“I know I look different.” He grips my head with both hands and puts his eyes inches from mine. “Take a deep breath and really look. It’s me, baby.”
My face crumples as I stare into the liquid brown eyes that never stopped haunting me. Tears gather at the corners, clinging to his dark lashes, and the sight of his agonized expression sucks all the oxygen from the atmosphere.
“How?” A sob escapes, but I fight back the next one. Everything inside me goes cold and still, my voice a scratchy whisper. “How is this possible?”
“I have a lot of explaining to do, but there are things I can’t… I just need to hold you for a minute.” He cups the back of my head and pulls my cheek to his chest. “Christ, I missed you so much.” The heavy tempo of his heart pounds in my ears. “You have no idea how much I love you.”
My body melts against him for a fraction of a second before my brain fires.
“No!” I twist out of his embrace and stumble back, my hands shaking violently. “Where have you been? It’s been four and a half years! How could you do this to me?”
“Shhh. Baby…” He reaches for me, his eyes burning with desperation. “I’m here now.”
“I buried you!” I swat him away as painful memories flash behind my eyes. “The ashes…the funeral… I mourned you. Goddammit, I cried myself to sleep every night for years. Why didn’t you call me? Message me?” My voice tumbles into an anguished cry. “Why didn’t you come home?”
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes. “It kills me to see you hurting. Please don’t cry.”
“Tell me!” My muscles cramp against the relentless pain.
I can’t stop staring at him, devouring the sharp angles of his too-thin face, reacquainting myself with his fierce mannerisms, the confidence in his movements, and the compulsive way he looks at me. I never thought I’d see him again, and my brain struggles to make sense of what’s standing right in front of me. How is he here? Whose ashes did I bury? Why isn’t he explaining his absence?
“It’s complicated.” The despair in his eyes hardens. “Trust me, I would’ve been here if I could.”
“No, that’s not good enough. You ruined us, and I need to understand why!”
His jaw flexes, and his brows dig in. I know that determined look. He wants to touch me, comfort me with his body, and he’ll hold me down if he has to. I brace for a struggle.
He steps toward me, shoulders squared, and halts at the sound of the back door opening behind me.
Trace.
Sharp pain stabs through my chest, stopping my heart. The world around me stands still, holding its breath. This is happening, and I can’t stop it.
My past and my future.
My first love and my second chance.
Two hearts from two separate lives colliding helplessly, cruelly together.
Cole’s furious gaze snaps over my shoulder. “What the fuck?”
His face turns red-hot, eyes wide and agonized, expressing all the nuances of shock as he watches a man step out of my house at six in the morning.
I turn my neck as Trace disperses the fog with his slow approach. Shirtless, clad in pajama pants, he stares at Cole with an unreadable expression.
My stomach feels rock-hard, my throat strangling in a fist of dread. I inch backward, reaching a hand toward Trace.
“You’re with him?” Cole thrusts a shaking finger at Trace, teeth gnashing. “Are you fucking him?”
“You died.” My whisper is tormented, torn from the darkest hours of my life. “You weren’t here.”
Trace stiffens beside me, and I rethink my answer. I’m with Trace. I’m sleeping with him because I love him.
I open my mouth to explain, but Trace speaks first.
“You’re late.”
Three and half years late. I can’t breathe beneath the debilitating shock.
Cole’s alive.
He’s been alive all this time.
And he didn’t come home.
Trace laces his fingers through mine, squeezing painfully hard. “You told me to take care of her.”
A chill slithers up my spine, and my blood turns to ice. “What did you say?”
Cole stands a few feet away, biceps bunching as he scrapes his hands over his head repeatedly. “You weren’t supposed to make contact.” His expression contorts between devastation and rage. “I told you to watch over her, not fuck her.”
They know each other. Trace fucking knows Cole and never thought to mention it?
I yank my hand from his and wrap my arms around my shaking body. “How do you know each other?”
