CHAPTER FOUR
Nash
Shit.
The glove connected with my jaw, causing stars to dance in front of my eyes.
I shook my head to clear it. “Good one, old man,” I taunted Grant, then ducked the next punch. And the next.
Diving forward, I got a good one in my best friend’s gut, listened to the air whoosh out of his lungs. We were sparring, but it was turning into more than that. After his encounter with Melinda or Melissa or whatever the money grubbing bitch’s name was, I knew we’d both had shitty days, and we were taking it out on each other.
And it was exactly what I needed.
“Old man, huh?” Stars leaped into my vision again as the uppercut hit me under the chin. My teeth would have clicked together if not for the mouthpiece I wore. He grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “That old man enough for you?”
I snorted and circled down, bringing my leg around to take his feet out from under him. He landed hard on the mat, and I grinned down at my friend. “Sorry… for a minute there, you looked like my grandfather.”
Damn, what I wouldn’t give to take that pompous bastard down a notch or two as well.
Grant took the glove I extended and pulled himself up from the floor. “I can’t believe he threatened your inheritance like that,” he said, swiping at the sweat dripping into his eyes. “I thought that only happened in those sappy romance novels and movies. Doesn’t he know that arranged marriages are archaic?”
I snorted and began circling Grant again, rage traveling up my spine at the memory of William Levington telling me that my wedding date was set. August eighteenth at the Plaza, of all the damn pretentious places.
“Oh… is that so?” I’d asked him just a few hours ago. I’d been summoned to Grandfather’s office that morning. “And who exactly is this bride yer wantin’ to hitch me to?” I gave him my best country bumpin’ accent to irritate him further.
It did.
At the time, I thought he must be shitting with me. That this must have been an uncharacteristic joke coming from the man who ruled his family with an iron fist. There had been a lot of noise made lately about me settling down and preparing to run the “establishment,” as my grandfather was fond of calling it. But, surely, he hadn’t chosen a bride for me. A wedding date. Surely, he hadn’t done that.
Oh, but he had.
“Cassandra Brown of the Massachusetts Browns. She’s a fine match. We are hosting an engagement party in July in your honor.” Grandfather had pulled down his glasses to peer at me over them. “You will be there, won’t you?”
I’d been too stunned to answer, my throat closing up with the noose he was tightening. Finally, I managed to clear it enough to say, “No. No… I believe I’m busy that day.”
My response hadn’t even phased him. “I didn’t give you a precise date.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m busy every day in July. August too, actually.”
The bastard had smiled. Smiled. And the damn presumptuously arrogant curving of those thin lips caused the fury that was lodged in my gut to spread out into every cell. I knew why. Grandfather Levington hated my mother. He hated that his only son, the prince of the Levington kingdom, had married a “commoner.” Worse, that his son had fallen in love with a little country hick.
It didn’t matter that my mother was the darling of country music. It didn’t matter that she had been very rich in her own right by the time she met my father. None of that mattered because she was a down to earth woman with a twang. She hadn’t been chosen. And when they’d eloped, rumor had it, my grandfather had been apoplectic.
No… the Levingtons weren’t royalty, not of the blue-blooded British type. But you couldn’t have told that to my grandfather. To him, if America had a sitting king, it would be him on that throne. Him ruling with an iron fist.
And he hated that he couldn’t rule my mother. Couldn’t rule me. It was one of the reasons I talked with a Southern twang too. I hadn’t lived in Nashville in years, but I talked like I did, just to piss him off.
“And you really told him to go to hell?” Grant looked impressed.
Bouncing on my toes, I recalled the immense satisfaction I’d felt as I told my grandfather to bite my ass. He’d been so shocked, the smug look on his face fell, but only for a moment.
“You’ll come to your senses, son.”
He never called me Nash. He hated the name. Hated that my mother had gotten her way and named me after her favorite city in the world.
“My senses are just fine,” I told him.
“Then you’ll need to move out of your cushy penthouse by the end of the day.”
I didn’t waver, even though I knew tenant laws didn’t work that way. “Fine.”
“You will no longer exist in my eyes.”
That got a laugh out of me. “Even better.”
His face grew harder. The hardest I’d ever seen it. “You will be written out of my will. Your father too. All bank accounts closed immediately.”
That stopped me. “What does this have to do with Dad?”
The sly look reappeared on his face. “The genesis of this issue originated with him, and so shall the conclusion.”
Because he married my mother.
“Why do you hate Mom so much?”
Grandfather’s chin lifted, and he curled his upper lip as if smelling something bad. There had to be more to the story than what I’d been told. But what? Everyone loved my mother and her pure voice, her big, generous heart. Why didn’t my grandfather?
