Threw a plate at my head.”

“Shit.” Sam cringed over a chuckle. “That bad? What does she expect? She barely lives there anyway.”

“Right, but my being the one to kick her out makes her feel like she holds no control over the situation.” I shrugged. “You know Camryn.”

“A raging bitch? Yeah,” Sam said.

I shrugged. Couldn’t argue there.

“Have you spoken to Mom?” he asked, humor twinkling his eyes.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” I picked up a fry from the sharing plate in the middle of the table and threw it at him. He laughed, catching it before it hit him in the face.

“I’m just asking. She seems to have a soft spot for Camryn. She must really play it up for her.”

“Not much to play up. I’m sure she runs and tells Mom what a dick I am and how I don’t love her or show her I care about her and Mom immediately identifies.” The waitress came back to set down another appetizer Sam had ordered and I ordered a beer. “Mom showed me who her priority was.”

“I hope you aren’t directing that statement at me,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “You know she only calls me because she feels like she almost lost me, not because I’m her favorite.”

“I never wanted to be her favorite.”

“Mister Perfect never wanted his parents’ approval?” He raised both eyebrows this time. I threw another fry at him, laughing as my beer was set in front of me.

Our mother and I had a series of differences these last few years, and each one had created another barrier between us. We still spoke, but not nearly as often as she and Sam spoke and definitely not nearly as often as she spoke to Camryn, whom she seemed to speak to every few days according to the texts my mom sent me.

“Are you ready for a rebound yet?”

I shook my head, taking a sip of beer. I wasn’t sure whom I would be rebounding. Camryn? That would be a joke considering I was never actually with her. As usual, all thoughts turned to Tessa. Some people were impossible to get over. You could make yourself move past them, but deep down you knew you’d never fully be rid of them.

“You’re right. I don’t think even you could pull a woman right now. You’re a bore when you go out,” he added, holding back a laugh. I shot him an unamused look. “You are. You’re always checking your phone, looking at the time, talking about how early you need to be up.”

“Yeah, well, it’s part of the whole being an adult gig.”

“Like I said, boring.”

I chuckled. “You’re an idiot.”

He smiled. “What happened to the brunette? Mayra? She was cute.”

“Mayra was a one-time thing. You know that.”

Since letting Tessa walk away, I’d only slept with two women. One had been Camryn, a mistake I’d never let myself live down, and the other had been Mayra, the one-night stand, which by definition was a mistake. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy sex these days but sleeping with them had made it clear that I didn’t just want any woman who would spread her legs for me. I wanted to feel what I’d felt with Tessa and recreating that was impossible.

I’d gladly taken a break from women and focused on the company and on my brother’s health. The last three years had brought us closer than I imagined we would be. Seeing him go through his cancer diagnosis and treatment had really put things into perspective for both of us. Our grandfather had been diagnosed with the same cancer when we were young, but it was different seeing someone you saw as an old man go through it. Seeing your own brother was a tough pill to swallow—the weight loss, the mood swings, both the visible and invisible scars, the defeat in his eyes some days. I’d put all of my energy into being there for him. I couldn’t take the diagnosis from him or do his treatments for him, but I could hold his hand through it all. And here we were. He was healthy, happy, with a new outlook on life. Most days, that was all I needed in order to continue with my own life as if I hadn’t been affected by his struggle. Sam leaned back in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. I watched the movement, wondering how it must feel to touch all that hair after not having any at all.

“What’d you want to talk about?”

“The future of the company.”

He thrummed his fingers on the table, watching me. I’d been working tirelessly not only on expanding it but also on ways to buy it from our grandparents and uncle.

“You mean the accounts in Colombia and Paraguay?”

“No.” I exhaled heavily. “They are still refusing to talk to me because I’m a man and their priority is working with women business owners.

“I thought one of the points of marrying Camryn was so she’d put up a face for the company.”

I scoffed. “If I send her anywhere near those women, I really won’t stand a chance at getting those fabrics.”

“Send someone else. What about Rosa?”

I shook my head. “She just had a baby. She won’t be back for at least two months.”

“Erin?”

“Too blonde, too skinny.”

