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Chapter 1
“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“I’m cutting you out of my will, son,” Jonah Belmont, III, said to Cole. The old man sat by the stone fireplace in the study by the wall of oak bookshelves, his chin up and his lips defiantly thinned.
“You’re doing what?” Cole didn’t think he heard his father correctly. He knew his old man could play jokes on his sons once in a while, but this?
“You heard me,” Jonah assured in the midst of one of the Belmont family’s weekly meetings.
“Now, Dad, you’re not serious,” Chase chimed in to his brother’s defense.
“I am serious. I know you want to come to your brother’s aid, Chase, but I’m very serious. Look at you all. Five sons and you all know how important it is for me to fulfill my last wish that you all settle down in order to live satisfying lives with meaning. I don’t want any playboys running the Belmont Empire when I’m gone. The doctor gave me six months to a year to live and the year is almost up.”
“But you’re in stable condition, Jonah. You might very well outlive that prognosis,” his sister, Aunt Maya, said with hope. “At least Chase, Dane and Brandon are married or settled down. Leave Cole and Leo alone. They’re still young. They’ll meet the right girls when the time is right.”
“No, I will not. And they’re pushing thirty. That’s not too young. I had a multi-billion dollar empire by that age.”
“Why are you being so stubborn, Jonah?” Aunt Maya challenged, hands on her hips.
“Relationships are what make life worth living,” Jonah proffered, mostly to his sons Cole and Leo.
For a man who was divorced four times with expensive alimony payments and now was told he had less than six months left to live, Jonah was saying a lot.
“But relationships can also make your life a living hell,” Cole muttered under his breath. He wasn’t referring to his ex-step mothers, but to his own ex-fiancée, who’d torn apart his heart.
“He’s got a point,” Leo echoed.
“Did you say something, son?” Jonah said to Cole. The Belmont patriarch was quick with his hearing as he was with his words. But Cole loved his old man. And his heart ached for what he was going through.
“No.”
“You know the doc says my pancreas might not be what it used to be, but my hearing’s still sharp as a needle. Make no mistake about that,” he said playfully.
“Sorry, Dad. It’s just that…we’ve had this discussion many times. I’m happy for Dane, Brandon and now Chase. I think it’s great they found really amazing women, but…I’ve tried.” Cole’s voice broke off with emotion. Why was he getting so choked up? That bothered him more than anything.
He couldn’t get over how his bachelor brothers had all settled down with the loves of their lives and were truly happy. Their joy was palpable. But Cole also knew that cupid didn’t have enough arrows to get to everyone. And he was sad to say he didn’t think he could ever trust a woman again let alone commit his life to her. His brothers lucked out as far as Cole was concerned. That magic pixie dust wasn’t going to blow in his direction any time soon. His father had better get used to it. As far as Cole was concerned, he would never marry. Ever. He just wasn’t going to take a chance on love again.
“Not hard enough, apparently. Life is whatever you believe it is, Cole. Stop being so pessimistic. If you think failure, you’ll experience failure. You know that’s not how we run the family business. So why would you run your personal life like that? Don’t be pessimistic. Be optimistic.”
“Realistic, Dad. Not pessimistic.”
“Look,” Jonah picked up the antique family heirloom by the fireplace. It was filled with two boutonnieres and soon to be three. Jonah never ceased to tell the story over and over again of the magic in the bucket that was handed down from his great-grandfather and brought good luck to all Belmont men who placed their wedding flowers inside. “Look at this brass bucket. It’s been a year now since my diagnosis. I begged each of you to honor my last wish to my bucket list challenge for you. In one year, Chase, Dane and Brandon found the loves of their lives. Why do you and Leo feel the need to be defiant?”
“I’m not the one being defiant, Dad.”
“I don’t even have any grandchildren yet. A man at my age—seventy-five! It’s a crying shame.”
“Olivia’s pregnant,” Cole said.