Then it hit me.
“You loved her first, didn’t you?”
My grandfather’s face turned glacial. “That’s pre—”
“It’s true.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember the story about how my parents met. Something about a gala. My mother had been invited to sing. Dad had asked her to dance. That was all I remembered. Whenever my parents told their how we met story, it always ended with, “And we fell in love, waltzing to What a Wonderful World.”
Stars exploded, and suddenly, I was on my ass.
Lost in the memories of that nightmare meeting with my grandfather, I hadn’t been paying attention, and Grant landed another right hook to the side of my head. Instead of trying to get up, I just sat there. After a few seconds, Grant sat down beside me.
“You think it’s true? That your grandfather had a thing for your mom?”
I pulled a glove off, then yanked the mouth guard from between my lips. “Yeah. He never said it was true, but it sure as shit makes sense.”
“And you think he’ll really pull your inheritance? And your dad’s?”
I yanked off the other glove, then pulled off the sparring helmet, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my arm. “He said he was.”
Grant did the same, both gloves and his helmet dropping to the floor beside him. “And your father still doesn’t know all that’s gone down?”
I shook my head, droplets of sweat raining down on me. “No. Tried to call them, but he and Mom are on some lovey-dovey intimate safari thing for their anniversary. Doubt they’ll get my message until Saturday or even Sunday.”
“You know he can’t really kick you out of your apartment tonight, don’t you?”
I looked at my friend. “Yeah. I know that, but I’m getting out anyway. Bastard doesn’t have to ask me twice. Called a moving service as soon as I left his place. As we speak, they’re packing me up. They’ll store my shit until I figure out what I want to do.”
He frowned. “Think you’ll want to leave the city?”
I considered it for a long moment. Nothing was really keeping me in New York. Mom and Dad traveled a great deal, and Mom’s tour schedule was becoming more and more nonexistent as she eased into retirement. And if she did agree to do a show, I could fly in from anywhere to help her.
“I honestly don’t know, man. Love the city, but I might be ready for a change of pace. Been feeling…”
Shit. I didn’t even know how I’d been feeling. Restless was the closest description, which was stupid when I lived in a city with millions of people and more entertainment options than I could name.
“Stay with me.”
I gave him a sidelong look. He appeared to be serious. “I can get a hotel.”
Grant rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I have plenty of room until you sort things out.”
He was serious.
I snorted. “Well, since I’m suddenly poor, it would be helpful.”
Grant gave me a baleful glare. He knew that was a lie. I wasn’t poor by a long shot. Although I’d just been stripped of several hundred millions of dollars, I had more money rolled into investments than I’d ever need in a hundred lifetimes. If worse came to worse, I could sell some of my toys. After all, how many planes, helicopters, and cars did one man really need?
“Call the movers. Have them bring your shit to my place. Store what you won’t need in one of my storage units. You can have the upstairs guest suite for as long as you want.”
I laughed, but it held a note of bitterness I couldn’t completely hide. “It’ll be like college.”
Grant shot me a concerned look. “God, I hope not. You break it, you buy it.”
I laughed full-on this time. Yeah… my parties back in college had been epic.
The more I thought of the idea, the more I liked it. It would save me the time of hunting for a new place, give me time to really consider what I wanted. I’d been wanting different for a while now. Seriously different. Like backpacking across Europe different. Or Australia different. At thirty-three, I was nowhere close to ready to settle down. Maybe I could find a sweet little thing who liked the outdoors too. Someone who didn’t mind camping under the stars or drinking coffee next to a fire.
Yeah. Different like that sounded appealing.
I looked over at my friend. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer for a few weeks. Thanks.”
Grant nodded and began unwrapping his hands.
I frowned. “We done here already? Don’t want to go another round or two?”
He kept unwrapping. “Not tonight. I stumbled into a situation with a couple of my tenants and ended up firing the building super. Got some shit to do that’s weighing on my mind.”
“Sounds serious.”
He lifted a shoulder, his face carefully blank, which indicated that the memory was an emotional one. Grant rarely showed emotion of any kind. If he wasn’t such a successful businessman, he would have made a killing in poker. “I’ll deal with it. Who is this Cassandra Brown of the Massachusetts Browns anyway?”
I snorted and accepted the change of subject. “I think I met her at some shindig or another a few years back, but I googled her to make sure. Same one indeed. Classic blonde and beautiful. Got her master’s degree in museum studies, if you can believe that’s even a damn degree, at some preppy all girl college that focuses more on manners than expandin’ the mind.”
Grant shook his head. “I repeat… archaic. To raise a female child to be bartered off to the best name or bank account.” He wadded the tape into a tight knot. “Just when I think civilization has evolved, it’s things like this that remind me of how truly primal we still are. Cold-blooded, self-serving sons of bitches, all of us.”
