Chapter 1
Alyse
I stare at the stack of bills on my desk and sigh heavily, my stomach churning.
They taunt me. Remind me that unless we pull in a large client and fast, this business that I rushed to open is about one month from total, epic failure and not only will I be out of a job, my three employees will be as well. I’m almost a month behind on the loan payment and our electricity is pretty close to being turned off.
I’m not bragging, but I’m pretty damn brilliant when it comes to numbers. Not much in my twenty-five years has been easy, but school always was. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around why someone can’t understand math. Numbers are simple, numbers make sense, numbers are to me what a piano is to an accomplished pianist. They are my home. My love. My passion.
“You have a gift,” my teachers said. And let’s face it; it’s a statistical fact that men clearly dominate the mathematics field of study. It’s a hard road for a woman to pave and be successful in, but I was very bound and determined. I still am; no white flags are being thrown down yet.
I graduated with an accounting degree from the University of Michigan at the top of my class and a year and a half earlier than others my age. I had my master’s under my belt shortly before my twenty-second birthday. Last year, I opened ARK Consulting, my own small auditing firm, where I employ two other auditors and an office manager slash receptionist slash marketing director slash assistant slash…well, you get the picture.
But for all my brilliance, the one thing I didn’t fully consider was how my young age and worldly inexperience would impact my business model.
Turns out companies are loath to hire a young, newly opened firm with not a lot of references. Not to say that our clients aren’t reference worthy. The ones that have given us a chance are more than happy with our work, but as a company, we are young.
Six months ago when I hired Al, a seasoned forensic accountant of forty-four, I found that we became slightly more successful at pulling in clients than when I walked into a meeting by myself. That stung. My pride takes a small hit every time they look to him as the more senior person, simply because he has a pot belly, an Adam’s apple, and a dick.
“Alyse, call on line one. It’s the bank.” Heather’s soft voice carries through the speakerphone, echoing off the walls of my small, windowless office. Heather, my all-around keeps-the-office-running assistant is not dumb. She knows we’re in some financial trouble, but she’s also told me she’d stick it out until the end, because she believes in me. I’m glad someone does. I doubt myself daily, especially lately. Not my ability, not my intelligence, but my decision to jump into a small business with both feet, eyes wide shut. It’s not the first time my naiveté has gotten me into trouble.
“Tell them I’m in a meeting, Heather.” This is the third call this week. And the third call I’ll be avoiding.
“Yes, of course.”
I take inventory of our projects, current and potential. Al is working on a breach of contract audit that will be done by mid-next week. Tabitha just started an audit for a bar, where the new manager is suspected of skimming funds, and I’m putting the finishing touches on a large burglary claim that was submitted to an insurance company and is believed to be fraudulent. Turns out it’s valid, just not for as much as the business claimed. I have two meetings with potential clients early next week, but even if we’re awarded both jobs, it won’t keep all three of us busy.
Damn it all to hell.
Needing to take my mind off my financial and business demise, I sit back in my secondhand rolling desk chair. My stare floats to the yellow-stained ceiling, watching the slow drip in the corner. My office is small, a bit rundown, and isn’t in the nicest part of Detroit, but it’s cheap and close to home. A small, eleven hundred-square-foot home that I’m the proud owner of.
I let my mind wander back to two months ago when the sexiest man ever created by God’s hand cornered me in his mom’s kitchen during a family dinner I was attending, because my sister is now engaged to his brother, Gray.
“What the fuck happened to your arm?” His insinuation pisses me off, even if it is somewhat true. Finn and I were arguing yesterday and he grabbed me a little too hard, leaving several dark bruises on my bicep that were clearly finger marks. It’s the first time it’s happened and it will be the last. I meant to throw on a long-sleeved shirt to avoid questions and speculation, but we were already running late and I forgot.
“None of your goddamn business.”
