Trey
Page 1
Contents
Also Available
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Also by Christie Ridgway
About the Author
Also Available
7 Brides for 7 Blackthornes
DEVLIN - Barbara Freethy (#1)
JASON - Julia London (#2)
ROSS - Lynn Raye Harris (#3)
PHILLIP - Cristin Harber (#4)
BROCK - Roxanne St. Claire (#5)
LOGAN - Samantha Chase (#6)
TREY - Christie Ridgway (#7)
TREY
7 Brides for 7 Blackthornes, Book 7
Meet the Blackthorne men, each one as hot, fast, and smooth as the whisky that built the family fortune, and the yachts and race cars that bear their name. From proud Scottish stock, Blackthornes never lose. But, one by one, the seven sexy men in this family are about to risk everything when they fall for strong and beautiful women who test their mettle in life…and love.
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TREY – Book Seven
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As the oldest of the wealthy and well-connected Blackthornes, Trey always puts family first. To end his parents’ separation, he heads to France, only to find that Paris has much more to offer than one missing mother. But Trey’s not the sort to slow down even when a beautiful and free-spirited American volunteers to play tour guide.
* * *
Mia Thomas won’t take no for an answer, however, and soon Trey is questioning his all work, no play, and no commitment lifestyle. Then a family secret is revealed, and he must once and for all decide the kind of man he truly wants to be.
* * *
Don't miss these sexy, heartwarming, emotion-filled books by seven bestselling authors: Barbara Freethy, Julia London, Lynn Raye Harris, Cristin Harber, Roxanne St. Claire, Christie Ridgway, and Samantha Chase.
TREY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
© Copyright 2019 by Christie Ridgway
ISBN: 9781939286451
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
Trey Blackthorne shoved his hand through his short dark hair and made a mental note to schedule a trim. A quarter-inch past business-length and it turned unruly. Trey didn’t like unruly—it didn’t suit him and he didn’t have time for it. As Graham Wallace Blackthorne III, hence “Trey,” he had time for his role as Blackthorne Enterprise’s Executive Vice President of Operations—the position just below his father’s as CEO—and not much else.
“Hey.” His oldest cousin Phillip walked up, the oldest of three who’d come to live with Trey’s family when they’d been orphaned by an airplane crash. They’d been raised as siblings, all seven—Trey and his three brothers, Phillips and his two—together. The other man slid onto another of the leather chairs pulled up to a gleaming wooden table in the Vault, the whisky pub attached to the boutique distillery in King Harbor, Maine. The expansive space held an old, gleaming-with-wax wooden bar, an extensive display of call liquors, paneled wood walls, and parquet floors. Rich wool rugs decorated with bold patterns covered them, along with tables and leather-covered seating—armchairs, club chairs, ottomans, and couches. It was their family’s pub, it poured their family whisky, and it was a common gathering place for their family members when they spent time at the family estate during summers and holidays.
Family was pretty much the only other thing Trey had time for besides his job at the company headquarters in Boston. “Hey, back,” Trey said, taking a sip of the smoky concoction that was made with the same recipe their grandfather had brought over from Scotland. Though Blackthorne Enterprises had gone in other profitable directions over the years, whisky was at the heart of their success. If Trey didn’t have his future sewn up in overseeing the totality of the family empire, he sometimes imagined spending his days at the original distillery that was adjacent to the pub. The scientific, methodical aspect of the process appealed to the part of him he expected came directly from his father—the part that eschewed emotion for order, numbers, and facts. The creative side of making the liquor appealed too, probably because it was so foreign to his nature.
“You’re more quiet than usual,” Phillip observed now, eyeing Trey over his own glass of amber-colored liquid. “Something bothering you?”
Instead of answering, he reached into the front pocket of his jeans and drew out a well-worn horn box designed to hold a pack of playing cards. He ran his thumb over the almost-translucent surface, a habit he’d picked up from his paternal grandfather who’d given Trey the box and the set of poker cards inside it before his death.
Those original cards were safely stored in his desk, but in their place was a high-quality set of cellulose acetate. It wouldn’t survive the world’s end, but anything close to it, yeah. Without speaking, he shuffled the deck and then began dealing the fifty-two pieces of plastic face down between him and his cousin.
“War,” he finally said, picking up the top card on his pile.
Phillip sighed. “Don’t you see that now I have Ashley I’m a lover and not a fighter?”
Trey had to grin. “You hate to lose just like every other Blackthorne. Chicken?”
As he knew it would, the comment caused his cousin to snatch up a card. They slapped them down on the center of the tabletop in unison, face up.
Chuckling, Trey said nothing as Phillip slid the king of spades—his—and the three of clubs—Trey’s—toward his side.
Silent play continued until the dealt cards were exhausted and Phillip’s win pile showed decidedly higher. The other man looked up, smug as only a younger family member could be. “I should have bet you something.”
