Page 1 of Wild Promise

One Year Ago

Zane

My phone buzzed, and the name on the screen made my stomach drop.

Bowen Alexander.

Now was the worst possible time, which was exactly when my father always seemed to call, like he could sense when I was least prepared to deal with him. Even from another country.

I’d just clocked out of a double shift, and within the next hour, my house would be packed. I was throwing a party. One of those loose, last-minute disasters where the music was too loud and nobody gave a shit.

It was what I was good at. It was also what everyone expected from me.

And honestly, it beat the hell out of being alone with my own thoughts.

I should’ve ignored his call. I knew better by now. Every conversation with my father followed the same script—disappointment dressed up as concern, followed by manipulation disguised as an invitation. But some stupid, hopeful part of me still answered.

Every damn time.

“Zane.” His voice was crisp and clipped. He spoke to everyone this way, like the world was a boardroom and he was running the meeting. “I’m going to be in Toronto next week. I want you to meet me for dinner.”

Not an invitation. A summons.

“I’m working next week.”

“You’re pouring drinks at a ski lodge. I’m sure they can spare you for one evening.”

There it was. The perfectly aimed dismissal.

He’d been taking shots like this ever since I turned down his offer to join him at BTA-Xander Pharmaceuticals. Turned down the corner office, the six-figure salary, the slow grooming into whatever the hell his empire actually was. I didn’t want to know what happened behind those closed doors.

I already knew enough.

Enough to know the men my father met with privately weren’t the kind you found on corporate boards. I’d grown up hearing whispers, catching pieces of conversations I wasn’t supposed to hear, learning young not to ask questions.

What little I had seen made my skin crawl.

“It’s an all-season luxury resort, Dad. You should know, you’re part owner. And I like my job.”

“You like hiding. There’s a difference.” Ice clinked against glass, and muffled voices drifted through the line. He was somewhere expensive. Somewhere exclusive. Somewhere he probably thought mattered. “I didn’t raise you to?—”

“You didn’t raise me at all.”

The silence that followed could’ve drawn blood.

I could picture his jaw tightening, the way it always did when I shoved the truth in his face so he couldn’t ignore it.

He hadn’t raised me. He’d funded me. Claimed me when it suited him. Drifted in and out of my life like a storm, wrecking everything before disappearing again.

My mother had done the rest. When she was around.

When she wasn’t, my grandparents and Uncle Glenn filled the gaps, making sure I was fed, clothed, and only moderately feral.

The resort had been my real home. The staff, my real family.

“We’ll discuss this when I see you,” he said finally, like I’d already agreed. “There are things happening with the company that concern your future whether you like it or not.”

“My future has nothing to do with your company.”