Not You (Firebrook Valley #1)

Chapter One

Drew

Boston, Massachusetts

Ridiculous.

That was the only word for it.

I stood on a Beacon Hill sidewalk, staring at a heavy gold coin in my palm as if it were a holy relic instead of an overpriced key. Bella Holliston didn’t invite people to talk. She summoned them into the nineteenth century.

I’d spent my life building an empire where a handshake meant more than a bloodline, but my father still looked at houses in this neighborhood with a mix of resentment and reverence that made me want to buy the whole damn hill only to tear it down.

The door to what appeared to be a private library opened before I could reach for the brass knocker. A man in a suit that looked like it had been starched into a permanent state of disappointment held out a velvet tray. He didn’t say a word. Invisible and mute.

Old-world money.

Old-world rules.

I dropped the gold coin I’d been sent via courier onto the tray. He took it, pocketed it, then placed the tray to the side. I looked the guy in the eye, waiting for a flicker of something, but there was none. He had as much emotion as the five-thousand-dollar wallpaper around him.

“Do they let you speak?” I asked, my voice echoing down the marble hallway. “Do you even want to? Or do you find the members here exhausting?”

He didn’t blink. And I almost felt guilty for testing him. He gestured toward a wall of books that appeared as if it hadn’t been touched since the Great Depression. I followed his starched shadow through a hidden door in the bookshelves.

I expected a hallway. What I got was a funhouse for the one percent.

The corridor was a labyrinth of angled mirrors, floor-to-ceiling, fracturing my reflection until I was looking at a dozen versions of myself, all of them just as pissed off as I felt.

There were no instructions, only sharp transitions designed to make a person forget where they came from and lose track of where they were going.

I’d like to claim it was ineffective on me, but I’d be lying.

Whoever designed it had a clear understanding of psychology.

Prior to entering the room, I would’ve said I had excellent spatial awareness, but I couldn’t have found my way out of the mirror maze even if someone had offered me a million dollars.

It was an uncomfortable realization. Still, I could appreciate the deliberateness of the tactic, as it was being employed on me.

What could be a more effective way of making an outsider feel off-balance before allowing them onto your turf than giving them a moment or two of disorientation?

It was brilliant, and I was reluctantly impressed.

My guide navigated the maze with ease. Efficiency. Somehow both part of this world and not at the same time. He stopped at a wall of doors and knocked. No words were exchanged, but the door before him opened like some choreographed scene from a spy movie. I smirked with amusement.

All this pomp and circumstance. Did it make the people on the other side of that door feel important? Or did some of it come across as silly and unnecessary to them as it did to me?

Before stepping through the door, my guide turned and held out a velvet pouch.

“I’m unarmed,” I said easily.

He waited, bag extended.

I held his gaze.

If I was supposed to arrive with an understanding of what he wanted, Bella should’ve included instructions, but she hadn’t. Under normal circumstances, I would have texted her any questions I had, but there was nothing normal about meeting Bella Holliston for anything.

Our families didn’t speak, even when forced into the same social circle. The Holliston and Burke families’ dislike and distrust for each other had started before anyone in my generation had been born, but if anything, the situation had only gotten worse over time.

As a full partner and controlling stockholder in my father’s company, I knew exactly how many times deals were put in jeopardy because Gabe Holliston was a vindictive old man who wanted to see my father fail.

Why?

Because my father had something Gabe Holliston didn’t. Ingenuity. Creativity. A relentlessness when it came to completing a project or outperforming competitors in the field.

Unlike Gabe, my father hadn’t been born into wealth.

He was a self-made man who had worked for everything he now had, and it showed.

It showed in how much he sacrificed and how much he achieved.

What had Gabe done beyond using his family’s connections and money to appear to be everything my father was?

Nothing.

And his oldest child, Bella? Simply arranging for our meeting to happen in this place told me everything I needed to know about who she was away from Firebrook Valley, the town where both of our families had summer homes.

I would have dismissed her request had it not been for two things.

One, she mentioned the reason for the meeting involved my younger sister, Nora. I didn’t like the idea of my sister’s name coming out of a Holliston’s mouth, and I wanted to make damn sure I put a stop to whatever the reason was for that happening.

And two, I was mildly curious about what the inside of a place as exclusive as The Beacon looked like.

So far, it exceeded even my best guess at how ridiculously outdated and theatrical it could be.

My guide glanced at my pocket and then back at his velvet pouch.

He wasn’t looking for a tip. I’d already told him I wasn’t armed.

“I’m not giving you my phone,” I stated calmly.

He shifted, blocking the door with his body while holding out the bag.

I had to decide, in that moment, if keeping my phone was more important than whatever had brought me there.

With my father working as much as he did, I’d pretty much raised Nora. Two years ago, when our mother died unexpectedly, that role stopped being something I slipped into periodically and became permanent. Normally, that meant I knew more about her life than most brothers wanted to.

But every year she spent away at college was another year full of experiences I only heard about secondhand.

She told me she was happy. She assured me she was safe.

If she’d gotten into any trouble, I seriously doubted a Holliston would meet with me in an attempt to protect her.

So what was this about?

Why this level of secrecy?

Was the feud between the Hollistons and the Burkes about to go from the boardroom to a full-out fight? And was that why Bella had been chosen to bring me whatever news they wanted me to have?

Was the assumption that I would go easier on a woman?

Physically, yes.

But if anything was said today that even hinted at a threat to Nora, I would take down not only the Holliston family, every last one of them, but also this place. I would leave only shards of broken mirror and glass in my wake, along with the exposed, mistaken comfort of its members.

My father was the pioneer of our family.

I was the battering ram behind him, making sure his inventions and his deals were protected.

Sometimes that meant working with people of questionable moral character.

Sometimes it put me in a position to do favors for people whose gratitude was the ultimate currency, and one that wasn’t spent carelessly.

I could play nice.

I could fight dirty.

I always played to win.

This time, though, I didn’t know what the game entailed, so I decided to hold myself in check until I did.

Slowly, I removed my cell phone from the breast pocket of my suit jacket and dropped it into the velvet pouch.

My guide pulled the rope ties together, closing the pouch, then stepped aside, motioning for me to enter.

The hallway beyond was silent. As we walked, we passed several sets of thick, floor-length curtains.

Considering the oppressive stillness, I guessed they were soundproof. Or hiding something. Possibly both.

The curtain at the end was pulled back on one side. The only sound was the rush of blood in my own ears.

Bella was already there.

She sat in an overstuffed leather chair. Her tailored skirt and business jacket were flawless, and her posture was straight and unyielding. She looked every bit the successful CEO she was.

Rather than greeting me or standing at my entrance, she sighed and motioned toward an empty leather chair across from her.

The only tell that she wasn’t as calm as her expression implied was her grip on the edge of her jacket. After receiving the pouch containing my phone from the guide, she dismissed him with a nod. The curtain closed behind me.

I took a moment to assess the room. As someone who preferred clean lines of steel and glass, it was difficult to appreciate the lingering scent of wood polish and overblown egos.

Dark woodwork framed everything and the furnishings looked imported, curated, and antique enough to belong behind exhibit ropes.

“Thank you for coming,” she said in the same tone she probably started most business meetings.

“As entertaining as all of this has been, cut to the chase, Holliston. I’m only here because you said this is about Nora. But before you say anything, I warn you to choose your words carefully.”