Trey eyed him, noting the strong Blackthorne features, the too-long-for-the-conference-table hair, and the grit of three-day-old beard on his jaw. “You should get a shave,” he said, in a tone he recognized as his father’s.
Instead of taking offense, Phillip only laughed. “You sound more like Uncle Graham every day.”
Ignoring the jibe, Trey gathered the cards and began shuffling again. “Best two out of three?”
His cousin glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t you be on your way home to your fancy Boston condo? The lights go on at Blackthorne HQ early tomorrow morning and you’ve—what?—taken off a whole twenty-four hours?”
At the mention of work, a hovering headache he’d had for days, maybe weeks, maybe months, tightened its vice grip around Trey’s temples. Damn. The thought of his weekday routine shouldn’t give him grief like this. But he’d been unsettled the entire summer.
Two men heading toward their table drew his attention. Even in the dim light coming from the deer-antler chandeliers spread throughout the pub, he recognized their height and their athletic grace—a shared Blackthorne trait.
They moved with an unmistakable resolve and Trey had a sudden desire to take his cards and start running—but Blackthornes weren’t cowards. So he merely blanked his expression as his brother Devlin, second of four, and his cousin Brock, last of three, drew out chairs and dropped into them, one on either side of Trey. They both had their own whiskies in hand and he swallowed a curse. If he
’d noticed them pausing at the bar he’d have had time to slip out the back door.
It didn’t take clairvoyance to know they wanted something from him. His head’s pounding redoubled, yet still he didn’t budge from his chair. They didn’t call him the family fixer for nothing.
Laconic greetings exchanged, Devlin stretched out his long legs. “Nana got a parking ticket.”
“Already taken care of,” Trey said, almost smiling despite the pain at his temples. The eighty-six-year-old had a standing weekly appointment with her hairdresser, a woman nearly as old as she. The lady operated her beauty business out of her home on the outskirts of King Harbor’s small, picturesque downtown, and Nana remembered a time when parking zones didn’t exist there. She knew damn well what red-painted curbs indicated, but just chose to ignore it.
“Good,” Dev said, then cleared his throat. “And, uh, one of the kids from my sailing program could use a meet with our state representative. There’s a scholarship she’s after and—”
“Send her info to my assistant. I’ll put in a word and Jer will handle it.”
Brock’s hand came up. “I’ve got one,” he said, and took a sip from his glass, his white teeth showing as he drew it down his throat.
Raising a brow, Trey looked to his cousin. The other man was Senior Vice President of Brand Management of Blackthorne Enterprises, so they worked on the same floor, often on the same projects, and shared the same commitment to the company and its many branches. He knew his cousin to be dedicated and driven, but the last few weeks had blunted some of Brock’s sharper edges. Or, more correctly, it was a woman who’d done that. “What are you talking about?”
“I hear that Ross got a speeding citation last time he was in town.”
“You mean the last time he blew through town, right?” Trey had to smile now, thinking of the third Blackthorne brother who had immersed himself in the building and racing of cars since an early age. “I don’t think I can fix that one, as it might have been someone who looks and sounds a lot like me who tipped off Sergeant Lincoln as to where he might locate an officer with a radar gun.”
Brock laughed, shaking head. “Really, Trey?”
“He drives too damn fast,” he answered, not regretting his scheme for an instant. “Especially when he has concerns other than himself right now.” A woman had caught his eye too, it seemed, and permanently.
“Speaking of concerns,” Dev began, straightening in his seat.
Uh-oh, Trey thought, though he’d known it would come to this.
“We’ve got to do something,” his brother continued.
Trey knew that “we” was going to turn into a “you” if he didn’t derail the conversation ASAP. “Speaking of romance, how’s Hannah?”
Devlin’s brows drew together. “You want to talk romance?”
Not particularly. Six of his seven closest relatives, his three brothers and all three of his cousins, had partnered up over the summer. He’d found it only served to underscore the distance he felt between himself and the Blackthornes of his generation. Before, he’d chalked it up to being the eldest, the one birth had bestowed with the heavy mantle of the family legacy. Now he thought temperament might play a part as well. Finding a soul mate seemed much too…whimsical for his prosaic nature.
Trey wouldn’t recognize whimsy, let alone love, if it bit him on the ass.
Phillip set down the glass he drained with a clack. “All right, let’s have it,” he said, turning to Brock. “Has the Blackthorne Q-rating taken a hit over the summer?”
Trey stared at his cousin. He went his own way and spent most of his time raising money for a nonprofit benefiting kids who’d lost their parents. When had he learned to throw about marketing terms?
Brock looked as surprised. “You know about the measurement of a brand’s appeal?”
Phillip frowned. “I have a brain.”
Maybe they needed to work harder at getting him and his gray matter under the Blackthorne umbrella. “We should schedule a talk in my office,” Trey told Phillip.