He steps closer, clearly not understanding the rules of one’s personal space and I have nowhere to escape. I crane my neck at his six-foot-plus height, glaring into his stormy and mesmerizing blue eyes. They remind me of dark pools of warm water. With every inhalation, my lungs fill with his manly scent and citrusy cologne and my mouth waters remembering what his skin tasted like, how his lips felt on mine.
“I don’t like him, Alyse,” he growls.
I would laugh at his bold and unsolicited declaration, but I’m too shocked. “Then lucky for me I don’t really care what you think,” I retort smartly. I had not laid eyes on the enigmatic Asher Colloway in years, so how dare he judge my boyfriend. Only I get to call him a douchebag loser.
“If he hurts you, I’ll fucking kill him.”
“What? Asher, it’s not like that.” And why do you care? I want to ask, but don’t.
“Then what is it like?”
“Why do you care?” Whoops, guess it slipped out.
His heated eyes roam my face. His perfect pink lips part as though he’s about to speak but doesn’t. He’s so close now, I can feel every hot breath wash over my face and the warmth from his body soaking into mine. I inwardly groan. While my boyfriend is outside smoking God knows what, I’m getting impossibly turned on by another man. I haven’t been this wet for Finn in months, despite his best efforts.
Asher slowly runs the back of his index finger down my bare arm, gently circling my bruises. Chills and fire break out in its wake. My mind swirls with confusion at both this conversation and my body’s involuntary reaction to this man after all these years. I can see the mature Alyse is just as affected by him as the immature one. “Because I hate to see a beautiful woman get abused,” he finally replies in a low, raspy voice.
Scarlet curtains descend. Maybe his concern should make me feel good or cared for, but all it does is send hot rage firing through my veins. It’s clear to me that Asher thinks I’m letting myself be used as a punching bag by some asshole and that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I am nobody’s bitch.
“Fuck you. You don’t own me,” I spit.
A slow, sexy smirk spreads his lips as he leans close. His lips brush against the shell of my ear when he speaks. I’m unable to hide the shiver that his scorching words produce. “Not yet I don’t, sweet Alyse.”
Pulling back, he pins me with a smoldering, hungry stare that feels like a sweet breath against my wet sex. I have to bite my lip hard to keep from moaning. Leaning in again, I think he may kiss me and I haven’t made up my mind if I will give him my mouth or a swift knee to the jewels, but just as he’s a hairsbreadth away, he reaches behind me, grabs his beer off the counter, and turns, walking away. I stare after him, practically panting like a crazy bitch in heat.
“Egotistical asshole,” I mutter under my breath. Apparently not quiet enough, though, because I hear him laugh as he enters the living room.
I broke up with Finn later that night. Something that was long overdue, despite what I’d led everyone else to believe. It was a bad decision to let him move in with me in the first place, but he’d just lost his job and couldn’t afford his rent, so I caved. Chalk that relationship up to another grand failure, but it had absolutely nothing to do with Asher Colloway and his whispered promise that went to that dark place between my thighs.
Nope. Nothing at all.
Hearing my cell buzz, I look down to see it’s my sister, Livia, and hesitate. Despite the fact that we’re slowly mending our relationship, I can admit I still have a fair amount of resentment toward her. She up and abandoned everyone she loved when she disappeared without being seen or barely heard from for over three years. Livia was my rock. I still feel enormously betrayed that she left me, just as everyone else has in my life, especially when I needed her most.
“Hi Libs. How are you?” I say, right before the call rolls to voice mail. It’s rhetorical, because I know exactly how my sister is. Giddy, madly in love, and still battling morning sickness.
“Hey, Lysee. Better, actually. You?”
“Great,” I inject with as much enthusiasm as possible. Juuuust great.
Livia’s expecting twins in a little over six months and is engaged to the love of her life, Gray Colloway, who also happens to be Asher’s older brother. I’m happy for her, but I’m also admittedly a teensy bit jealous. At one time long ago, I thought I had what Livia now has with Gray. Oh, how very wrong I was.
“How are my nephews?” I ask, trying to get out of my own head.
“And why do you think I’m having boys?” she laughs.
