36. West
CHAPTER 36
WEST
Fairhaven used to be quiet. It was that way since I moved back after Dad died, after this house finally became my own again, when parties became fewer and dinners rarer.
But it’s not quiet anymore.
Knowing she’s upstairs. Seeing her walk through the gardens outside my window. Hearing Ernest tell me that she successfully caught the cat and that they’re driving to the vet to see if it’s chipped. Her presence is now everywhere, slotting into the mosaic of the place and turning it alive.
All of it makes the place feel like a home again.
And I realize that it never really felt that way before—not really.
It was a place of quiet when I was growing up, then a place of anger when my parents fought. I loved parts of it—the nooks and crannies, the places I could escape to: the boathouse, the orchard, the sailing boat, the pool, the tennis court. I loved running around the grounds, the library and the space in the attic where she now works.
But now I’m starting to like all of it. Talking to her over dinner in the conservatory, catching her in the kitchen when she and Melissa chat. And I start to resent the obligations that take up too much of my time. Take me away and into meetings, and phone calls, and off the grounds.
One evening, I’m entertaining the board of Cal Steel. It’s by far the largest of Calloway Holdings’ companies, and the one that my great-grandfather founded. The board members sit around my large dining table and we shift from business talk to small talk.
Nora didn’t join.
I asked her if she wanted to come and told her, quite frankly, that it was going to be very boring. She kissed my cheek and told me that she’d rather be working on her clothing line.
I told her what a good girl she was for setting her own boundaries.
She danced out of my office with a smile that left me unable to focus for a solid five minutes. I’m constantly on edge around her these days—hard all the fucking time. After the other morning, when she gave me the most erotic hand job of my life, I’ve had to start jerking off twice a day. If not, I’ll go mad.
The relationships I’ve had have been short, pleasant, mutually agreed upon. With women who want the kind of fun I can provide—along with my wallet and my access. Smart. Educated. But it’s never gone deeper than that. The barrier has never fully come down.
And I never craved their presence the way I find myself craving Nora’s.
It’s late when the last few board members finally leave Fairhaven. I walk over to the library, rolling up the sleeves of my shirt. A headache pounds at my temple.
But there’s one last thing I need to look over before the day is over. My lawyers have a few more days to test our final approach, but if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to be married by September.
It’s that or lose Fairhaven forever.
When I was thirteen and angry, that would have sounded like the perfect solution. But now this place is home. I’ve reclaimed it, and I’ll be damned if anyone forces me out.
I open the door to the library and stop in my tracks. Nora is sitting on the couch. The gray cat is curled up next to her, and she’s wearing nothing but a thin silk dress. It leaves her arms bare, most of her chest. And those long legs.
“Hi,” she says, a glass of whiskey in her right hand. “Are you done with your dinner?”
If I have to get married, why can’t it be to her? The thought is traitorous, and I shove it down as quickly as it came.
Because I won’t be a good husband to her. That’s why. And because she’s not looking for a husband—she’s trying to learn how to date .
Because she’s my best friend’s little sister.
There are a thousand reasons why what we’re doing is wrong, and each one of them sours my mood. What we have belongs in the shadows. Rafe can never find out.
“Hey,” I say. “Have you been sitting here waiting for me?”
“Just for a little while, yeah,” she says.
Dark delight sparks through me at her words. “Did you eat dinner?”
“Yes, I ate up in the atelier. Melissa made really great lamb tonight.”
I frown. “You’re drinking Alex’s whiskey again?”
“Trying to get used to the taste,” she says. “And it felt cool.”
I roll my eyes. “It felt cool?”
“Yeah. I’m trying on what it’s like to be West Calloway,” she says, her voice grandiose. “It’s not that bad, actually.”
“And that’s all it takes to be me?”
“No, I think there are a few more things to it. But I haven’t learned all of it yet,” she says, and looks down at the cat. It’s male, Ernest informed me, and he isn’t chipped. “Like sailing.”
I head over to the bar cart. “I’ll teach you this weekend.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If you have time.”
She rises and follows me, leaning against the pool table beside it. “I’d like that. So… how did the dinner go?”
“It went okay.”