“Let’s keep to the topic at hand,” Dev said. “We need to talk about Mom. We need to do something about Mom.”
There it was. Trey briefly closed his eyes, but that wouldn’t stave off the conversation, because Brock wasn’t going to let it go either.
“He’s right, Trey. We’ve got to get a handle on this situation with Aunt Claire.”
“This” had started in May, during a big bash thrown in celebration of Claire Blackthorne’s sixtieth birthday. Instead of kicking off the summer season in style, his mother had interrupted the festivities and in front of friends and associates declared she was done with being unappreciated by her husband and always coming in second to the business. There’d been a mysterious reference about keeping some secret for her husband.
Finally, suitcases in hand, she’d stalked out of their King Harbor home. Though the company security team had tracked her right away to some friends’ apartment in Paris, she’d refused to talk about the situation over the phone and only responded—cryptically—to texts from the seven Blackthornes she’d mothered. For his part, Graham had remained just as stubbornly in the States and still hadn’t spoken with his wife.
No one knew what the hell was meant by a secret, but it had chilled Trey enough that he hadn’t pressed his father too hard, who remained nearly mum on the issue. All he would say is he expected his wife to come to her senses shortly and return home.
“Clearly Dad’s not going to start talking,” Devlin said, leaning forward. “Do you have any new insights into whatever there is to this situation and this secret?”
“You know as much as I do,” Trey muttered.
“What we know is that we can’t smother rumors as fast as they come to life,” Brock said. “And I realize that the photo of Dad with Sarah McKinney getting posted everywhere on social media didn’t help.”
The young woman in the suggestive shot was at the periphery of a big Blackthorne business deal and because the biographer his cousin was wild for had some involvement in its circulation, Brock had almost lost her. “Why don’t you just focus on Jenna?” Trey advised.
“And who is going to focus on healing the fracture in the family?” Phillip demanded. “It’s gotta be addressed, Trey. And we all know who’s best suited for the job.”
As much as he’d always willingly taken on the family fixer role, for some reason this problem felt too…thorny. Some inner voice, one he would have said a few months ago he didn’t believe in—too woo-woo for his matter-of-fact disposition—cautioned him to stay well-clear. “Come on, guys,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? Play marriage counselor?”
“Well, no,” said Dev, the ghost of a smile turning up his lips, “considering the longest girlfriend you ever had lasted less than six months before she publicly proclaimed you cared more for your phone that you cared for her.”
Relief coursed through Trey, even as he flinched at the description that sounded a lot like his mother complaining about his father. “Good, I’m glad we agree. Then—”
“But you’re the one who should go to Paris and convince Mom to come home,” Dev said. “Home where she can hash things out with Dad.”
“Home where we can better control the messaging,” Brock added. “There’s never been a divorce in the Blackthorne family and—”
“Even I’m not so thick when it comes to women as to bring up the brand as an incentive,” Trey said, frowning.
Phillip drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. “It’s up to you how you manage it, Trey. Just find a way to bring her back and get to the bottom of that secret.”
“The end of the fiscal year meeting is coming,” he protested. But the three other men were looking at him, their gazes and their poses implacable, every inch of their Blackthorne Scotch stubbornness on display.
Hell.
“You better make it quick, then,” Phillip advised, obviously reading his capitulation.
“You know we’re more t
han prepared for the year-end meeting and your father or I will handle or delegate anything that comes up at the office,” Brock said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll even text Jer for you. Your assistant can book you on the first nonstop from Boston to Paris. You’ll be there and back again so quick, there’ll be no harm to you at all.”
Trey swallowed a groan. No harm to you at all. Now why did that have the hollow sound of famous last words?
Mia Thomas lingered outside the door to her apartment building, the late September sun radiating off the sidewalk and the stone walls of the six-story structure shoe-horned between taller and more outwardly luxurious edifices. August temperatures, the month of her arrival in Paris, had broken records, and that heat seemed to be stored in the city’s cement and masonry. But with the turn of the calendar the nights had lowered into the fifties and the combination made waiting on the sidewalk beneath the shade of a tree for her friend Claire Blackthorne’s son to show no hardship.
No hardship? a soft inner voice inquired. You’re in Paris! Mia smiled, and it caught the eye of a passing Parisian man who responded with an uplifted brow and a wicked grin. She couldn’t help but laugh and call out “Bonjour,” as he continued on his way, murmuring something too quick for her to catch.
Tossing her long chestnut hair behind her back, she looked about herself again, fully expecting she’d recognize a fellow American upon his arrival. Though in her outfit of espadrilles, cropped linen pants, and vintage blouse—from Portugal, according to the flea market vendor who’d spoken slowly enough for her high school and college French to keep up—she thought Trey Blackthorne might be surprised to find that she also hailed from the United States.