Chapter One #2
I shut the light, we both grab our jackets, and we walk out of the office, taking the elevator downstairs and heading to the city street, where we part ways.
As usual, Manhattan is busy at eight p.m., cars, taxis, and buses clogging the street and honking when another vehicle doesn’t move fast enough.
My driver is coming around the corner. In no time, I’m sitting in the back of a town car, fiddling with my phone, my mind on everything I’ve learned today.
God, I hate my father. Hate the times I heard my mother crying while I was growing up, knowing she stayed married to her husband for the sake of her children.
I grimace. My parents taught me it’s not worth having children.
What if a relationship goes sour? Would my kids have to hear ugly arguing or deal with the pain of divorce?
My stomach churns, and I know it’s the combination of the liquor and the memories assaulting me.
I lean my head against the back seat and close my eyes, surprised when my phone rings.
Lifting the cell from my lap, I glance at the screen and groan.
Angelica, my ex-girlfriend and one-time friend with benefits, is calling.
Though I rarely see her anymore, I occasionally run into her at the country club where both of our families belong.
“Hello?” I ask, planning to keep the conversation short.
“Linc, honey, it’s been so long. How are you?” She purrs in an obvious attempt to interest me. It doesn’t work.
How am I? Drunk, pissed, confused, and the last thing I need or want is a woman whose only goal is to marry into my family.
When I was younger, I had no problem indulging her because we both needed the same thing.
To be seen with the right person on our arms. These days I’m older, wiser, and more discriminating.
And not about pedigree or women who fake everything about themselves.
I want someone real. Someone like Jordan. Shit, I’m drunk.
“Linc?” Angelica asks, her voice causing my eyes to open wider and forcing me to concentrate.
“I’m here. It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, poor baby. Why don’t you come over and I’ll pour us some wine. We can work out your frustrations.”
I know her offer comes with strings, something I discovered when we tried the friends-with-benefits route. She always wants and demands more than I’m willing to give. Financially and emotionally. There’s a reason I’ve been celibate for the last year. My hand doesn’t demand anything in return.
“Sorry. I’m home for the night,” I say, glancing out the window. The car is nearing Jordan’s apartment, which I always pass on my way home.
“I could come to you,” Angelica offers, the desperation in her tone obvious.
My entire body tenses at the sound. “Sorry, I’m beat. I need to go. Bye.”
I disconnect the call, and before I can think through what I’m doing, I lean forward in my seat. “Max, I’ve had a change of plans,” I say and rattle off Jordan’s address.
With my mind spinning as much as my head, there’s only one person I want to be with tonight. The only one who’ll understand my pain.
I lean against the cushioned backrest and wait for the car to come to a stop in front of Jordan’s building.
* * *
Jordan
I come home and change into a pair of gray joggers and a tie-dye swing tank-top, an outfit I’ll be comfortable wearing to relax and watch television, and also to sleep in once I remove the bottoms. I release my hair from the low ponytail I’ve had it in, the last thing I need to free myself from the constraints of working for Linc’s Fortune 500 privately held company, where appearances are important.
I’m grateful to him for giving me a job where I earn more than I ever dreamed when growing up, and I refuse to let him down.
I pour myself a small glass of wine and dig into the sushi I picked up, nearly inhaling the food because I’m starving. Then I clean up and settle onto the couch in my living room, pulling a blanket over myself and snuggling in.
Man, I’ve had a long day.
Since Kenneth Kingston passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago, Linc and I have had our hands full catching up on his father’s deals and properties.
Although no one in the family likes to talk about it, Kenneth Kingston was suffering from the early stages of dementia when he died.
He refused to step down from his position as chairman of the company or become a figurehead in the organization he founded.
All Linc was able to do was make sure that Wallace Franklin, their chief financial officer and Kenneth’s closest friend, was on top of Kenneth’s investments.
Now, while I focus on Linc’s listings and outstanding contracts, he handles both the business and his father’s estate.
When necessary, I coordinate with the elder Mr. Kingston’s secretary, Suzanne, who Linc decided to keep on in a different position.
