FOUR DAYS AFTER I last saw Barrett and I realise why I can’t stop thinking about him. The answer has been in front of me all along and I’ve been ignoring it, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a key part of my personality.
I don’t like having questions unanswered.
I have three brothers out there and I know pretty much nothing about them, except what’s in the financial papers. I don’t mean what I could find out on the internet, anyway; I mean the real them. I don’t really want to know them, but they’re a part of me in a weird kind of way. Our biology is connected, and pretending that’s not the case is going against the grain for me.
I have questions about them and, until they’re answered, Barrett will occupy too much space in my head. Once I’ve got the answers I need I can box this whole thing away—him included—and never think of him again.
That’s it—easy. Simple. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. Sex is beside the point. Sure, he’s an amazing lover but I’ve had great sex before and I’ll have it in the future. There’s no point muddying the waters of what we are by getting intimate with him again.
I just need him to clarify a few things then he can go back to England or wherever he’s presenting his report, and I’ll get on with my life. Alone, just as I like it. Once I’ve got these answers I’ll be able to start forgetting him, and how he made me feel.
And how’s that, Avery? A voice—my mother’s—makes the demand of me.
I ignore her, pick up my phone and write a text.
Hey. Are you free later?
I put the phone down and focus on my work. An hour later I realise I’m checking my screen almost obsessively and get up, pacing across to the windows of my office. It doesn’t help to distract me. In order to reach the windows I have to walk past the armchairs and sofa, and those are now full of Barrett memories—memories I find impossible to blank. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, surprised to realise how much he’s got under my skin. Not just him, but this whole damned situation.
I have hated my father all my life—without knowing anything about him except that he wasn’t there for my mom. But what if Barrett’s right? What if he never knew about me? What if she was scared he’d take me away so she never told him? My heart squeezes painfully, because surely there were times when she considered that. It would have been so much easier for her without me. And did she ever think it would be better for me? My heart squeezes again, harder this time, and a thread of disloyalty turns my blood to ice. Would I have chosen a life of wealth and luxury?
No.
That wouldn’t have been enough to turn my back on my mom. But family? My stomach rolls. Brothers? A sound escapes me without my consent, a sort of anguished sob, and my eyes burst open, landing on my phone. Yes, for brothers, for family, for noise and company, for anything to combat that pervasive sense of loneliness, I might well have wished my father had been a part of my life.
Another sob. I stalk across the room and swipe my phone off the desk right as it buzzes.
Hi Avery. Sure—where and when?
My stomach loops. His message is distant. Cool. I don’t want anything from him, but the idea that he’s annoyed at me, frustrated by me, impatient with me, threatens to split me in two. I tap ‘reply’ and stare at the screen for several seconds.
There’s a place in South Beach—The Lighthouse. Do you know it?
I can Google.
Of course he can. I swallow past a strange heaviness in my throat.
Great. Four o’clock?
Sure. See you then.
I ache to write something else, but what? What else can I say? There’s nothing. I have no promises, no apologies, no explanations. This is who I am, and I owe him nothing. I just wish he’d go away so I can start forgetting about him, and stop feeling like this.
But I’m nothing if not disciplined. I have a few hours before I need to leave. I settle down at my desk and force myself to work with a singular determination.
It’s a converted warehouse that was, at one time, used as a fish market. The ceilings are impossibly high, the window spanning from floor to ceiling, the view of a South Beach street charming and rustic, the high rises of the financial district just visible. I scan the café but there’s no sign of Barrett. My pulse accelerates as I contemplate, briefly, that he might not arrive. But of course he will—he’s a good guy. Good guys don’t say they’ll do something then fail to follow through.
I order some sparkling water and peruse the menu, even though I don’t feel like eating. Ten minutes later, on a whim, I look up just as he strides through the door. My heart stutters to a stop in my chest. He is impossibly beautiful.
The word is not what I’d usually choose to describe a man I’ve slept with, but it’s the only word I can find in that moment. Tall, confident, handsome, sure, but it’s so much more than that. He says something to a pretty waitress in torn jeans, a black shirt and a grey apron. Her hair is shaved on one side and braided on the other. His smile sparks an answering one in her. A spark shifts through me.
Jealousy?
Not likely.
Curiosity, more like. Barrett would have no problem meeting women. I think about that for barely a second before forcing my brain not to go there. The waitress gestures in my direction. He turns. Our eyes meet. My heart stops.
I force a smile to my face, stand up a little awkwardly as he walks over. In my peripheral vision I’m aware of people turning to look at him. He’s not famous. While he might be well known in England, here in America he’s nobody, but Barrett could never really be a ‘nobody’. His charisma and charm is a clearly discernible force.
A second later he’s at the table, his hair ruffled, his skin tanned, smelling like sunshine and an alpine forest and something else so addictively good I want to groan.
