“She’ll do great,” Trace murmured. I furrowed my brow and nodded, perplexed by my inability to look away from the sashay of her hips.
“Well, we’ve shown our faces, made our donation, and we’re scouting a new client,” I said, making a big display of checking my smart watch. “I think it’s time for me to leave.”
“When the party’s just getting started?” Axel asked, feigning incredulity. “Yeah, that sounds on brand for Damian Fairchild.”
“Hey, I’ll cut loose at a party when it’s myown,” I clarified. Not like I needed to. My brothers knew well enough just how hard I could party when I wanted to. What they didn’t know anymore was how much self-medicating I did when they weren’t looking. Drinking or smoking myself to sleep was now the norm. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was a natural conclusion of this clusterfuck of a situation I was in. And I needed to get a head start on winding myself down for the night.
Axel smiled out into the crowd. I followed his gaze, finding Roxy watching transfixed as Jessa told some story in her typical gregarious, contagiously warm fashion.
“I think Jessa is nailing it,” Axel murmured.
“Great. Even more reason for me to head out. She’s got it handled.”
“Sure you don’t want to head down memory lane?” Axel nudged me obnoxiously. “Steal that kiss you never could under the bleachers?”
I turned to him, trying my best to puncture him with the daggers in my eyes. “Remember what I said about the Bermuda Triangle.”
And I was serious. I’d hire the cartographer necessary to deposit his ass there and have him never return. I hated their ribbing about Jessa only because there was a kernel of truth to it, which they knew. They were my fucking brothers, after all. The whole thing was aggravating. The only thing I knew to do was walk away.
Deep down, a part of me wanted to snag Jessa and run far away from the party, take her someplace where we could just sit. Catch up. See what happened. And I couldn’t afford to give that part of me a chance to act.
A third had joined Jessa and Roxy across the room, a well-dressed oil exec who came to all these things. Tall, dark hair, and a winning grin beaming down at Jessa. She touched her chest as he said something that prompted a blush to bloom. The knot in my gut cinched tighter.
The worst thing about having Jessa in my orbit was knowing that she’d be scooped up in a heartbeat. And it could never be me doing the scooping.
I downed my whiskey, handing the empty glass to the nearest waiter. “I’m out. Tell Jessa if she asks.”
“Go tell her yourself,” Axel shot back.
I narrowed my eyes at him again. “Bye, douche-scraper.”
He laughed, pulling me into a hug. “I love you, you freak. You know that, right?”
I hugged him tight, slapping my younger brother’s back. “Love you too.”
It was me, Axel, and Trace against the world. That’s how it had been since my teenage years. And that’s how it was going to stay.
Introducing—or taking away—anyone else would disrupt everything, and God knew I couldn’t handle that.
The only way to keep everything together was by making sure nothing changed.
CHAPTER FIVE
JESSA
My eyes burned as I sat on the subway Monday morning. The dark features of the subway tunnel flashed past the windows at a startling pace, far too quickly for my un-caffeinated state. Most of my morning commute was underground, but occasionally when the train came up for air, I’d see fascinating snippets of life: brownstones and park chess games; clusters of schoolkids and cerulean backpacks; best friends with heads tossed back in laughter, cigarettes tight between fingertips. I blinked rapidly, trying to conjure some bit of clarity at seven a.m., but nothing came. It was too early. The sun was too bright; the stench was too real. The sound of the wheels on the tracks threatened to lull me back to sleep as we clickity-clacked our way through Brooklyn, headed for the Financial District.
Another week was beginning at Fairchild Enterprises, which meant another week of hanging on for dear life to my fashion course.
A yawn burst past my lips, unsanctioned. I capped my mouth with a hand. I’d spent every bit of Saturday and Sunday catching up on my coursework, preparing things for the week, catching up on designs. I was determined not to fall behind. Which meant I’d work a hundred hours a week between my two obligations if I had to. As long as I could make it to my classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings without giving Damian any reason to suspect I wasn’t giving him $100,000 worth of dedication, I’d be fine.
That was all that mattered.
My phone buzzed with notifications from social media. I’d kept them turned on ever since leaving Tommy, because he loved to surprise me, post-breakup, by sharing embarrassing photos with the world—like that “oopsie didn’t mean to post and tag you in that” intimate picture that I’d shared with him and him alone. Even years later, I was always on high alert.
I scrolled through my feed. I’d been tagged in a photo from the event on Friday evening. My heart swelled as I took in the scene. Trace had posted it, a candid photo of the sprawling party. In the picture, I was mid-sentence, gesturing toward Damian, who watched me with his trademark serious look, plump lips on display. I melted for the hundredth time as I took in that broad-shouldered man in his perfect black suit, his chestnut-and-dark blond hair swept back in the perfect mix of formal and loose enough to fist. Not that I would ever be fisting his hair, of course. Damian had made it plenty clear that anything beyond business interactions was a laughable impossibility.
My gaze drifted to Axel in the picture, who was leaning toward Cora, gorgeous people crowded all around them. Between the beautiful gallery and the black-tie affair, it looked like I was living the dream in New York.