Hollings Enterprises lies in the heart of Mayfield, just a twenty-minute drive from my family’s estate.
I gaze up at the towering skyscraper before pulling into the parking garage designated solely for the office’s employees. At this time of day, I’m forced into a spot on the very top, and I enter through the main lobby, gazing wide-eyed at the sleek white floors and muted gray walls.
Four paces from the main doors, I’m approached by a security guard who demands to see my ID. As he reads my name, his cheeks redden.
“My apologies, Ms. Hollings.”
“Could you tell me where the corporate wing is?” I ask him, shamelessly taking advantage of his guilt.
“Oh.” He gives me a curious look. “Top floor, Ms. Hollings. To the left. But it’s been busy lately…what with all the reporters.” Something in his tone makes me suspect he wants to say more. Persuade me to leave, perhaps?
“Thank you,” I say firmly. “And is Mr. Lorenz in?”
The man’s stern expression softens, and he shakes his head. “I’ve been told that he’s not taking any visitors, miss.”
We’ll see about that.
“Thank you.” I start forward, weaving through people dressed to the nines in business attire. From the corner of my eye, I catch the guard watching me.
I get the gist of his confusion. My name is on this building, yet I need guidance to find my way around. In fact, I’ve rarely ventured inside it in ten years. Ironic, considering I cut my teeth on the posh leather furniture in my father’s office. His blood, sweat, and tears form the corporation’s very foundation, and while the layout may have changed, at its core, it’s all the same.
Gray. Sleek. Industrial.
Old memories combine with new fears. When I step into an elevator, I scrutinize the reflection on the mirrored walls. My one talent is on full display: I ooze a pathetic air that just commands pity.
On the top floor, I stop short before the wall of frosted glass separating Hollings’s executive suite from the rest of the hall. A brunette secretary watches me from a desk placed near the archway leading to the executive office.
“Can I help you?” she asks, her smile polite but restrained. I don’t recognize her as the assistant Hunter sometimes snuck out of his room early in the morning. She must be new.
My brother was right, overnight, this man has seized control of the office with ruthless efficiency.
“Is Mr. Lorenz in?” I ask.
She warily eyes the office door. “He canceled all appointments for today. Can I have your name?”
I shake my head and march past her, ignoring her whispered protests. Blake Lorenz. According to Hunter, I’d find him here. For some reason, I hadn’t assumed that his location would be Papa’s office. I remember it clearly: a large study with an expansive view of the harbor and plenty of nooks and crannies for a spoiled bookworm to hide in after hours. I think I spent more time here than I did at home once…
I shiver near the door, eyeing the silver bar affixed to the wood surface, now devoid of a nameplate. My trembling fingers curl, but I can’t bring myself to knock. Not even as a voice seeps through the door. Deep. Masculine.
“It’s too late to have a change of heart now.”
He must be on a phone call, because I don’t hear anyone answer him. “I suggest you take the plane ticket… What’s done is done.” The rest of his words are too muffled to make much sense of. I hazard a guess regardless. Could he be calling our investors now, as I dawdle, aiming to liquidate more of my family’s shares?
“Mr. Lorenz?” I croak as my knuckles finally connect with the door.
Silence. I strain my ears but pick up nothing. Wait. Footsteps approach in rapid-fire succession.
“Who is it?”
I suck in a breath as my spine tenses, my pulse surging. It’s surreal to know that only a panel of wood separates me from the man who heralded my family’s impending ruin. I wrestle control of my expression. Neutral, vapid smile. I can’t scowl or pout. I need to keep up the act. Earn his pity.
I need to win our dignity back.
“It’s Snowy Hollings,” I say. My voice trembles. Good. I do my best to smooth my dress as I prepare to face my newest mark.
Hunter never gave me an age or even a basic idea of what he might look like, so my brain conjures an image of someone like Daniel. Smug. Arrogant. Perfumed in money and prestige. He’d enjoy a meek tone, I suspect.
“May I have a word?”
Apprehension lances down my spine as a noise cuts the air. Sharp. Clipped. Like teeth clenching, suppressing a harsh sigh. “I said no appointments.”
I blow out a breath, confused. Hunter called him “some German bastard,” but his accent is distinctly American and his voice dangerously low. Were I poetic like Ronan, I’d compare the raspy baritone to a growl.
“P-please.” I force myself to knock again, delicately. “I’m…I’m begging you.”
That usually appeases most men. How they love to lord their power over those perceived as weak. I eye the doorknob, waiting for it to turn.
