Chapter One
Sebastian Knight’s head pounded like a motherfucker, and light streamed in from the window, piercing through one eye and into his brain. He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. At twenty-six, wasn’t he too damned old for a hangover like this? Yeah, he’d have to remember that the next time he picked up a glass of tequila and asked the bartender to keep them coming to celebrate closing a huge deal with his brothers for their tech company, Knight Time Technology. Except Ethan and Parker had gone home after toasting their success. After that, Sebastian didn’t remember much.
A flash of red flickered through his mind. A woman with flame-hued hair had joined him at the bar. He recalled the unusual color and the obviously fake but very tempting breasts that protruded over the top of her tight dress, along with his body’s reaction to her assets.
Shit.
Was he alone now?
He lifted his head and opened his eyes, not seeing anyone lying beside him and not recognizing where he was, but from the abundance of white furniture and the generic feel and look of the place, it was definitely a hotel room. An upscale suite but a hotel nevertheless.
Memory came back in small increments.
The deal they’d landed was to supply state-of-the-art locks to a defense contractor. They’d outbid some major players when Sebastian had stepped in and closed the deal, something he excelled at and his brothers counted on him to do.
They’d headed to The Bar at the Baccarat Hotel in order to celebrate. Toasted their success. He’d taken his first sip of Don Julio 1942, and it had gone down smooth.
And though he might not remember making the elevator ride up to this hotel room, he was here. Which meant he’d be the one making his escape from this one-night stand, hopefully without too much of a scene.
The click of a door sounded, and the redhead walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body. Her cleavage was as ample as he remembered, her hair as red, her face? Not as pretty as he’d have hoped or as she’d probably appeared to his drunk self.
He scrubbed a hand over his gritty eyes and pushed up to a sitting position.
“Morning, lover.” She started toward him, her stride confident, but he wasn’t in the mood for small talk or sex.
Instead of waiting for her to ease onto the mattress alongside him, he slid out of bed and rose to his feet. He glanced down to find his pants, grateful to see a torn condom package on the floor beside his clothes. Thank God, even in his inebriated state, he’d been smart about wrapping up.
“Aren’t you going to stick around for a morning quickie?” she asked as she opened the towel, revealing her naked body, his for the taking.
His dick didn’t even perk up at the sight of her tits, and he shook his head. “Sorry, doll,” he said, because he didn’t remember her name, dressing as he spoke. “I have a meeting I need to get to.”
Her pout was real. “Didn’t you have a good time last night?” she asked, sounding hurt, fumbling to cover herself with the towel again in the face of his rejection.
I don’t remember wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
He zipped his trousers and slid on his white dress shirt, buttoning up. “It was great. But now it’s over,” he said, knowing he had to be very clear about his intentions or lack thereof. Socks and shoes went on next, and he was dressed and ready to go.
He patted his pockets, double-checking for his wallet and cell phone, and headed for the door. As awkward as this was, no need to prolong it or make it worse.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
And after he’d pulled the door closed, he heard what sounded like a shoe being thrown as the door clicked shut behind him. Yeah, he really was getting too old for this shit.
He pulled out his phone, only to discover he’d turned off the ringer sometime during the night and his brothers had tried to reach him numerous times. So had his younger sister, Sierra.
He narrowed his gaze. Why the hell had everyone been looking for him?
He took the elevator down to the first floor and walked through the lobby, across the white marble, and out into the Manhattan sunshine before hitting redial and calling his oldest brother, Ethan. When the call went directly to voicemail, he dialed Parker next.
“Where the fuck have you been?” his middle sibling all but yelled.
“Calm yourself, Switzerland,” he said, using the nickname the family had for Parker that had begun during his championship skiing days and stuck because he refused to take sides in family arguments, always tending to remain neutral. “I’m here now. What’s going on?”
Squinting into the sun, Sebastian hailed the first empty cab he saw, the driver coming to a skidding stop on his side of the street.