‘Hey.’ My voice is hoarse. I lean forward, intending to brush a kiss against his cheek, but he stiffens so I make it the quickest kiss in history, barely touching him before pulling back. ‘Thanks for coming.’ I gesture to the seat opposite.
He slides into it, nodding as he does so. ‘Of course.’
The waiter appears then, her eyes drifting to Barrett so often that I get the drift. She’s interested. She thinks he’s hot.
‘What can I get y’all?’ Her accent is from the Deep South, her smile twinkling.
‘Double espresso,’ I say without missing a beat.
She nods, turns back to Barrett. ‘And for you, Barrett?’
Great. They’re on a first-name basis. The smile he gives makes my stomach loop. It’s not like it’s a special smile; he’s not trying to impress her. It’s a reflexive shift of his lips, but it’s so full of genuine courtesy and kindness that I feel hollowed out inside. ‘I’ll grab a beer. Thanks.’
‘Courtney,’ she reminds him with a flirtatious laugh, leaving without another glance at me.
‘Well, you’ve certainly made an impression,’ I drawl, the words unmistakably catty.
He doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘What can I do for you, Avery?’
Straight down to business, then. I swallow, reaching for the mineral water to buy time. ‘I don’t want to meet them.’ I drop my eyes to the table top. ‘I’m not ready.’
Silence.
‘But I want to know a bit more about them, and I thought you could tell me some stuff.’
A pause. I wait, and then risk a glance at his face. He’s watching me in a way I can’t interpret, his eyes impossible to read. ‘Of course.’ The words are gravelly. ‘What would you like to know?’
I spend the next hour telling her all the little things I can think of about Jagger, Theo and Holden. I tell her about the time Jagger broke his arm climbing a tree to the top. I tell her about their college life, I tell her about their birthdays and their heartbreaks and their successes; I tell her all the things only I know. But I save the biggest one for last.
I tell her finally about Holden Hart, and the shocking discovery a little while ago that he wasn’t, in fact, Ryan Hart’s biological child. I tell her how it took him a good year or so to come to terms with that. How he pushed everyone away and made life generally hell for his loved ones until the tipping point about a year ago.
‘What happened?’ She’s on her second double espresso. I wonder how she’s not jittery as hell.
‘He realised family is about more than biology. It’s a choice—who do you want to be in your life, how do you want to live it? He was fighting to be alone, but his brothers wouldn’t let him. They wouldn’t let him go.’
I see her mouth contort, her eyes hovering on the table top so I want to reach across and grab her chin, levelling her face to mine, but I don’t. I don’t want to touch her because I’m terrified I won’t be able to stop and more and more I’m coming to realise that she doesn’t want me to comfort her; she doesn’t want anyone’s pity, comfort—nothing. She wants to go it alone.
‘I can’t see them letting you go either, Avery.’
This startles her. She finally looks at me and I feel what she feels—terror. I understand it and I want to fight it with her. I want to stand by her side while she deals with that, but that too is the last thing she wants.
‘Why?’ It’s a strange question.
‘Isn’t that obvious?’
‘Not to me.’
‘You’re their sister.’
‘I’m just...’
‘Don’t say it.’ Damn it, I can’t help myself. I reach across, putting my hand over hers. Her eyes fly to the gesture, staring at our hands. ‘Don’t say you’re just the daughter of a woman their dad slept with. It’s not true; that’s not how it works.’ I slide my thumb across hers. ‘You have three brothers and they want you in their lives. They want you to be a part of their family. I don’t understand why you’d deny yourself that.’
‘That’s because you can’t possibly imagine what my life was like.’
‘You’re wrong. I don’t have to have lived it to see what you went through and to understand why you resent Ryan. And maybe even your mom, a bit, for the choices she made. But Jagger, Theo and Holden haven’t done anything wrong here. As soon as they found out about you—’
‘They dispatched a friend to snoop around.’
I expel an impatient breath. ‘As a precaution and a precursor to meeting you for themselves, yes. They want you in their family but they’re not stupid. They’re three of the wealthiest men in the world, and they’re used to managing the public’s perception of their lives, the media intrusion, and they’re used to people wanting things from them.’
‘So they thought I’d what? Show up on their doorsteps and demand a seat at the boardroom table? That I’d want a controlling stake of Hart Brothers Industries?’ She makes a guffawing noise. ‘I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.’
‘They wanted to do some research so they could work out how to move forward. So far as I know, there’s been no talk of denying you anything that’s your birthright.’
Her face drains of colour. ‘I don’t want it.’ The words are bitter, laced with hatred and rage. ‘I don’t need money. I don’t need them.’
‘Avery—’
‘I had a family too, Barrett! I had a mom, and she died. I’m not choosing to be alone—I am alone, and that’s okay. I’m not going to betray her by getting all buddy-buddy with people who mean absolutely nothing to me.’