My laughter joins hers. “Look at our families, Libs. Twin boys are practically a pandemic.” Livia’s husband-to-be is a twin, along with his younger brothers, Asher and Connelly, plus Livia said that Frank Colloway was an identical twin. And though I didn’t know her well, our grandmother was a twin. Basically anytime Livia gets pregnant, she’d better watch out.
“Well, I’m still a few weeks away from being able to tell yet.”
“So you’re going to find out?”
“Yes. Both Gray and I want to know. Planners that we are and all.”
Wanting to get off the subject of babies and the twins she’s having, I ask, “So how are the wedding plans coming?”
“Funny you should ask,” she hedges.
“Uh oh…did you guys decide to elope?” When Livia first called to tell me about her engagement and pregnancy, I asked if they were going to fly to Vegas, but she was adamant she wanted an actual wedding. Small, but complete with the works. Dress, cake, dancing, family, and friends, and they wanted to get married before the babies arrived.
“No. But we did set a date.”
“Oh my God, that’s great!” I can practically hear Livia’s smile. For the first time since she told me she was getting married, I feel a twinge of real excitement for my sister. About time, you selfish bitch.
“You may not think so when I tell you. I’m really going to need your help to pull it off.”
“Oookay.”
“December twenty-seventh.”
My stomach drops. “Livia! That’s in five weeks!” The worst day of my life, I think.
“I know, I know, but…I just want to get married before I get too fat. Despite the morning sickness, I already can’t fit into my jeans. You’ll be my maid of honor, right?”
My head is reeling at the date Livia’s chosen for her wedding, so when I don’t respond immediately, I hear her calling my name. “Yes, of course I’ll be your maid of honor, Livia,” I mumble.
Livia’s silent for a few beats. “Alyse…I understand if—”
“It’s okay, Livia,” I interrupt. “It will be a good distraction.” Ever since the accident eight years ago this December twenty-seventh, I take that day off and wallow.
I cry too much.
I drink too much.
I remember too much.
I’m surprised to find that I’m actually sincere when I say it may be a good distraction. Eight years is long enough to mourn. I need to move on. Maybe a good memory on that day to replace the bad is exactly what I need.
“I wanted to pick a different date, but this worked best with Gray’s schedule and—”
“Stop. It’s fine. It’s your day and I’ll do everything I can to make it special for you. I promise.”
“Thanks, Lysee.”
We spend the next twenty minutes talking about wedding details and splitting up duties. Livia’s two friends, Addy and Kamryn, will also be helping with the planning, so no one person becomes too overwhelmed with all the tasks that need to be completed in such a short period of time. The wedding will be small: only family and a few very close friends. Regardless of the wedding size, there is an overwhelming amount of detail that needs to be considered.
“So…who is standing up for Gray?” I ask. Livia told me each of them would have only one attendant.
“Asher.”
My stomach flutters. I’m ashamed at the rush of desire flowing thickly through my body at the mere mention of his name. “Really? I would have thought Luke would have that role.”
For as long as I’ve known the Colloways, we all thought Gray’s twin, Luke, was dead. Turns out he was just disowned for some unsavory life choices, but now he’s back in the family fold, somewhat. I think. It’s all very confusing.
“It’s…complicated. Gray and Luke are slowly working things out, but it will take a while. Gray had a hard time choosing between Asher and Conn, but Conn insisted it be Asher.”
I’m glad he did.
We hang up a few minutes later, after I agree to Thanksgiving dinner at the Colloway house next week. It’s not like I have anything else to do. I had planned to spend the day in ratty sweats, curled up on the couch, watching football and drinking wine. Guess I’ll be doing all of those with the Colloways instead. Minus the ratty sweats. Luckily for me, it’s here in Detroit and only a thirty-minute drive from my house.
Looks like I’ll be seeing quite a bit of the sexy, irresistible Asher Colloway over the next several weeks. And I’m not sure if I’m excited or nervous.
Both, I think. Definitely both.
I pull myself from my daydreams and back to the problems at hand—getting more clients so I can stay in business past year-end.