Chapter 16
Aidan
“You’re late,” Alex said.
The four of us were standing on Michigan Avenue. All around us, the warming sun of spring glinted off the skyscrapers. It was a quarter past nine, and the heading-to-work crowds were moving fast, a little panicked. Behind us was the building that housed the Chicago office of Tower VC—we rented a few offices on the sixteenth floor, where our staff worked and where Dane worked when he could be persuaded to come to the office.
“Samantha is ill,” I said.
Alex’s eyebrows went up. “Was it something we said?”
I shook my head. “Migraine. She says she’ll be fine in a few hours.”
“Migraines are bastards,” Alex said. He was wearing a suit today—dark blue, with a white shirt and a light blue tie. Next to him, Dane sipped a coffee, wearing jeans and a black hoodie, his hair in its customary man bun. On the other side of Dane, Noah—impeccably dressed in a gray suit he’d likely imported from Italy—checked his watch, then looked at the street.
“Here he comes,” he said.
We were waiting for the car and driver Noah had hired. Instead of meeting in the office, I’d had a text telling me to meet the others outside on Michigan Avenue, and we’d be taken to this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity of Noah’s.
I hadn’t had time to think very much about what Noah wanted us here for. Noah did his part in L.A., but he rarely came up with new ideas for Tower VC. He knew how to navigate his own waters, but he was the least ambitious of us. And he almost never got excited about business projects—Noah worked to live, instead of living to work. I looked at him as the car pulled up and wondered what had him so excited now.
Normally I would have extracted every detail from him by now, because I hated surprises. But I’d been too distracted by Samantha to pay attention. And this morning—Jesus. Distracted was an understatement. It was fairer to say I was thrown completely off my game.
The Samantha I knew was competent, unshakeable, put together in every detail. The woman who opened her door this morning was a raw, exposed nerve, exhausted and—yes, I could fucking say it—helpless. She’d hated that helplessness, but there was nothing she could do about it. When I’d put my arm around her waist, she’d sunk into me, soft and pliant, leaning on me.
I didn’t have a thing for helpless women. Some men have a white knight fantasy, but that wasn’t me. The women who attracted me were confident and pretty clear on what they wanted from me. No, helpless women didn’t turn me on. Except for this particular helpless woman.
It was only a few days ago when we’d agreed there would be no crossing of professional lines. Yet this morning I’d put her into bed, watching every perfect curve slide under the sheets, carefully not staring at those high, soft breasts under her T-shirt. I’d wanted to take her pain away any way I could, even if it meant blowing off this meeting and getting into bed with her, holding her until she felt better again.
Except I knew that if I did that, as soon as the headache was gone I’d pull down her scrap of panties, go down on her, and pleasure her until she came. And then I’d sink into her, feeling her every quiver and breath, and I’d fuck her deep and slow until the pain was forgotten and she came again, squeezing me.
And that would ruin everything.
I still wanted to fucking do it.
Way to be an asshole, Winters,I thought as we filed into Noah’s hired car. She’s your assistant. You’re about to gleefully destroy the Egerton brothers for talking about her ass.
I ran a hand through my hair. Because it’s mine, I thought, or it should be. It should be fucking mine.
“All right,” Dane said, breaking into my fog of thought. “Where the hell are we going, Noah?”
Noah looked him up and down as the car pulled into Michigan Avenue traffic. “I told you to dress for an important meeting.”
Dane shrugged. “This is how I dress for important meetings.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Should I be glad you at least aren’t wearing the Duran Duran T-shirt you wore the entire year you were sixteen?”
“It was vintage,” Dane said. “Besides, it doesn’t fit me anymore.”
It wouldn’t. Dane hadn’t gained weight, but he’d bulked up since he was a teenager, and a lot in the past few years. He said that working out relieved his boredom, but I had the feeling Dane finally got tired of being the scrawny, nerdy programmer. The current version of him could get women by the dozens if he tried, but with his fuck-off personality he still never got laid.
“Okay, fine,” Noah said. “You can dress like a slob, but keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.”
“Done and done,” Dane said, looking almost pleased.
“Hey,” Alex said, looking out the window. “This is the old neighborhood.”
I looked. He was right. We were in the South Side, and we’d come to the neighborhood we’d lived in years ago. All four of us had been born within a mile of here; the house I grew up in was only six blocks away, though there was nothing there for me anymore. No memories, no family, nothing.
Then it hit me. “We’re going to the old building,” I said. “Our place.”
There was silence in the car. Noah didn’t deny it.
I looked at him. His handsome, open face was quiet now, almost solemn.
At fifteen, all four of us had left home. We all had different reasons. My mother was a single mother working two jobs, who wanted me out of the house. Alex’s father was hitting him. Dane’s parents had pretty much forgotten about him. And Noah had rich parents who hated him.
Noah had talked the school janitor into telling the landlord that he was Noah’s father, that the rest of us were cousins, and that it was all on the up-and-up. He’d signed the papers, and Alex had promptly learned how to forge the janitor’s signature anywhere else we needed it.
We lived in that apartment for seven years. It was in a shit neighborhood and it was nothing to write home about, but we loved it. And sure, we were four teenage guys who didn’t have much money and weren’t particularly clean. The place was still home until Dane’s software made us rich, we started Tower VC, and we moved out to spread across the country.
“What are we doing, Noah?” I asked as all the familiar buildings slid by outside the window, all the familiar streets. “Why are we going back to the old place now?”
Noah scratched his chin, but finally he answered. “Because the entire building is for sale,” he said. “And we’re going to buy it.”
Three hours later,I let myself into Samantha’s hotel room. I was tired and drained in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. The trip down Memory Lane had been good, bad, and everything in between.