“Yes, that’s true. Dane’s wife is expecting a child in a few months, which is a blessing to this family. But that still doesn’t let you off the hook, young man. What about that nice girl you dated from the office? She was a charming beauty and so intelligent. What was her name? Charity?”
“Hope,” Cole corrected with a grin. “Her name’s Hope.”
“Yes, yes. That’s it. Hope. I knew it was one of those virtues.” Jonah cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, you act as if you don’t have a hope in the world sometimes, boy. Everything is not just about work and earning money in this world. You know the old saying that life is a blank canvas.”
“A blank canvas?” Oh, boy, where was his old man going with this one?
“Yes. Relationships are like a blank canvas, and you are the artist. You have the power to create beauty by painting what you feel, what you see and always admiring the beauty of it. Never take it for granted. Cherish and color your relationships with love, son.”
Cole resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Okay, so his father had a way with words. But did he also have a strong point?
“Beautifully said, Jonah,” Brandon said to his father. Brandon often referred to Jonah by his first name since finding out very recently that he was his long lost son.
“Thank you, son,” Jonah acknowledged.
“Dad, I know what you’re saying,” Cole said. “I totally understand. But Hope is no longer in the picture.”
As much as he’d felt intense pleasure with her and as much as he wanted her back in his life, she walked out on him. He had to forget about any possible future with her. It was over. Finito.
* * *
Later, at an appreciation dinner in the banquet hall at the estate, Cole stood off to the side while guests danced. It was early December. The festive cheer was almost shadowed by news of more financial loss from their investments in Xszykee Financial Inc. The company brought down many of their associates and even dropped their stocks, thanks to fraudulent schemes by the owner and CEO. Charlie Xszykee was going to be serving another twenty years after he’d been found guilty on additional charges. The Xszykee Corp. was now officially dissolved, but many investors lost everything. Luckily, the Belmonts had more wealth that was not tied up in Xszykee Corp. But some of their friends hadn’t fared so well. Their good friends the Romero family also got hit hard but not as hard as others. “I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime,” Jonah Belmont had said of the situation, “but nothing like this. A man’s word was gold back in my day.” They’d trusted Charlie Xszykee with everything over the years and he’d pulled this number on them and other clients. Imagine that.
Still, Cole was glad his father had not let it affect his health. In all fairness, the boys decided to handle everything and kept most of the news reports away from Jonah’s ears.
As Cole glanced at his brother Brandon dancing with his lovely new wife, Faith, and his brother Dane dancing with his pregnant wife, Olivia, and his brother Chase, of all people, with his fiancée, Abbi, he could not help but feel a pang of loneliness mixed in with the joy he felt for them. He wished things had worked out differently for him and Hope. Hope was everything to him. What the hell happened between them? How could he have read her so wrong? Those soft, sexy lips of hers on his couldn’t have lied. There was something else. He felt it in his gut. But why the heck didn’t she trust him enough to let him help her? Then she’d ripped his pride to shreds by bailing out on him. She just up and left. Cole swallowed hard after he sipped on a glass of Romero champagne.
He felt a shadow cross his heart, just thinking of what his beautiful ex-fiancée did. She didn’t just walk out of his life without so much as a word, she trampled on any shred of hope he’d had that love really did happen between two people. She was his right-hand woman. His trusted executive assistant. And she’d been up to something at his office, he’d found out later, but that was another matter altogether.
Love.
Cole really wanted to believe in true love. But how could he?
Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves a Woman played over the sound system. That was one of Hope and Cole’s favorite songs, wasn’t it? She’d sung the other version When a Woman Loves a Man.
Just then, a woman walked by with a rose in her hand and Cole wanted to close his eyes to the memory of Hope and the day when he’d proposed to her...
“Oh, Cole, these flowers are stunning,” Hope had said, a few years ago when he’d given her a dozen beautiful long-stemmed freshly cut roses. She had really teared up at the time. The night before that, they’d had a passionate night of love making again and again right through to the morning. Cole never knew he could last that long but when you had the juice of true love in your veins, nothing was off limits.
