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Once I’m inside the man-cave of an office, with bookshelves lining the walls and a sunken seating area with couches and chairs, I walk to the bar in the corner, pour a thirty-year-old whiskey and sit down in a chair. After a damn good taste, I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Grayson, the billionaire who hired me, paid for my last two years of Harvard, and earned two things I don’t give out freely—my loyalty and friendship.
“My man,” he answers. “That stock you hooked me up with came through in a big way. You’re a beast. That IQ of yours is financial genius.”
That IQ I inherited from a mother who still ended up with nothing, and I don’t know how that happened. “Glad it worked out, man. Are we even now?”
“You paid for the past two years at Harvard and then some. I took the extra money and invested it back into the stock market for you.”
“Consider it yours. Interest for loaning me the money.”
“I don’t need the money. I’ll reinvest it in you ten times over, but I know you have your own empire to run down there in Colorado.”
I down the whiskey and decide that’s it for me. I’m going to end up drunk if I don’t slow the fuck down. “I’m the heir bastard, not the heir apparent. You know that.”
“I know what you are,” Grayson says, “and you’re nobody’s bastard. You have a place right here by my side, not in some officetwo buildings over—ifyou decide you want it. Otherwise, sign me up for a piece of Kingston Motors, but only if you’re running it.”
He’s barking up the wrong tree. That’s not going to happen. The question is, do I want any part of aiding in its success? I must. Why else would I be here? “Orian,” I say of a stock I’ve been eyeing. “Buy big. Buy fast.”
“You want in?”
“Yeah. Anything you made for me, put it in.”
“You got it. When do you have that meeting with your father?”
“Tomorrow after this godforsaken launch party.”
“Call me after it’s over. But remember, you have a brilliant financial mind. You owe him nothing. Do what you do for you, not him. He needs you. He knows it. Don’t let him convince you it’s the opposite.”
“Right. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
We disconnect and I stick my phone back inside my pocket before pulling a mini-Rubik’s cube from my pocket, rotating the puzzle in my hand, and thinking back to the psychologist who’d placed the first one in my hand. My father had hired him to try to “normalize” my behavior. A savant, the physiologist had said, needs a focal point, a way to slow the data in my head, and he was right.
I scramble and solve the cube three times, settling my mind into a place of reckoning, and then shove the cube back in my pocket. The bottom line: I don’t belong here. I never belonged here. I stand up and walk to my father’s desk where I sit down and think about those words:You owe him nothing.
Not exactly true. My father took me in when my mother died. He petitioned to get me into Harvard based on my academic record, which had been dismissed because of my trailer trash background. I owe him, but I don’t want to owe him anything more. I’m not going to work for my father. I’m leaving. I grab a pen and a piece of paper and write a note to my father:
Consider this payment for the whiskey I just drank and the roof over my head when I was growing up. Invest big in Orian and do it quickly. —Your Bastard Son.
I drop the pen and stand up, walking toward the door, my decision made. I’ll stay for the meeting tomorrow, simply because he did give me a roof over my head, even if it was only a strategy to push Isaac to be better and do better, which meant shoving us into a perpetual dog fight. That’s what he wants now, to use me to drive Isaac, but Isaac is vicious and not all that smart. I’ll eat Isaacalive. The problem for my father is that I just don’t care enough to want to anymore.
I exit to the hallway, and when I look left, Harper is exiting the bathroom. Fuck it. I’m out of here. Why hold back. I don’t even hesitate. I walk toward her and when she rotates and finds me approaching, she freezes in place, and waits on me until I’m standing directly in front of her. She tilts her chin up, those brilliant blue eyes boldly meeting mine, the scent of roses and woman, lifting in the air, teasing my nostrils. Apparently, I like roses a whole hell of a lot more than I thought I did because her scent is driving me wild. I don’t know what the hell happens, but my hand slides under her hair, and I lean in, my lips next to her lips.
Her hand settles on my chest and grips my lapel, that perfect mouth of hers tilting toward mine as if she’s offering it to me. “What are you doing?” she demands, sounding breathless. Iwanther breathlessall night long.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Kissing mysister.” My mouth slants over hers, my tongue sliding right past her perfectly puckered lips, and with one deep stroke, she moans for me, and I’m undone. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss this woman right here, right now. I deepen the kiss and press her against the wall, my free hand at her waist, her hand on my hand. Her tongue meets mine for every lick and stroke until I pull back and stare down at her.
Voices sound in the distance, but too close for comfort, and I seize what time we have left, and decide to do her a favor. I decide to be honest with her, like no one else in my father’s world will. “He’s using you to push Isaac, just like he’s always used me. You’ll never inherit. You’ll never be anything but the princess standing next to the prince and his king. And just for the record. I’m not your fucking brother.” I release her and walk away, making a fast path through the kitchen and out of the house.
Once I’m in the midst of the crowd, I cut through the mess of people and find my way back to the path to my cottage where I enter and have every intention of packing up and getting the hell out of here. I’ve barely shut the door when the bell rings. Who the hell followed me to the cottage, because someone sure as fuck did. I fling open the door to find Harper standing there.
“Because why would anyone think that I have anything real to bring to the table, right?” she challenges, as if we were still in the middle of our prior conversation, her beautiful blue eyessparking with anger. “Because all my time with my father, learning his business, taught me nothing.”
I grab her and pull her inside the cottage.
Chapter three
Eric
In about thirty seconds, I have the door shut and locked, and Harper pressed against the wall, my thighs shackling hers. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot do,” she hisses, as if she doesn’t notice that I’m about double her size and presently the one in control.