Noah was right: our old place was for sale. Not just the apartment we’d rented, but the whole building. It was in even worse shape than it had been in when we left; it needed updates, upgrades, and renovations. Probably several million dollars’ worth. The real estate itself was going for next to nothing, but that didn’t mean the place was cheap.
The cost didn’t matter. If the building wasn’t bought, it was going to be condemned. Noah wanted us to buy it, renovate it, put the Tower VC Chicago offices on the top floor, and rent the rest out.
It was a nice idea. It was also an idea that would lose money—lots of money. Which was the opposite of what a venture capital firm is supposed to do.
We’d debated it for over an hour, sitting in a diner long after the real estate agent had left. Noah said the money didn’t matter. That was typical Noah, who liked to roll the dice and hope for the best. The problem was that the rest of us liked money—a lot. We’d worked fucking hard to earn what we had, and Tower VC was built on Dane’s genius, Alex’s muscle, and my sales and finance acumen. It was easy for Noah to dismiss money when it was the rest of us who had made him rich without his parents.
And at the same time, he was right. Tower had a healthy bank account and access to almost unlimited loans. This one project, as expensive as it was, wouldn’t sink us. And if we didn’t buy the building, it would be gone. A piece of our past, reduced to rubble.
“We can’t let that happen,” Noah said. “Fuck the money. Let’s save it.”
Alex had crossed his arms. “I didn’t get into business to lose money on a bunch of sentimental shit. You want a keepsake, go buy an old record or something. I’m out.”
Dane voted for the project. He was a Chicago boy to the bone, and he didn’t want to see a piece of Chicago condemned.
I voted against it.
We were at an impasse.
Samantha’s room was dim and quiet. Nothing had been moved or rearranged, so she hadn’t been out of bed. There were no room service dishes, so she hadn’t eaten, either.
I walked softly to the bedroom. My assistant was still in bed, sound asleep, but she’d been tossing and turning. The covers were pulled out and twisted, and one long leg lay across the top of the coverlet, sleek and almost unbearably sexy. Her shirt was twisted up, exposing her smooth hip beneath the cotton of her panties. Her hair was tangled in the pillows, her face slack. The migraine had obviously receded, and now she was sleeping it off.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to slide my hand up her bare leg, over the perfect curve of her ass. I wanted to wake her up with my cock pressed against her, my mouth on her nipples. I wanted to do every fucking dirty thing to her, and then do it all again. And again.
Samantha was my assistant. My employee. My just being here was completely wrong, crossed every line. For God’s sake, I was in her bedroom, watching her sleep. Fantasizing about fucking her. On a business trip.
Somehow we’d gone from professional colleagues to something very, very dangerous. Something neither of us should want any part of.
And still I wanted to get into that bed with her. I ached to do it.
I took a step back. I was bigger than this, smarter than this. I was a man who managed his sex life with ruthless precision, who had his desires under cold control. I could stay out of my assistant’s bed and treat her with respect instead of fucking her senseless. Everything about this was wrong.
That was the reason I liked it. But what I wanted didn’t matter. Get a grip, Winters.
I left the bedroom and put her key card on the table next to the door. I slipped out of her room, closing the door silently behind me, and walked down the hall to my own room.
I walked to the minibar, poured myself a slug of Scotch, and downed it. In my pocket, my phone vibrated silently—a message. I had my ringer off. It was my private number, the one that very few people were in possession of. I pulled out my phone and checked who had called.
It was the hospital where my mother was currently a patient. Because after years of not caring for Ava and me, my mother was losing her mind, irrevocably, piece by piece. And putting her in the hospital was the only thing I could do.
She’d been a single mother to me and Ava when we were growing up. Our father had hit her—Ava and I were too young to remember—so she’d left him. She’d worked long hours at a factory and left us alone much of the time. Not her fault, but even when she was home, we were treated like an annoyance. Be quiet. Go to your room. Go play. Go to bed. I don’t have time. When I was ten, I’d heard her tell the woman next door that she wished she’d never had kids. Some women just aren’t made to be mothers, she’d said. That’s me.
At fifteen, I’d packed a bag and moved in with my friends. My mother had never told me to come home.
It wasn’t exactly a loving upbringing, but I’d survived. It was harder for Ava. Ava was the one who needed affection, who craved it. Who just wanted someone to love her. That person wasn’t going to be our mother. We could wish things were different, but it was never going to happen. As adults, there wasn’t much my sister and I could do about it except get therapy—in her case—and soldier on.
And then, a few years ago, our mother had been fired from her job for absent-mindedness. She got pulled over and her driver’s license had lapsed because she’d forgotten to renew it. When the traffic cop asked her questions, she looked at him in confusion because she thought he was her cousin Garrett.
She was young, the doctors said, for that kind of deterioration. But it wasn’t unheard-of, and there was no treatment. Maybe someday there would be, but not now.
So now, at thirty-four, I paid for the care of the woman who had barely acknowledged me for twenty years. I visited her when I could. Sometimes she remembered she had a son, and sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes I thought she only pretended not to remember.
I’d called the hospital earlier to arrange a visit before I left Chicago. Now I checked the message they’d left. Mr. Winters, we’re very sorry, but today is not a good day to visit your mother. She has said that she doesn’t want to see you.
“Fuck you,” I said to no one in particular. Not my mother, who couldn’t help who she was and the sickness that was taking her. Not my partners. Not Samantha. Maybe I was saying it to God. Or to myself.
I hung up the phone. I could drink; I could spend the evening jerking myself raw, thinking of Samantha in the room a few doors down. I could get pissed and feel sorry for myself. But I had a better idea.
I pulled out my suitcase and started to pack. It was time to go back to New York.