“We used to work together,” Trace says in a hollow voice.
“Auditing for the government?” I gape at him, silently begging him to tell me this is all some kind of joke. “You own a casino. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”
He and Cole share a look, communicating something that’s beyond my realm of understanding. Or rather, beyond my security clearance.
The deployment in Iraq. The silence at the government building. The fake funeral. The removal of tattoos.
“You’re not an auditor, are you?” I ask Cole on a thin breath, shaking from head to toe.
“I can’t say, Danni.” Cole doesn’t remove his glare from Trace.
“You lied to me.” My skin tingles, and disorientation sweeps through me as I turn to Trace. “You lied, too. You knew Cole and never told me.”
More tears fall, and I bury my face in my hands. I need to step back. I need to think.
“What is that?” Cole rushes forward and grabs my wrist, his eyes zeroed in on the engagement ring. “No.” His whisper crashes into a pained guttural noise. “No, no, no!”
He yanks his arm back and stumbles. Every visible muscle in his body goes taut as he spins away and paces like a caged animal, shoulders heaving, hands stabbing through his hair. The tortured sounds coming from him threaten to bring me to my knees.
When he whirls back, he looks absolutely destroyed. “You missed me so much you fucked my best friend? And now you’re what? Getting married?”
Best friend.
How deep does the deceit go?
My shoulders curl forward, wracked by an onslaught of grief and betrayal.
“I didn’t mean that.” Cole rushes toward me and frames my face with shaky hands. “I’m not upset with you. I put you in a terrible position and kept things from you. I had no right to expect you to wait around for a dead man.”
The ache in his voice crushes me, and I feel his terrified pain as if it were my own. Because I never stopped loving him.
None of this is my fault, and he knows that. He’s raging and losing his shit for one reason. The woman he loves is engaged to someone else.
“How long, Trace?” He lowers his hands and claps his gaze on the silent, brooding man at my side. “How long did you wait before you preyed on her?”
“He didn’t prey on me!” I stand taller. “I worked at his casino for four months before we got together.”
“Three years.” Trace shifts beside me, his tone calm and steady. “I was in love with her for three years before I made contact.”
Three years? The ground spins beneath my feet.
“She started dating,” Trace says. “I did exactly what you wanted me to do. I kept the men out of her bed.” His voice hardens. “Which I would’ve done anyway because I love her.”
Anger boils through my veins. I could easily direct it at both of them, but I bare my teeth at Cole. “You disappeared for over four years. You died! And you didn’t want me to find happiness again?”
Cole turns away, a hand splayed over his mouth. His posture coils tightly, and he releases a low growl, full of warning.
Before I can blink, he spins around and slams a fist into Trace’s face.
Trace falls back but remains on his feet. As blood trickles from his lip, he doesn’t move to wipe it away. With his arms at his sides and his expression blank, he shows no signs of fighting back.
“Stop!” I ram a shoulder into his rigid body, causing his strike to hit air. “You were dead! You had no claim on me!”
“You thought I was dead,” Cole seethes, flexing his fists at his sides. “But Trace knew.”
My mind spins as the last six months tumble into a new light.
What would your fiancé think about the dipshit you were with tonight?
I’m not going to fuck you.
It’s just not in the cards for us, sweetheart.
If Cole was in this room right now, where would I fall? Would you shove me aside to get to him?
Trace chased away every man who came near me. He purchased the restaurant I danced at. Set my schedule so I never had a weekend off to date. Refused to date me himself. Pushed, pushed, pushed me away, all while being overly-fixated on my attachment to Cole.
Because he was watching me for Cole. And at some point—long before I met him—he fell in love with me.
Under the malicious waves of comprehension, it dawns on me. The set up with Marlo wasn’t to hurt me. It was a last-ditch attempt to stop himself from stealing his best friend’s girl.
Only it didn’t drive me away. None of it did. Because I love him, too.