She studies me, her eyes warm and kind. “You seem…”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m not in the best of moods.”
She sets her glass down on the velvet of the pool table and motions for me to come over. I do, draining half the glass as I go.
“Dinner didn’t go well?”
“It went,” I say. It’s the legal stuff with the house that’s infuriating. Gnaws at me like a dog with a bone.
She reaches for my shirt and pulls me forward. I brace my hands on the pool table on either side of her. “Poor West,” she says, running a hand along my cheek. “So complicated, running Calloway Holdings.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You think you’re so funny.”
“That’s because I am.” She smiles a little. “Will you tell me something?”
“Mhm.”
Her thumb slips up, finds the edge of my eyebrow. “Will you finally tell me how you got this?”
“Finally? You’ve never asked before.”
Her teeth dig into her lower lip. “But I’ve wondered. There are a lot of things I’ve wondered about you.”
It’s dangerous, the game we’re playing now. Dangerous because it doesn’t feel like a game at all. Her finger brushes along my eyebrow. “It was a fight,” I say.
“With who?”
I breathe her in, and it’s soap and perfume and whiskey. “The fifth guy we spoke about the other night.”
“Who used to live in that house. Who went to Belmont with you and the guys.”
“You were friends.” Her finger smooths down my cheek. “Until he hurt you?”
“Until he hurt all of us.” His father ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Millions of dollars lost, a public trial, the storied family drawn through the mud. All of our families lost money, and Hadrian told us he’d known about all of it. That the friendships were all false. “And he fooled around with Amber.”
Her touch stills. “Oh.”
“Sisters are off-limits. They’ve always been off-limits.” It was one of the things we agreed on almost fifteen years ago, five boys in a dorm room in wrinkled prep school uniforms and a window cracked open for the smoke.
When it all happened… The fight was bad. Hadrian was expelled. Left Belmont and our lives, and it was years before I saw him again.
At the time, Amber insisted that what happened wasn’t wrong. That he liked her and she liked him. But that was before we found out the friendships had been a ruse.
“That’s not fair.” Nora runs her hand down, finds the nape of my neck. “Don’t the sisters in this equation get a say?”
“Rafe would still see it as a betrayal.”
“He wouldn’t end your friendship. You’re like his family.”
I look down at the silky fabric barely covering her, and I’m angry, and frustrated, and half hard again. I’ve never liked things I can’t control, and right now there’s almost nothing in my life that I can.
Nothing except the way I treat her. I can control that, and I can give her what she needs. As long as I do that, I’ll handle whatever pain comes my way.
“West,” she says. “He won’t find out.”
“He can’t.” My hands find the silky fabric at her hips. “This dress. It’s almost nothing.”
“Mhm. I know. I made it out of scraps earlier today.”
“You made this?”
“Yes.”
I find her waist and fit my hands around it. She’s so lithe beneath my touch, and only half a head shorter than me. “You’re so good at what you do.”
“This one was stupidly simple.”
“And you decided to dress half naked and wait in here for me?”
“Maybe I want to practice being a good fake girlfriend,” she says, “and cheer you up. What do you want tonight?”
A good fake girlfriend. I wind my hand into her hair and tip her head back. I kiss the fragrant skin of her neck where I know she likes it. “This is about what you want.”
“I know. But… what if…” Her breath catches, and I know she likes that spot. I suck on her skin harder than I should. “Oh. What if I want to know what you want? What would you do right now, if I was… if this was real?”
“If this was real,” I mutter. “Does this feel real to you?”
“Yes. But you know what I mean,” she says, and I do, and I hate that I do. If she were mine. If this wasn’t all preparation for some other asshole she’ll want to date after this. For the love she wants, the relationship she wants.
All the things I can’t give her.
I grip her thighs and lift her up onto the pool table. Her knees part for me.
“Let me make you feel better.” She’s breathing hard, my mouth still on her neck. Her words close like a fist around me. As if there’s a single moment where being around her doesn’t make me feel better. “Tell me what to do.”
I lift my head, and I’m going to hell, but when she asks me so prettily… “You know what would make me feel better, sweetheart?”
“What?”
“You, naked on this table,” I say, “and my head between your legs. Can you be good and let me make you come?”