“But unlike Camryn, Erin has a soul.”

I laughed because he was right. “Still.” I shook the idea away. “I can’t send her. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I’ve already waited this long. I need to focus on other things, which is what I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.” He frowned and put a healthy portion of his Paratha—an Indian flatbread—in his mouth, chewing it slowly as he watched me.

“I’m buying the company and dissolving the board. I told the lawyer to draft the new contract so that it’s a fifty-fifty partnership.”

He stopped chewing, eyes wide. “Camryn?”

“Hell no.” I leaned forward, making sure I had his undivided attention. “You and me.”

“But . . . this company is your dream. You were the one who sold your soul to the devil, literally, to get it. I didn’t do anything.”

“You work just as hard as I do.” I smiled when he gave me an incredulous look. “Fine, almost as hard as I do.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t work his ass off. It was just completely different work. Where I had nearly four hundred people to oversee, Sam had twenty. It didn’t matter. I took advantage of his clearly speechless state to continue my explanation.

“I don’t want this to be a company that we hand down to your kids with contingencies. I want this to be a partnership, an equal partnership between two brothers. The creative team you’ve built has been doing incredible things for Hawthorne Industries. We can rebrand, make it what we want it to be.”

“Rebranding could take a while.”

“We have time.”

Our clientele had expanded from furniture to clothing and beyond. I wanted to continue expanding and rebranding may help us get there. Our main plates came and we dug into those.

“You said my kids,” Sam said suddenly.

I paused mid-chew. “What?”

“You said to hand down to my kids. What about yours?”

I smiled, shaking my head. “I’m not going to have kids.”

“And you think I am?”

“You have a heart of gold, Samson. Fuck yes, you’ll have kids.”

“I don’t even know if I’m fertile after all the shit they injected into me.”

I swallowed the agony that crawled into my throat as I thought about his treatments and everything they’d taken from him. Somehow, he’d made it out stronger and better while I crumbled with the weight of the worry.

“What do the doctors say?”

“That it’s possible, but not likely,” he said. “They’d have to check my sperm count again, but it isn’t like I’m jumping into fatherhood anytime soon. I bought my own place, and that’s enough adulting for me.”

I smiled. He’d made his first big purchase and moved into a building in Dumbo. I’d chosen a Brownstone a block over from him, but I wasn’t sold on it. Too many rooms, too many renovations to be done. Camryn hated Brooklyn, which was why I closed on the house. It was petty, I knew it was, but I had still done it.

“What’s going on with Chloe?” I asked. “Only you would end up in a long-distance relationship.”

“Yeah, well, long-distance no more. She’s moving here in a month.”

“What? You didn’t tell me. It’s that serious?”

He shrugged, still smiling. “Only time will tell. She’s working for Tessa.”

The name slammed into me like a ball to left field. “Tessa’s coming here?”

Freaking crickets. Nope. He wasn’t getting away with that crap.

“Sam. Is Tessa moving back?”

He chuckled, looking over. “You can’t let things go, can you?”

“You know I’m nosey.”

“Not that nosey.” I just waited. “Fine. Yes, she’s coming back to New York and running the Prim office here.”

I nodded, shoving my emotions so deep not even a molecule of light hit them.

When it came to Tessa, I was more than nosey. I had followed her career. I had paid attention to what her siblings were up to. I found out everything about the man she had a child with. Cody Maverick.

That was the blow that had almost dropped me. He worked with major department stores, buying clothes from fashion designers and stocking them. I’d met him when Tessa and I had gone to the city for meetings. Apparently, she had seen him as something more than a business contact because she hadn’t had an issue with jumping into bed with him. The memories still clawed at me, keeping me up at night until I remind myself that I had slept with Camryn the night we got married. I didn’t have a damn leg to stand on.

“Well, I’m happy for her.” I cleared my throat. “Let’s get back to the topic. Are you ready to make this a partnership? We’ll change the name, renew the brand to our liking. You’ve already taken the leadership role in the creative department. Your responsibilities don’t have to change unless you feel like you’re ready to take on more.”

Sam sat back and considered me. After a long pause, he said, “You know what? Let’s do it.”

“Let’s do it.”