My heart sinks beneath an impossible realization.
I love two men, and they’re both here, staring at me with the kind of desperation that destroys a person.
“You knew Cole was alive?” I whisper and lift my gaze to Trace.
Heartache drains the light from his beautiful blue eyes. “I knew there was a chance.”
SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST
SKYE WARREN
TRUST FUND
Chapter One
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
I learned early not to trust men or money. Both of them have a way of disappearing when you need them most. There must have been some hope left, though.
Because it’s my stepbrother who breaks me completely.
Salt hits my tongue before the driver opens the door, splashing the sleek leather interior of the limo with watercolor light. This dock homes the most expensive boats in Boston, outfitting them with caviar and champagne before they set sail.
The driver’s face is in shadow, sunshine forming a halo around him, but I already know he’s expressionless. Like that time I sweet-talked my way into the flight attendant’s lounge? He showed up in his black suit and bland smile, having searched the whole airport with security.
Like every part of my father’s life, he’s cold and predictable and expensive.
Gravel shifts beneath my sandals. I have to squint my eyes against the brightness. Seagulls swoop above me as I step onto the long deck, searching for their breakfast, completely oblivious to the thud of my heart against my ribs.
I would know which yacht belongs to Daddy even if I hadn’t seen it before. It’s the biggest one, the best one. The one that gleams the brightest, with Liquid Asset in bold letters.
The silhouettes of three people split the sunlight.
Three people, not one. Disappointment hitches my breath. What did I expect?
Last year Daddy’s new wife got so drunk she threw her champagne flute in the air. It came down in a splash of pale liquid and bubbling despair. After the steward mopped up the broken crystal, once the wife had gone belowdecks to sleep it off, Daddy sat looking out at the dark sea. I sat beside him. “Why?” I asked, unable to keep the question in. After so many years it came out. “Why do you keep getting married to these people?”
He had been a little drunk himself. Not enough to play volleyball with the drinkware, but enough that his eyes had gleamed with a distant sadness. He pulled me close, and I nestled against him the way I had as a little girl, breathing in the cedar-salt scent of him.
“I love your mother,” he said then, present tense. He loves her.
There shouldn’t have been enough of the wide-eyed little girl inside me to believe it meant my parents would get back together, not after ten years and even more spouses between them. They couldn’t even arrange my visits on spring break without an intermediary—me, of course. But maybe some part of me thought there wouldn’t be a new wife this year, after that confession.
Well, now I know for sure. There’s no chance of them being together, not even in the same room. But it would be nice if Daddy had stopped marrying his way through every divorcée in Boston’s upper crust. Like the limo that picks me up from the airport, there’s a new model every year.
Daddy smiles at me from the deck, and I can’t help the smile that meets his. Can’t help the little run I make down the rest of the deck before launching myself into his bear hug. We’re far from a happy family, but I always love seeing him. I may be fifteen years old, but the little girl inside me wears pigtails and wants to run to her daddy.
Even if it means putting up with the strangers he marries.
“How’s my girl?” he asks, tucking me into his side.
“Sleepy.” A guy in a rumpled suit had snored beside me the whole flight, which would have been more annoying if I hadn’t swiped his phone and read his e-mail using the plane’s Wi-Fi. Someone had a secret girlfriend in New York City. At least she used to be secret. A few clicks had changed that as we were flying over the Atlantic.
Guilt still knots my stomach, but then I imagine my mother as that man’s wife. More likely she would be the secret girlfriend. Men shouldn’t be allowed to hurt her so much.
“You can take a nap after brunch,” says the woman I was hoping wouldn’t speak to me.
“Harper,” Daddy says, giving my arm a secret squeeze. He’s never forgotten the time I yelled, You aren’t my mommy. Never mind that I was seven years old. “This is Louise Bardot. Louise, this is Harper. Isn’t she beautiful?”
