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Chapter One
“Yes, Chairman Zhing, my team will arrive tomorrow around ten.” I grabbed a bottle of alkaline water from my refrigerator and offered a slight nod to my housekeeper, who was slathering some mint mixture over lamb lollipops. I strolled out of the kitchen while listening to the head of the Chinese tech mogul speaking into my earpiece.
“I will make sure Manager Wong is there to meet them…”
When my front door began to open, I halted midstride as I crossed the foyer and headed back to my home office. Zhing was still speaking in my ear about his plans for the group from Theron Acquisitions. The team was from a new tech engineering start-up group we had acquired, and I had sent them to observe a new project at the gaming company in China. Theron and Shicent Games had been negotiating a joint venture for the last year, and it was on the cusp of finalization. Since my father had stepped down after beating stage four pancreatic cancer five years ago and gave me the reigns, I’d taken the company in a new direction. The leadership position had come at the right time when lightning had struck twice in my life. Setting the changes into motion and increasing the profit margins of T.A. had become my main focus, my only focus. It had been best.
“Prianka, Keven, and the rest will be there around twelve, so we should leave at about eight.” Dean, the youngest of the Theron sons, walked in, hauling a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a rucksack in his hand. He was dressed in a navy blue and green goose down jacket, dark jeans, Salomon hikers on his feet, and a deep green toboggan covering the blond wheat strands of hair.
“Are you sure it's okay for us to stay here?” Those soft, hesitant words came from the girl gliding in behind Dean.
Woman was a better term. Aubrey Crawford had graduated two years ago with my brother from college, and she’d stopped being a girl then. However, it had been hard for me to see her as anything other than the young mousy, awkward teen who started coming to our house when she was fourteen to tutor Dean in math. She used to dress in distressed jeans, before it was fashionable to do so, ill-fitted sweaters, and no-name white sneakers. My gaze took her in now. She wore name-brand clothing but was still on the low-end. Her summer part-time at T.A. during her junior year in college had turned into her getting a permanent position in the accounting department. Her dark brown curls with honey blond highlights framed her face beneath the icy blue knit cap she wore that matched the color of her ski jacket. Outerwear zipped closed, shielding the top half of her form. The high-quality jeans hugged her hips and thighs, leaving little to the imagination.
I had a damn good imagination. I still recalled how she looked in the form-fitting traditional black dress she’d worn beneath her graduation gown. She’d unzipped the gown while she and Dean took multiple pictures with family and friends. Aubrey’s lush, full breasts had sat high and ripe against the fabric, pleading to be free. On that college graduation day, I’d wanted to liberate them. Regardless of whether our families were there celebrating with the two. I didn’t wonder if it was the mystery of some bra causing the effect. I knew it was all her. I still recalled one summer she’d been at a pool party a couple of months before, and her one-piece had been conservative, but the pale lavender material hadn’t hidden her perfect breasts. Not small, but just the size to fill a man’s hands, my hands. I’d left the house just as quickly as I’d arrived there. I planned a meeting with my father but took him out instead.
Pissed about my thoughts and reaction to her at the graduation, I left before everyone had gathered at the restaurant I’d ensured the company paid for but didn’t attend. My family griped later about me working instead of being there as support, but I knew what was best.
“Yeah…sure. My brother won’t mind.”
Dean’s voice dragged my gaze from Aubrey. I quirked a brow at Dean as our trademark Theron blue-gray eyes met.
“Stone!”
“Chairman Zhing, let me call you back. A situation arose I need to handle.”
“Yes. Yes. We will speak soon.” Zhing agreed. “Zài jiàn.”
I responded in kind. Chinese was one of the three languages I spoke. Tapping the button in my ear, I ended the call but never looked away from my brother. “What are you doing here, Dean?”
For anyone else, the steel tone of my voice would have had them trembling or scurrying from my sight, trying to hurry and fix any screw-ups before I discovered it. But not Dean. Dean’s head always seemed as if it was either lost in the clouds or considering every color he could repaint the world. It wasn’t a complete exaggeration since Dean was a modern artist, painter, and sculptor. As the youngest of three sons, Dean had the freedom that Bryce and I weren’t afforded. Only two years apart, Bryce and I carried the weight of the knowledge that we would one day take over the family business just as our father and uncle had done. Dean being almost ten years younger and sickly for the first three years of his life and spoiled by everyone, had been raised without the yolk of responsibility.
Because of that, Dean could be oblivious to the obligations I bore as head of Theron Acquisitions.
“I told Aubrey you wouldn’t mind if we crashed at the lake house for the night before we drove to Beech Mountain to meet up with our friends.” Dean’s boots thumped on the Italian marble of my entrance as he crossed the floor to me.
“Did you consider maybe today wasn’t a day I wanted company before you encroached on my space without a single call or text?” I growled.
Most days, I didn’t mind my brother being in my home. It gave me peace to know Dean, the starving artist, who refused to allow me or Bryce to set him up for an internship at a gallery or studio, was alright. My youngest wanted to carve his path and make a name for himself. I could admire my brother’s dedication to his craft, but often it caused me stress worrying about Dean. My baby brother wouldn’t even use the trust that our grandfather had set up for him. Upon graduation from college, we all had full access to our funds, but Dean hadn’t touched his. So, I invested it on my brother’s behalf. I had faith that Dean would use the same tenacity that ran in mine and Bryce’s blood to succeed in his chosen profession. However, one day Dean would thank me when he was a millionaire in his own right for what I did financially on his behalf.
Dean laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t mind. Hell, I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you’d be at your expensive ass penthouse in uptown in the middle of the week instead of over an hour away.”
Glancing at my brother, I knew he didn’t get it. He’d missed it, and I didn’t feel like reminding him. “Maybe I’m here and entertaining company.”
I cut my eyes to the figure at the door. Fuck. I tried not to consider why I wasn’t only goading my brother but to see if I could get a rise from her. She swallowed but remained silent.
“Really, Stone. Your sense of humor. Work, work, work, work, work is all you do.” Shaking his head as he snatched the toboggan cap off, leaving his shoulder-length hair a wild mess around his head.
I grunted and stared at our father's younger, not thin but wiry version. I had the urge to have my assistant call the man who clipped my hair weekly and order him to shear Dean’s unruly locks to something tapered and neat.
The squeak of wheels drew my gaze back to Aubrey as they rolled and dragged across the polished tile.
She paused two steps behind Dean, her round, doe-like, golden-brown gaze locked on my stern features.
Fucking, Aubrey.
She seemed more intuned with my annoyance at the situation than my brother. “Um, we can find a bed and breakfast…or I’m sure there is a hotel in the last city we passed.” As I continued to stare, she licked her lips.
My gaze tracked the movement. Hot thoughts ran into my mind about things I would love to do to her full lips with the pale, sugar plum gloss on them that caused heat to shoot down my spine and land in my gut, with the flaming hot sting of an arrow striking its mark. I wanted to see those full lips stretched wide around my dick while she was on her knees before me.