“Mandy died, Sebastian.”
He froze, his hand on the taxi door handle. “Say that again.”
“Mandy died,” he said of Ethan’s wife. “I’ve been with E all night. So has Sierra. So get your ass to his place, like, yesterday.”
The cab driver honked the horn, letting Sebastian know he’d better climb in the back seat or the man would take off. He opened the door and slid onto the taped-up pleather, his heart heavy and thudding inside his chest.
“What happened?” he asked through his thick throat and dry mouth.
Everyone loved Ethan’s wife, Amanda, Mandy for short, who had been an executive at Knight Time Technology.
“Buddy, where to?” the cab driver asked impatiently.
He gave the address of the apartment building uptown that the company owned, where all the siblings resided.
Parker waited for Sebastian to finish before he answered. “Accidental overdose.”
“What the fuck?” Mandy didn’t take drugs, not that he knew of.
“It’s a long story.” Parker sounded exhausted. “Just come home and I’ll explain everything.”
“How’s Ethan?” he asked, worried about his older brother, who felt it was his job to look after everyone else.
He’d taken on the role of caretaker after their mother passed away when Sebastian had been fifteen. Only nineteen at the time, Ethan had stepped up because, frankly, their father had never been the responsible parent.
“About as good as you’d expect,” Parker muttered.
Which meant not good at all.
He needed to get to his sibling, but the Manhattan traffic moved at a snail’s pace and the ride seemed to take forever. He closed his eyes throughout the trip uptown and pictured Ethan’s wife, a petite brunette with a vibrant personality. Granted, she’d been more subdued lately, her shoulder surgery almost two years ago having been hard on her physically and mentally. But an accidental overdose? It didn’t compute.
The cab finally came to a stop. He shoved his credit card into the slot and completed the transaction, climbed out of the car, and made his way past the doorman, into the building and up the elevator, another ride that seemed endless.
Arriving at Ethan’s door, he knocked once and Sierra let him in, wrapping her arms around him, her smaller body shaking as she cried. The Knight siblings were each two years apart and he was close to his twenty-four-year-old baby sister. He walked into the apartment, Sierra holding on to him, and found his brothers in the living room.
She stepped away, sniffing as she sank into an oversized chair. From his place on the sofa, Ethan rose to his feet. His brother’s dark hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and red.
In silence, Sebastian stepped forward and pulled him into a brotherly embrace. “I’m sorry, man,” he said at last. “What happened?”
Ethan straightened to his full height. “I came home. Thought she was napping but I couldn’t wake her up. I called 911 but it was too late.” His voice sounded like gravel, the pain etched in his face raw and real.
“Parker–” Sebastian gestured to his brother, who was now sitting on the far side of the couch. “Parker said it was an overdose, but I don’t understand. Overdose on what?”
“Sit,” Ethan said and Sebastian chose a matching chair next to Sierra’s. “It was Oxy.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Ethan shook his head, obviously at a loss.
“It started after the shoulder surgery,” Parker said, taking over when Ethan’s voice failed him. “The doctors loaded her up with drugs to help with the pain. We had no idea they kept giving them to her until she was hooked.”
Sebastian blinked in surprise, whether at Mandy’s addiction he’d known nothing about or his middle brother’s use of the word we when describing the situation, he couldn’t be sure. The one thing Sebastian did know, he wasn’t part of that we.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.
As he began to put the pieces together of the story his brother was telling him, Sebastian reeled with what, so far, had gone unsaid. “You aren’t shocked by this, and not because Ethan told you last night, after Mandy died.” From the matter-of-fact way Parker had relayed the information, as if he’d already digested it and it had settled inside him, it was obvious. “You’ve known all along.”
Parker merely nodded.
He glanced at his sister, who sat wide-eyed on the chair next to his. “What about you? Did you know?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “Mandy told me recently that she was having problems. I talked to Ethan about it,” she admitted.
