Desperate Desires (Mergers & Acquisitions #3)

Prologue 1-y

H olidays with my adoptive family were always a blast.

I’d always wanted a big, robust, loving family of my own, and I was eternally grateful for the day when I first bumped into Michaela Volkov at the snotty little prep school my aunt sent me to after she became my guardian.

No, I didn’t like to think about the turbulent time after my parents’ deaths when I first learned that the world wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

I’d lived a pretty good life until that fateful day. Average, but good.

My parents, Grace and Marion Davis, were as loving and doting a couple as any parents could be.

But they were taken from me way too soon, and Aunt Agnes was a poor substitute. Thank fuck for her deep pockets, though.

My father’s older sister remained cold and distant with me, and that was fine. It hurt at first. But I learned to deal with it.

Besides, what Aunt Agnes lacked in warmth, she’d made up for in money. I know that sounded cold, but what I meant was she’d paid for my education whilst I was in high school and college.

She’d wanted to send me to a finishing school—yes, they still had those. It had been her plan to marry me off to some dignitary, her own husband had been a diplomat from some country I’d never heard of in the Middle East. He’d died before I came to live with her, but she still had connections there.

Aunt Agnes thought an American virgin would be worth her weight in gold to some of the people from her deceased husband’s part of the world.

Lucky for me, I popped that particular cherry in eleventh grade, to which my aunt had had an unholy fit.

Too bad, so sad.

It didn’t matter if she punished me or yelled. I told her I had no plan to attend a school where I was finished before I’d even started, and I would never let her sell me to some man I didn’t know for a marriage I didn’t want.

“What do you think you’re going to do instead?” she hissed.

“I’m going to help people. I’m going to be a doctor,” I told her.

“Fine. If you want to go to med school, do it on your dime, child. If you can even get accepted into a program that’s worth it,” she’d said, only proving how little she’d paid attention to my report cards.

I graduated prep school with a GPA of 4.7, got a scholarship and earned a bachelor’s degree with a premed concentration from NYU.

Of course, I got into med school. I paid for it with loans that yes, I’d still be paying off until I was forty, but it was worth it.

School was never a problem for me. Just another aspect of my life I was lucky in. Friends and academics.

Family and love? I was not so lucky with.

Even though I had hated it at the time, that snobby Manhattan school, Holston Prep , was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I will never forget the first day Michaela, whom I lovingly called Micky, bumped into me in the hall, scattering my books and dumping her iced mocha latte all over both of our plaid skirts, part of the hideous uniform we had to wear.

She’d apologized profusely and dragged me to the girls’ locker room where we waited until Clementine, her younger cousin, came with a fresh set of skirts for us.

Just like that, we became best friends. Micky was more than that, of course. She was the sister of my heart.

Afterwards, we were inseparable, and I got to know the whole family, her cousins and little sister, too.

Her parents, Adrik and Sofia Volkov, were incredible. So were her aunts and uncles.

Not all of whom were blood relatives, and that right there was what changed my life.

These people were movers and shakers with more money, power and influence than I had ever been privy to. It was likely the reason my aunt allowed the friendship.

Agnes Davis Randall was a social climber, and I was afraid of what she would do when she found out who my friends were.

But I didn’t have to run interference with the Volkovs.

They knew how to handle themselves, and after meeting with Adrik just one time, my aunt had backed off.

I owed them for that. For protecting me from that insanely ambitious woman.

It didn’t matter that I was not a blood relative. Or that I was orphaned, or poor, or any of the things Aunt Agnes had tried to convince me they would use against me.

Micky and her family welcomed me into the fold right from the start. They were this big mish mash.

Enormous, rambunctious, and completely amazing.

It wasn’t just them, of course. The Volkovs were tight with some other pretty formidable families, people like Nick and Angel Fury, Josef Aziz, Luc Batiste, and Andres Ramirez.

They were all honorary uncles of my bestie, and through her, they’d become mine as well. Which was why every year I spent the holidays with them and not with stodgy old Aunt Agnes, whom I saw as rarely as possible.

Who could blame me?

The woman was about as warm as an iceberg. She’d never liked me, and the feeling was mutual. Even when my father and mother had been alive, we hardly ever saw or heard from his older sister.

But every year I sent her a card and a gift basket for the holidays with exotic fruit and cheeses, just like my good manners dictated I should. The gift was impersonal, dutiful, and I wished it bothered me more that I didn’t see her, that we had no relationship to speak of, but it didn’t. And I refused to take the blame for that.

I’d come a long way from the sad orphaned teenager I’d been when I was forced to live with my aunt.

It was the end of another year, and I should have felt ridiculously pleased with myself.

But it was also the anniversary of Mom and Dad’s passing, and my heart hurt with missing them.

I was right in the middle of the last year of my residency, sure, I had debt from med school, but still I should have been happy.

Only, everything wasn’t all rosy and pink. See, I’d worked hard to get where I was, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted to be a surgeon.

Self-doubt was not a friend of mine, and I hated feeling that way.

I groaned as I picked up the package Aunt Agnes’ personal assistant had undoubtedly picked out and sent me for the holidays.

It was a box of high-priced chocolates, as impersonal as the basket I’d sent her.

Very pretty.

But utterly useless since I couldn’t eat the stuff without getting an awful migraine.

I supposed I was feeling a sort of holiday burn out. It happened sometimes.

After all the merrymaking, I’d come down with a cold or flu and it took me a few days to get over it.

Something to do with all the people, the rich food, and the traveling back and forth.

Not to mention the memories, the yearnings, and the knowledge that even with my found family, I was still alone in the world.

Self-pity was not a good look on anyone, and I hated myself for giving in to that weakness.

You can do better, Shelly.

I could. I had before. But it was hard to think of doing better when there was no one to do it for, when there was only me to consider inside my tiny apartment.