Twenty-Four Years Later…

Mid-January in New York City was fucking cold. I was from Boston, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to real winters, but there was something about New York City that always made me feel twice as cold.

“Damn!” The man following me out of the building apparently agreed with me.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Justin McManus blowing on his hands like he’d been walking outside for a while rather than having just left the comfortably warm offices that Hunter Enterprises held here in the Big Apple. That wasn’t surprising since McManus was a Jacksonville native, and living up north for a decade hadn’t made a difference.

“I’m going for a drink,” he said as he stepped up to the curb and held up a hand to hail a cab. “Would you like to join me?”

I had a plane to catch in the morning, but my flight wasn’t insanely early, and I didn’t have a reason to head back to my hotel room right away. Normally, I wouldn’t have even gotten a room since the company plane was generally available whenever I needed it. Unfortunately, there’d been some sort of mechanical issue with the plane, which meant I was subject to the whims of airport scheduling for this trip.

I agreed amiably and followed Justin into a taxi, letting him fill the silence as he usually did. We weren’t close, and I wasn’t even sure I could classify him as a friend, but of all the board members, he was the closest one to my age – thirty-seven to my thirty-two – and the only other non-native New Yorker, which pretty much made the two of us outsiders. And we didn’t even attempt to discuss sports.

I was a Celtics and Red Sox fan, so I knew better than to even ask where others’ loyalties lay.

“How’s your grandfather?”

Justin’s question caught my attention, drawing my attention back to him. “He’s good,” I said. “I’ll let him know you asked about him.”

Justin gave me one of his typical charming smiles. “I’ve only met him once. I doubt he’ll remember me, but he sure made an impression on me.”

“He remembers you,” I assured him. “He knows the name of every executive at Hunter Enterprises and most of the other employees too. I may handle most of the day-to-day business anymore, but he’s still as sharp as ever.”

“I’ll bet it was hell getting him to retire.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I’ll catch hell if I ever use that word in his presence. Eighty-one years old, and if he runs out of paperwork to look over, he comes into the office and starts re-arranging the lobby.”

“Your brothers aren’t helping?”

The smile dropped from my face, and he must’ve realized that he stepped in something because he immediately started back-peddling.

“I mean, I heard that you had three brothers, but I’ve never seen them at any of the business functions.”

“It’s all right.” I managed to give him a tight smile. It wasn’t his fault that my brothers had all cut and run as soon as they were able. “They aren’t involved in the family business.”

I could see Justin trying to figure out the best way to respond, mentally debating if he should change the subject or acknowledge what I said. Fortunately, we pulled up to the bar just then, and it was easy to wait until we were inside to turn the conversation to alcohol.

Fortunately, alcohol was exactly what I needed right now.

* * *

While I wasn’t unaccustomed to a drink of good scotch after a hard day of work, I rarely drank enough to have anything more than a relaxing effect. Tonight, I’d indulged a bit more than usual, and I felt better than relaxed. I was…buzzed.

Even though it was closing in on ten o’clock, and logic told me that the temperature had dropped, the air felt almost warm as I stepped outside. Well, not warm, but invigorating rather than bracing. So much so that I decided to take a walk before heading to my hotel. There wasn’t anything to do there but sleep anyway.

I gave Justin a farewell nod and then started down the sidewalk without any real idea of where I was going. I had a private gym back home, so I was in great shape, but I didn’t really do much regular walking. In Boston, I had a car service I regularly used, and a car of my own for the rare occasions I felt like driving. Sometimes, when I was at work and wanted to go out for lunch, I’d walk, but I never did it for the sheer enjoyment of walking.

It seemed like I never did much of anything for sheer enjoyment anymore.

I frowned, not liking the maudlin directions my thoughts were taking me, but unable to stop them. Justin had planted the seed with his innocuous questions about my grandfather and my brothers, and now that I was out of the noise of the bar, I couldn’t quite keep the thoughts back.

I’d moved into the dorms when I was at Harvard, then gotten a small apartment of my own, but when I started thinking about upgrading, I decided to give in to the inevitable and had officially bought the family home from Grandfather a few years ago when it became clear that he’d never agree to downsize. He had an entire floor to himself, and it was almost like living on my own.

Except I wasn’t on my own. I was back under my grandfather’s roof, and by my own choice this time. Sometimes, I could still feel it, that sense of anger and grief so sharp that it was like my eight-year-old self had never truly left me. I hadn’t shown it back then, and I didn’t show it now, but on nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d feel that little kid inside me wanting to scream and rage at the unfairness of it all.

The worst part had been the people who acted like, because my brothers and I had a rich grandfather to take us in, the pain of losing both of our parents and our sister had somehow been less.

I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and hunched against a sudden gust of wind.

Even though Grandfather and I lived in the same house, I rarely saw him. The times he came into the office didn’t even change that much. We communicated largely via email, with the occasional phone call, and that wasn’t much different than how he did things while I was growing up.

I definitely got my work ethic from him.

And I wasn’t the only one.

As many issues as I had with my brothers, they all worked hard. Cai was a doctor slash scientist working for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Slade lived in El Paso and worked as a DEA agent. Even Blake, who’d taken a less traditional route, made a good enough living selling his handcrafted products that he didn’t even need to touch his dividends from his share in the company.

At least that’s what I assumed they were all still doing. I hadn’t seen them in more than three years, and our contact since then had come in brief texts and emails. Even on Christmas, I’d sent each of them the same short message, and received back the sort of reply my texts deserved.

“Great way to kill a buzz,” I muttered to myself. It was time to get a taxi and go back to the hotel. If I stayed out here any longer, I was going to start thinking about why my brothers and I barely spoke anymore, and that was never a good path to take.

I started to raise my hand to flag down a cab when I saw her.

Long golden curls peeking out from under a hat. Average height and build, but something about the set of her jaw and the way she carried herself got my attention. I hadn’t come to New York with the intention of getting laid, but sex would definitely get my mind off things.

I dropped my hand and started after the blonde.