I gave a mock shudder. “Speaking of cold-blooded, can you imagine snuggling up to such a purebred on a snowy winter’s night?”
He shot me another of his patented baleful glares, but I ignored him. “I can’t imagine snuggling up to anything on any night. Damn women.” He paused for a long moment before adding, “Except…”
I whipped my head around to look at him. “Except what? Except who?”
He pushed to his feet. “Except nothing. It’s nothing.”
I jumped to my feet too. “Nothin’ hell. Did you meet someone?” I searched for a clock inside the gym. “Only a few hours after kickin’ Melissa out of your house?”
“Michelle.”
“Who the hell ever.” I followed him to the locker room and leaned against the door. “Who is she…?”
He kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, reminding me that I needed to hit the weights more. Old man or not, my buddy was ripped. But the weight room was where he worked his frustrations out. I ran. Swam. Climbed. Anything that kept me moving. I had plenty of muscle too, but more Michael Phelps than Jason Momoa.
I started removing the tape on my hands too, still waiting for him to answer. When he didn’t, I decided to let it drop. He’d tell me when he was ready. Besides, I needed to call the movers and then take a run, get more of this frustration out of me.
“I’m headin’ to the park, then I’ll meet the movers at your place.”
Grant grabbed a towel, tossed it over his shoulder. “I’ll let the front desk and Anne know the situation. They’ll help however you need.”
I nodded, knowing his unflappable primary housekeeper could handle anything. “Thanks.”
He met my gaze. “Anytime. Seriously.”
I left the locker room, pulling the rest of the tape off my hands as I went, made the call, then hit the sidewalk outside the gym in a full-on run. Fifth Avenue was a bitch like usual, but I weaved around the pedestrians with ease and hit Central Park near the zoo entrance.
Picking up speed, I pounded the frustrations of the day out of me, imagining my foot smashing into my grandfather’s face with each step. After the first mile, I began to feel some of the stress leaking out of my pores.
To be honest, I had very little in my life to stress about. Born into wealth and privilege to two parents who loved me dearly, I’d never spent a day dealing with the worries most people were consumed by. My worst day until today was when my dog died three years ago. I’d had Rex since he was a pup and his death hit me hard. Other than that, I dealt with my grandparents by doing my best to piss them off. I didn’t normally take their upper crust pretentious bullshit seriously… until today.
Today pissed me off.
And it was also a reminder that, at nearly thirty-four years old, I wasn’t a kid anymore. A reminder that I did have some responsibilities as a human being on this planet. A reminder that it was time to do something more worthwhile in my life than manage my mother’s legacy and fuck women.
And speaking of fucking women… a tight little ass caught my eye.
Damn.
Up ahead, a long-legged brunette appeared to be teaching a yoga class to a group of senior citizens. She bent over and… fuck. There was nothing little about that ass. It was full and toned under the electric blue yoga pants she wore.
Running closer, I began to hear her shout out instructions to the group, her voice pitched high, probably so they could understand her clearly. She also shouted encouragements, and I could hear the laughter and happiness in her tone. Watched her leap forward to help someone older than my grandmother keep her back straight. The elderly lady didn’t lose her Zen, just kept on going, nearly touching her forehead to her knees. Impressive.
A long rope of thick dark hair swung from side to side as the girl in electric blue bounded back into place and began the new series of instructions for the group. They were all smiling, seeming to enjoy their session very much. For some reason, I wanted to join them too. Smile like they were smiling, reaching up to the sky like there wasn’t a care in the world.
Slowing to a jog and then even slower, until I was essentially running in place, I kept my eye on the woman in the front of the group, drawn to her for some reason I couldn’t understand.
Bright, giggling laughter filled the air, grabbing my attention. When I located the source, I couldn’t stop from laughing too as a young woman with what I thought might be Down Syndrome pushed herself up from the ground, brushing off her knees and butt after apparently losing her balance.
Back on her feet, she resumed the exercises, a big smile on her face as she leaned over and touched one hand toward the ground while raising one to the sky. She nearly lost her balance again, steadied herself and held it in place. Good for her. Good for them all.
“Breathe in and lift…”
My girl took the few men and mostly women through another pose, and then…
There was a cry, a yell. One of the elderly women fell to the ground, shouting out an indignant, “Hey!” Then I spotted the problem. A man in a hoodie picked something up beside her and raced off, sprinting like a demon was on his ass.
“Thief!” someone yelled.
And before I could fully comprehend what just happened, there was a blur of electric blue.
The girl with the fantastic ass was racing after the man.
Shit.