I understand every single thing she feels but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to argue with her, to throw common sense in her face.
‘Listen to me,’ I say quietly. ‘You’re upset and you need time to come to terms with this—which is what I told them. They—’
‘When did you tell them that?’ Her question is rapier-sharp, cutting through me.
‘What?’
‘When did you have this conversation—about me—with the Harts?’
‘The other day. Does it matter?’
She presses her lips together and stares past me. ‘No.’ But it does. Something about that has unsettled her.
‘You know that’s why I came here.’
‘Sure. To spy on me. I’d just forgotten for a moment.’
I open my mouth to reject that but she keeps going. ‘How convenient for you that I fell into your bed. That must have made it so much easier.’
‘That’s incredibly unreasonable.’ I keep my voice quiet and low, calm even when a sense of outrage is bursting to life in my belly.
‘Is it? Within an hour of meeting me you knew more about me than you ever would have if you’d chosen to approach me any other way.’
‘I didn’t go to that bar intending to hit on you.’ I force myself to calm down. ‘You were the one who asked me to come home with you, remember?’
‘I didn’t know who you were,’ she reminds me. ‘But you did.’
‘Yes. And I felt bad for that. I didn’t intend to sleep with you, which is why I told you the truth.’
‘After you’d slept with me again.’
She glares at me and I feel as though I’m losing my grip on this, and her. ‘Listen, Avery, I don’t want to argue with you. Us sleeping together is a separate issue to the Harts. They’re your brothers and they want to meet you. I’ve explained that you need time, but they’re not particularly patient. I think you should prepare for that.’
‘I don’t want to meet them.’ She stands up then, her eyes hitting mine, a fierce, angry warning in them. ‘Thank you for coming to see me today.’ She throws a twenty onto the table and spins away, stalking through the restaurant.
No fucking way. I scrape my chair back and follow her, barely noticing when the waitress tries to get my attention. On the pavement I catch Avery, grabbing hold of her arm. ‘Hang on a second.’
She stops walking and I drop hold of her, but stay right where I am, so close I can smell her shampoo—like honey and lavender. Chasing her out of restaurants feels like something I’m getting good at.
‘Stop running out on me.’ The words are laced with the strength of my feelings. ‘Just stop running away.’
‘I’m not.’ Her eyes are suspiciously moist and I know she hates that because she blinks a thousand times.
‘Yes, you are. You’re running from yourself, your family. And from me.’ I say the last word on a groan, dropping my face to hers, brushing her lips with mine, wanting her, needing her.
She kisses me back, hard, angrily, and I taste her tears and they break my heart. But a second later she’s pushing at my chest, putting distance between us. I stand there, stunned. Her breathing is rushed, her face pale.
‘This is my life—I can do whatever the hell I want.’
‘And what do you want?’
She stares at me for several long seconds and I wait, my breath held captive by my lungs. ‘Oh, go to hell.’
When she stalks away this time I let her go, but I watch her all the way to the corner, where she turns and fades from view.
Fuck it, I’m completely screwed.
I’ve had three vodkas, no dinner, and I feel like I can finally put Barrett and the damned Harts out of my mind. So why am I here, staring at Barrett’s hotel room door, contemplating pressing the buzzer?
Because I want to be with him one last time. I didn’t know, last time, that it would be the end for us, or I might have slowed it down, remembered more about it. I don’t do seconds, I’m usually happy with a brief encounter, but Barrett’s been more than that—I’m not dumb enough to pretend otherwise—and I don’t feel like we’ve had the closure I need.
Or maybe it’s just that I’ve had three vodkas, no dinner, and he looked pretty fucking great at the café today.
I knock before I can change my mind and as soon as he pulls it open I launch myself at him, not giving him a second to question this, not giving him a second to question me. I kiss him hard, just like outside the café earlier. I kiss him and I swallow any questions he might have, any conversation he may want to make.
I’m done talking.
My hands push at his shirt, lifting it up his body, over his head; we have to break our kiss but as soon as the shirt’s gone I’m back, scrambling up his frame right as he lifts me, holding me to him so I feel the hardness of his chest, his cock, all of him, and I move my hips, trying to get closer to him, needing him, wanting him so badly it hurts.
‘What the fuck?’ He doesn’t stop kissing me though. Instead, his hands push at my own shirt, freeing it from my body, his mouth dropping to my breasts, pulling at a nipple through the bra so I arch my back and lift my arms, needing so much more. He understands, carrying me through the hotel suite towards his bedroom, his mouth on mine the whole time.
Relief splinters inside me as he drops me back against the mattress—the certainty that the oblivion of pleasure is at hand all that I need.
One last time and then I’ll leave, and this time it will be for good. I promise.