He didn’t want to fire the woman who’s been with the company for years.
Linc thinks he’s a hard-ass, and we all like to tease him about his demands, but deep down he has a good heart.
And right now he’s hurting.
With a sigh, I pick up the television remote and am about to turn it on when my cell rings. A glance shows me it’s my doorman, and I tap accept, surprised he’d call so late. “Hi, Jerry.”
“Miss Greene, Mr. Kingston is here. Should I send him up?”
“Yes, please,” I say, rising from my seat, concerned. I disconnect the call.
Why would Linc be here now? When I said good night at the office, he was drinking with and talking to Xander, filling him in about the sister they hadn’t known about. He’d already told me everything about his discovery, and I understand how upsetting he found the news.
To show up here now isn’t in character. He’s self-contained and keeps his emotions to himself, even when he’s upset. But I’ve never seen him quite as worked up as he is about his new sister, Aurora, and her past, growing up in foster homes while he and his siblings had wealth and comfort.
After folding the blanket I pulled over myself, I lay it onto the couch before heading to the door, reaching it just as Linc knocks.
I open it to find him standing, one arm on the doorframe, a sexy vision with his white dress shirt unbuttoned and tie hanging loose around his neck. His silky black hair is mussed from running his fingers through the strands, and a day’s worth of scruff graces his gorgeous face.
But his eyes draw my attention most. Devastation looks back at me from his blue gaze with a darker ring around the outer edges.
“Hey,” he says, and I catch the whiff of whiskey on his breath.
“Come on in.” I step back and he enters, brushing past me and leaving me with a hint of his cologne in his wake.
After closing the door, I follow him into my living room. “I’d offer you a drink, but it smells like you’ve had enough.”
Without replying, he throws his body onto the couch I was sitting on, choosing my favorite side and he knows it.
“Talk to me,” I say, joining him on the cushion next to his and crossing my legs in front of me.
“I’m pissed at my father.” He leans back and groans.
“I know.” I spent enough time in their large house growing up.
Enough to know Kenneth Kingston wasn’t a man to be emulated. A man of power? Yes. A kind, caring parent to his children with his wife? Not so much. But a worse husband and definitely a horrible human to the daughter he abandoned. Now Linc is left to pick up the pieces.
“Does your mother know about your half-sister?”
He shakes his head. “And who do you think has to tell her?”
Linc is close to his mother, as are all his siblings.
Despite how long I’ve known Melissa Kingston, who likes to be called Melly, I can’t read her.
I’ve seen Melly be stern and I’ve seen her kind.
She’s never treated me badly, and used to allow me to come to the house and do homework while my mom finished her day of work.
And unlike Mr. Kingston, she’s never given Linc a hard time about our friendship, for which I’m grateful.
One thing is certain. The woman didn’t deserve for her husband to cheat on her.
“You’ll handle it,” I say, putting a hand on Linc’s shoulder.
He pulls me closer until I lean against him, my head in the crook of his arm.
His body is warm, he smells good, and I do my best to ignore the tingle of awareness inside me.
Linc likes to hang out, to snuggle and watch a movie or just talk.
Our friendship consists of everything I’d want with someone I loved deeply, except sex and the intimacy that comes with it.
So as I sit with his arm around me, comforting him in silence, I ignore the scent of his cologne, masculine and sexy. I try not to focus on the hard muscled body I’m leaning against, but it’s not easy.
I can’t lie and say I’ve never wanted a relationship with Linc, but those days are over. When I was younger, I had a crush on him, but my mother caught on quickly and warned me about our different status in life and how ultimately I didn’t fit into his world.
Those words crushed my young heart, but since my mother cleaned their home, they ultimately made sense, and I forced myself to focus on being Linc’s friend.
Eventually, he went to college, the cost fully covered by his family.
I had student loans. I got a job in human resources for a company I liked while he attended business school.
But maybe I’d read too many romance novels, because my first year out of college, I met a hot guy at a bar. Collin was attentive, took my number, and called me the next day. We began dating, and I quickly learned he came from a wealthy family who made their money in hedge funds.