I’m surprised I don’t get frostbite, that’s how chilly this woman’s smile is. “Everything you said about her is true, Graham. She’s an absolute doll.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I say just to see her dark eyes flash with rage.
Daddy’s smart enough to run a Fortune 500 company, but he can’t figure out when a woman is bullshitting him. Or maybe he knows, because he steers me away from her. “There’s someone else I want you to meet. This is Christopher.”
There have been other boys. Other girls. Most of the time we ignore each other, having bigger problems in our broken rich-kid lives than the stepsibling of the month. Sometimes one of them will take a swipe at me, with sharp words or a surprise shove as we pass in the hallway. A preemptive strike, so I know better than to mess with them.
I don’t want to mess with them. They’ll be gone by next year.
There’s no reason Christopher should be different.
Except that he is.
Even in a burst of sunlight he manages to look like a shadow, with raven hair and onyx eyes. He’s taller than me, taller than Daddy. His arms solid and muscled beneath the thin cotton of his black T-shirt. He’s wearing jeans, technically, but nothing about him is casual. Not the way he holds himself, as if he needs to guard something—maybe himself. And definitely not the way he’s looking at me, intensity a physical brush against my skin, like he’s made of ocean and I’m sand, washed away, washed away, becoming smooth and pliable beneath him.
He inclines his head. “Your dad talks a lot about you.”
“He never mentioned you,” I say before I can stop myself. I would have remembered. He looks like some kind of conquering warrior, like a knight from the old medieval days. The kind who would have defended the peasants, but who would also have demanded his due.
Daddy makes a disapproving sound. “Harper.”
The corner of Christopher’s mouth turns up. “There’s not much to say.”
“Liar,” I say before I can stop myself. “I bet you’re top ten percent of your class.”
“Graduated valedictorian,” Daddy says, pride rich in his voice. “Now he’s in his first year at Emerson studying business with a 4.0 GPA. You could
learn a thing or two from him.”
It’s really not surprising Daddy has a new wife every year. The only thing he knows how to do with the female of the species is make us mad. “He can get good grades, but can he paint a three-story Medusa on the wall of the gymnasium?”
A rueful laugh. “That little stunt cost me a brand-new science lab.”
Even two coats of thick white primer hadn’t completely covered the shape of her thick lips and wild snake hair, painted dark and angry in the small hours of the morning, using the folded-up accordion stands for scaffolding.
The new wife makes some kind of cooing sound, like a bird on the street, and Daddy goes to make her a drink. That leaves me and Christopher standing on the deck, the echo of his perfect GPA and my costly little stunt hanging in the air between us.
“Daddy seems to love you,” I say, unable to keep the venom from my voice.
He laughs softly, which infuriates me. “You’re one to talk.”
“He’s my dad. Of course he loves me.”
“Of course. That’s why you need to paint the gym to get him to notice you.”
Asshole. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“So you aren’t a poor little rich girl?”
There’s a twinge in my chest. “We both know you’ll be gone next year. I’ll never see you again, and you’ll never see me, so let’s just stay out of each other’s way for the next week, okay?”
“Sure you wouldn’t rather learn a thing or two from me?” he asks, mocking.
“If I want to know how to make enemies and alienate people, I’ll call you.”
He blinks, and I think for a minute that I may have actually struck a nerve. Then his eyes harden. “I’ll stay out of your way,” he says, his voice so cold it makes me shiver even as the sun beats its heavy blanket on my bare shoulders. It’s not the worst encounter I’ve ever had with a stepsibling, but it’s the first time I think I started it. Apparently I’m not above lashing out first, if the boy in question is smart and handsome enough.
Though he isn’t really a boy, this one. His first year at Emerson College. Business school. No wonder Daddy loves him. He probably thinks he’s found his true heir, because his wild daughter isn’t going to take over the family empire. That will never be me, but I was right about one thing. Christopher will be gone next year. They always are.
Love Triangle: Six Books of Torn Desire Page 24