“No,” comes the gruff reply. “I’ll have security show you out.”
He’s not bluffing. Alarmed, I stagger backward, casting a nervous glance around me. The secretary is staring, her lips pursed. Near the elevators, the security guard touches his radio. Thinking fast, I spot a lounge area and perch myself on a chaise in the farthest corner, hoping to go unnoticed.
Minutes pass without anyone approaching me. For now.
So I watch Blake Lorenz’s door like a hawk and do something no Hollings has ever been forced to do.
I wait.
Oh, Hunter. For the first time, the full weight of our predicament sinks in and doubt eats through my resolve like acid. Perhaps it’s how my vigil on the couch goes unnoticed that draws the most unease? A Hollings is never ignored.
Not for a minute.
Especially not for nearly two hours.
The longer I watch the door to my father’s old office, the more likely it seems that it will never open. He’ll stay locked in there forever out of spite. And, now, for whatever reason, I feel a burning need to see his face—the first man to brush Snowy Hollings aside.
Well, excluding one other. A sudden urge to rummage through my purse sends my hair falling forward to disguise the welling moisture in my eyes. His memory follows me even here: the corporation our fathers built from the ground up.
Until mine stole it.
Hunter may live his life in ignorance, but I refuse to. The morning his old friend found his world torn apart, my father was gloating in the newspapers about his expanded corporate holdings.
The ghost of Harrison Lloyd must be sneering down on our circumstances now, wishing only that my father were still alive to see them.
Enough with the melancholy. I tug at my skirt, bunching the fabric and releasing it as my heels tap out a tune over the floor. It’s getting late. The office will close to the public soon. From beyond the windows, I watch the sky gradually darken, which enhances the flashing chaos of traffic lights and neon signs below.
“Mr. Lorenz?”
My head whips around at the secretary’s voice, and I notice a man marching past her toward the elevators. My prey, finally out in the open?
Whoever he is, he inclines his head to the secretary but doesn’t slow his pace. Apparently, no one is worth his time—and I can see why. He’s a monolith of muscle, built like a bulldozer accustomed to barreling through any obstacle. An unsettling sensation turns my stomach into wobbling jelly. Nerves?
He’s so much bigger than I expected. Even his suit is too small, and his forearms bulge against the black material. Dark hair clashes with our monochromatic surroundings, and he stands out. An ebony stain over lifeless gray.
“Mr. Lorenz?” Stepping from around her desk, the poor secretary hurries after him. “I have the files you requested…”
There’s no time to consider the consequences. I’m on my feet so fast that my hair fans out behind me. In an instant, I’m halfway across the lobby, gaining on the exasperated secretary. She doesn’t expect me to snatch the envelope from her shaking hands, and I race after the receding back of Blake Lorenz before she can even call out.
My brain issues a frantic series of commands. Breathe, Snowy. Shoulders back. Smile wide. No one can resist a Hollings smile. Even in my Humpty Dumpty days, the expression had some effect.
“Mr. Lorenz?”
He stiffens. Suddenly, I’m in danger of running into him, and I scrape my heels against the tile flooring to find enough traction to stop. Panting, I brush my hand along his forearm to steady myself, wrinkling his tailored suit.
“P-please. I only need a minute of your—”
He turns, and my body severs all connection to my brain. I’m on my knees before I know it, reduced to staring blankly into my past. Thoughts. Fears. Common sense. They all scatter.
I’m dreaming.
I’m dying.
I’m already in hell.
A vengeful ghost looms before me, his blue eyes narrowed over my face. Pinprick pupils take me in with little interest, raking down my heaving chest and swaying frame. Unlike my dream versions of him, he doesn’t smile. He merely eyes me with a black eyebrow raised, like I’m something caught scurrying beneath his shoe, not worth the afterthought before he squashes it.
I can’t stop myself from breathing his name anyway. “B-Brandt.”
It can’t be. It isn’t.
My brain fights to hammer in the knowledge…
But my body refuses to listen even as I’m struck by subtle differences too glaring to ignore. This man is taller than the lanky Brandt Lloyd. He’s older, his dark hair barely tamed by the fingers he rakes through it. A stern jaw anchors stormy features contorted in a perpetual scowl.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a guttural tone before splitting into two hulking figures. They eye me coldly, flicking their gazes up and down my body. “Do I know you?”
I can’t say anything. All I can do is breathe. And then curl into a ball on the floor as the world starts to spin…