PROLOGUE
SHE’S BEAUTIFUL. BUT that’s not why I notice her. In a sea of men wearing tuxedos, she has Titian-red hair, long and wavy to halfway down her back, and she wears a dress of green silk that makes her pearly skin glow.
But beautiful women are a dime a dozen in my world, so it’s more than that.
Holden.
Our conversation rings in my ears and I know I would do anything to blot it out, to blot out the pain of the past. Sex, in my experience, is an exceptional way to silence memory and thought.
Do you remember that morning? When Dad dumped your mom? Don’t you remember the way she screamed?
Remember it? It’s burned inside of me, her wounded, animalistic cry of disbelief. Jagger and Holden were numb to it—they’d seen this often before. But for me, I’ve never forgotten that. My mother screamed as though her body was catching fire and my father did nothing but stare at her with contempt.
The memory is like the devil at my heels. I want to silence it. To conquer it in the only way I know how.
She lifts her head, her eyes latching onto mine. The flame transfers out of my body, across the room and ignites something within her. I see it in the flaring of her eyes, the lift of her lips into the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen, the hint of pink blossoming in her cheeks. My attention is dragged back to the conversation I’m in but, for the next hour, I’m conscious of her on a cellular level. I could pinpoint exactly where she is in the room at any time.
‘Hey.’ She’s right behind me. I turn around slowly. We’re both alone for the first time all night. Speculation lifts.
‘Hey yourself.’
‘Having fun?’ Her voice is soft and musical. Desire sparks in my gut.
‘Sure. I love this kind of thing.’ My tone is replete with sarcasm.
‘Same here.’ She responds in kind but her conspiratorial smile lightens her words.
‘Do you want a drink?’
She tilts her head to the side, considering that. ‘I think I’ve had enough to drink.’
The words sit between us, the implied invitation unmistakable. ‘Do you want to get out of here?’
Her eyes sharpen with something unmistakable and then she’s nodding. ‘Absolutely.’
* * *
I haven’t had sex in about a billion years. Okay, not quite that long, but a really long time. I’m too busy and there’s something about being Asha Sauvages that makes it hard to meet people I can trust.
So I have no idea what’s overtaken me tonight, nor why I propositioned this guy. Except I do. I mean, he’s hotter than Hades, and in this crowd of buttoned-up suits he stands out like a real-life Greek god. His hair is long, but pulled up into a messy man bun. His jaw is covered in a fine coating of stubble and his eyes are permanently narrowed, whether in disapproval or assessment. Either way, the effect is stunning. On his wrist he wears a couple of fine leather bands, and on the other an expensive wristwatch. Yep, he’s gorgeous, but that’s not why I propositioned him.
Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death—also known as my birthday—which means my father, brother and I go to the cemetery and then have lunch together.
And every year it’s the same thing. ‘We weren’t supposed to have any more children.’ I’m the ‘any more’. ‘If only we hadn’t fallen pregnant again.’ With me.
My brother’s sole purpose at these lunches is to rein my father in, but the longer the lunch goes on, the more wine he drinks, the more apparent it becomes that he really wishes, with all his heart, that I hadn’t been born.
Happy birthday, me!
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a self-esteem issue, it’s a fuck my family, I want to do something for myself mood. I have dedicated my life to our family business, to being someone my dad could be proud of, and tonight I just want to have really great sex and push everything else from my mind.
And Theo Hart is, if the rumours are to be believed, the king of great sex. He’s renowned in Manhattan for his phenomenal business skills—last month The Times ran an article about the Hart family and the fact their wealth increases by five million dollars every hour—but he’s just as revered for his devoted bachelorism. I’ve heard rumours about him for years, but this is the first time we’ve met and I have to say, for a night of mind-blowing no-strings sex, he’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
So I promise myself this: I’ll have one night with him and I’ll enjoy it fully so this day won’t be about my mother’s death while she was giving me life; it won’t be about the fact my dad is disappointed in me; it won’t be about anything except me and Theo Hart. He’s the birthday present I’m giving myself.
I had no way of knowing, though, that one night with Theo Hart wouldn’t be enough. That this would be the beginning of something bigger, something fun and intoxicating and something that would ultimately bring about more pain than I’ve ever known in my lifetime. If I had, would I have stepped away from him?
Probably not. Theo Hart has been my kryptonite from the moment we met and there’s simply no escaping that.
CHAPTER ONE
Six months of very hot, no-strings sex later...
You’re late.
I READ HER text message with mixed feelings. Desire, impatience, need.
Frustration, because my brother Holden needs me and if I were anywhere near decent I’d put Asha off till another night so I could give Holden my undivided attention. But the thing is, where Asha’s concerned, I’m ruled by one particular part of my anatomy.
One hour. Max.
I tap the reply quickly, then jam the phone in my back pocket. ‘The wedding’s in a month, man.’
Holden’s grey eyes fix me with a level stare, the kind of stare that would scare the shit out of someone who didn’t know Holden like I do.
‘I’m aware of the date.’ His lips are grim.
‘So? Get your shit together. Jagger needs us.’
He turns his head away, his square jaw covered in more than stubble. It looks like it’s been months since his skin has seen anything approaching a razor. In fact, it looks like months since his liver has seen anything other than alcohol. I shift my gaze around his apartment warily. ‘You need to move on.’
‘Sure.’ His shrug reeks of sarcasm. ‘Done.’
I grind my teeth together. ‘How many times and in how many ways do we have to say it? You’re our brother. I don’t give a shit what some goddamned paternity test shows. No one does. You were raised a Hart, you’ll always be a Hart.’
‘But I’m not.’ The words are emphatic. ‘And with all due respect, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t do that.’
He stares at me.
‘Don’t act like you have a monopoly on the whole “fucked up by your parents” thing. We’re all by-products of our father’s approach to life.’
Holden turns away from me. ‘He’s not my father, remember?’