“So everyone knew something. But me.” Sebastian rose to his feet, hurt and betrayal warring with anger, combining with grief inside him.
Parker met his gaze. “I was there the first time he found her pills. That’s all.”
But Sebastian sensed there was more to it. That he’d been left out of the loop for a reason. He glanced at Ethan.
“We didn’t want to bother you with serious shit,” Ethan said. “You didn’t need to know. We were handling it.”
“I didn’t need to know or you didn’t trust me to keep it to myself?” Sebastian asked, the truth crystallizing without his brother having to say anything. “Admit it. You were afraid I’d share info, like the Williamson deal.”
It’d been his first year in the family business, one started by their great-great-grandfather, who’d been a locksmith. Legend had it he’d been such an expert on locks, he’d broken Billy the Kid out of jail. These days, the company supplied high-tech security for smart buildings and state-of-the-art corporate parks, competed for contracts with the most lucrative companies in the world, and owned enough patents to keep them exceedingly wealthy.
At the height of bidding on a particular project, Sebastian had been having a drink with a beautiful blonde. He hadn’t known at the time she was the daughter of the man against whom they were bidding for a contract.
He’d been young, cocky, and stupid. She’d been busty, which distracted him, and extremely bright. He’d bragged they were sure to win, that nobody would come close to their number. She’d hung on him, praised him, made him feel important, and he’d admitted that they’d maxed out their bid. They couldn’t go lower on their proposal. It was all the information she’d needed to grab the contract out from under them. Because of his big mouth.
Ethan blew out a harsh breath. “Fine, I didn’t want it getting out that Mandy had a problem, okay? I figured the fewer people who knew, the better.”
He straightened his shoulders and glared at his sibling. “You can’t let it go? You were handling it as a family and didn’t think I needed to be part of it? I couldn’t have helped? I couldn’t have been there for you?” he asked, voice rising.
“Not with something this sensitive!” Ethan shot back.
Parker rose, stepped over to Sebastian, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Now’s not the time,” he told him, putting himself in between his brothers.
Glancing at Ethan, shoulders hunched, his pain obvious, Sebastian agreed. “He’s right. You’re hurting and you don’t need to deal with this shit right now.”
There’d be time for Sebastian’s anger at his family later, after they’d all grieved for Mandy.
* * *
Ashley Easton sat across the table from her boyfriend of six months at the Ivy West Street London, a fixture on London’s social and dining scene for decades. She was surprised Jonathan had chosen such an upscale, see-and-be-seen restaurant for their Saturday night date. Usually they went to more casual places.
Redesigned in 2015, the decor boasted a shimmering central dining bar, harlequin stained-glass windows, and oak paneling. She’d dressed up for the occasion, a little black dress and heels, as had he, dressed as he was in a three-piece navy suit and red tie.
They’d met working at the same accounting firm, and Jonathan Davies was, at heart, a kind man. With his dark brown hair trimmed just so, courtesy of the barber he saw weekly, brown eyes, and a serious personality, he was the epitome of what would be a Wall Street guy at home in the States. But Ashley had been living in London, thanks to a job offer straight out of university. After being sent to boarding school abroad at the age of sixteen, she’d never gone back home.
New York City hadn’t been her home anyway.
The waiter had removed their dinner plates and cleaned off the crumbs on the table. He returned with strawberries and cream, placing the dishes down.
“Oh! We didn’t order–”
“I thought I’d surprise you. I know how much you enjoy fresh fruit,” Jonathan said. “Would you like some more champagne?”
She smiled. “Yes, please.”
As if he’d been listening, the waiter arrived at her elbow. He picked up the bottle from the ice bucket and filled both of their glasses.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Jonathan leaned forward, his gaze on hers as he reached across the table and clasped her hand. “You look so lovely tonight.”
She smiled at the compliment. It was unlike him to be demonstrative in any way, no public displays of affection. British stiff upper lip and all that. “Thank you. You’re looking mighty dapper yourself. I have to admit I was surprised you picked such an upscale place for dinner.”
“I had a reason,” he said, red suddenly highlighting his cheekbones.
Jonathan didn’t blush, but it was an indication of how off he’d been tonight. Antsy throughout dinner. Checking his watch. Asking her if she was finished with her meal not long after it had been served.
She glanced at their intertwined hands. “Jonathan, do you have something on your mind?”
He shifted in his seat. Cleared his throat. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”
She tilted her head, waiting for him to explain.
“Ashley, you’d say we get on quite nicely, yes?”
She nodded. “Of course we do.” They enjoyed the same restaurants, her friends liked him, and they rarely ran out of things to talk about. This one conversation excluded, it was a comfortable relationship, a safe one, but not one with sexual sparks. Still, it worked for her, having learned at a very young age what desire and acting on your baser instincts wrought.
Her parents had loved one another but her blue-collar dad, a man she recalled only by his warm, booming voice, died when she was four. And her mother had given up on love, focusing on financial security instead. She’d gone from wealthy man to wealthy man, and had even agreed to have Ashley sent away. Or maybe it’d been her idea in the first place. As a result, like her mother, Ashley no longer believed in love, happily ever after, or even marriage. Unlike her mother, she wanted to rely on herself.
Because everyone who was supposed to look out for her had abandoned her. From what she’d seen, what was the point in giving her heart? That’s why this relationship worked for her. She and Jonathan were compatible, no explosive chemistry to mess up her head and make her believe in things that weren’t possible.
She glanced at the man across the table. “You can talk to me,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I’m hoping everything is right.” He released her hand and lowered his arm, clearly pulling something out of his pants pocket and coming up with a small black velvet box.
Her stomach turned over. “Oh my God.”
“Will you marry me, Ashley?” He opened the box and she stared at the solitaire ring in total and utter shock.
She hadn’t expected a proposal. Not so early in their relationship and really not at all. She’d never given him any indication that the relationship was headed in that direction or that she wanted something permanent. She enjoyed Jonathan and her time with him … but marriage? She shook her head. That wasn’t something she wanted or desired.
“I–”
“Think about it,” he said, interrupting her. “We make a good couple and I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said, his voice warming.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, wishing he’d told her that before proposing. She would have slowed things down immediately.
“Oh, Jonathan. I’m not … ready to get married,” she said, hoping she was letting him down gently.
Another version of it’s not you, it’s me. But she was being honest. To her, marriage meant love and commitment and the happily ever after she didn’t think was possible for herself.
His sparkling eyes dulled as she turned him down.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you felt… I just…” She trailed off, unsure of what else to say. She’d hurt him and that was the last thing she’d wanted to do.
“I hope you’ll consider it,” he said, persistent to the end. “You don’t have to say anything now.” He closed the box and tucked the ring back into his pants pocket. “But I’ll be holding on to this. And hoping.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t.” Her heart squeezed as she spoke, because he was a kind man and would make some woman a good husband. Just not her. “I like you, a lot, and I enjoy your company.” She forced herself to meet his gaze despite the painful churning in her stomach. “But I don’t love you. And I don’t see my feelings growing that way. In fact, I don’t believe in falling in love.”
She kept her voice gentle as she broke it off with him. “Given all that…” She pointed to the ring. “I think we should end things.” She spoke as gently as she could.
“I’m not going to give up on hope,” he said, surprising her. She hadn’t seen him as the overly persistent type, but here he was, not wanting to let her go. “People have built solid marriages on less.”
Yet between the two of them, neither had communicated enough feelings to get to this point. She couldn’t believe he’d put them in this position. And though she’d miss him and the time they spent together, she just didn’t love him.
Did she trust any man enough to fall in love? A question for another time.
She sighed just as her phone rang from inside her purse. She didn’t want to take the call, didn’t want to make him feel less valued than he already did.
“Check it.” He gestured with a tip of his head toward where her handbag hung on the chair. “It might be important.”
She nodded, assuming he needed time after his rejected proposal, and pulled her phone from her bag. She glanced down to see Ethan Knight’s name flashing on the screen.
Ethan was the closest thing she had to a brother. In fact, he had been her brother once, in the short time her mother had been married to his father. A few years, only six months of which she’d lived under the same roof with him and his two brothers and sister. But he’d stepped up for her, and as a result, her relationship with him was important to her.
She glanced at Jonathan. “One minute?” she asked and he nodded.
She answered the phone. “Hi, Ethan. Everything okay?” He didn’t usually call during his business hours in the United States.
“It’s Parker.” Ethan’s middle brother, who she hadn’t had any contact with since her mother and his father had sent her away to boarding school. He’d been the quietest one, busy with his skiing and training for the Olympics.
“Is everything okay?” she immediately asked.
“I’m going through the numbers in Ethan’s phone and I know he’d want me to call you.”
“What’s wrong?” She stiffened with panic. “Is Ethan okay?”
“It’s Mandy,” Parker said. “She … passed away last night.”
Dizziness assaulted her. Ethan’s wife. The woman he loved, as much as she’d let him, anyway. “Oh my God.”
“Ashley?” Jonathan placed his napkin on the table, and leaned forward.
She held up a hand. “What happened?” she asked Parker.
“Accidental overdose.”
She swallowed hard. “How is he?”
“Shaken up. Hurting. I know he kept in touch with you over the years and you two are close. He’d want you to know.”
“Thank you for calling. How … how is the family?” she forced herself to ask.
“It’s been a shock but we’re dealing,” Parker said. “I saw your email was in E’s contacts. I’ll send you the funeral information.”
“Thank you,” she said again. “Goodbye.”
“Bye.”
She disconnected the call, eyes glazed with unshed tears for Ethan and Mandy, a woman she’d liked very much.
She brushed at the tears in her eyes, worried about Ethan. He wasn’t used to relying on other people. Instead he was the caretaker, she thought. Knowing him, he would try to push forward, but he was the brother who had stepped into the parental role his real father didn’t know how to perform. And now he’d need someone to handle things once the immediate shock wore off and reality settled in.
He had his siblings—Parker, who was obviously taking charge, and Sebastian, who, as far as she knew, was still the playboy he’d always been. He also had his younger sister, Sierra. But they’d all be hurting. Ashley could lift the burden and be there for Ethan much as he’d always been there for her over the years.
Jonathan cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You look upset.”
She met his gaze. “That was Parker, Ethan Knight’s brother.”
Although Jonathan knew she and Ethan Knight were close friends, he didn’t know her past with the family and how she’d ended up on this side of the pond, as he liked to say.
And didn’t that explain just another reason why she couldn’t marry him, she thought. He didn’t know the most intimate details of her life—because she hadn’t chosen to share them with him.
“His wife passed away,” she explained. “And I need to go back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but back? To New York?” he asked, sounding surprised.
She nodded. “Ethan is like a brother and he’ll need me now.”
“But for how long?” Jonathan asked, his expression puzzled, as if he was trying to figure out where he fit into her plans.
“I don’t know.” But considering she’d just declined his proposal, distance would be a good thing, she thought, though she wouldn’t say such a thing aloud. She didn’t need the stress of him pressuring her or her friends asking her how she could have turned him down.
Jonathan paid the check in awkward silence and he drove her home, their parting even more uncomfortable. In her mind, they were over. She cared about him and was sad, but their relationship had been more about convenience than love. And right now she could only focus on Ethan. The one true friend she’d ever had at a time when she otherwise would have been completely lost.
And that meant she was headed back to the States. She couldn’t call it home. Sebastian had made sure of that. If only returning home didn’t mean dealing with the only man who’d ever held her heart.
Before she’d locked it up for good.