PROLOGUE
Macon
Seven Years Ago
“Six beers deep before noon. Now that’s a style I can get behind,” Cooper, my middle brother, said as he stood in the doorway to my room.
He was wearing a black suit and light-blue tie. His golden-brown hair was styled and gelled and looked so put together, I almost had to shield my eyes.
He walked in and slid the chair away from my desk. Rather than turning it around to face me, he straddled the wooden seat and sat backward.
I could smell his cologne and cleanliness all the way across the room from my bed.
“I suppose I can stop being such an ass and offer you one.” I grabbed a beer from the twelve-pack on the nightstand. “Here.”
“I’m good. I’m headed to work in a few. Uncle Walter would lose his shit if he smelled beer on my breath.”
Uncle Walter, my father’s brother, was the founder of Spade Hotels, a high-end, super-exclusive, luxury hotel brand with locations all over the world. Until my father had retired, he’d been partners with Walter, who had eventually bought him out. But that didn’t stop the next generation from working for the family business. My oldest brother, Brady, had an executive role. Now that Cooper had graduated from the University of Southern California, he was employed there, too, and he’d be moving into his own place in a few weeks.
I was the baby of the family.
Once summer was over, I’d be starting my junior year at the University of Colorado, and upon graduation, I’d follow in my older brothers’ footsteps and join the brand within the next two years.
“Suit yourself,” I replied. “That just leaves more for me.”
Instead of putting the beer in the pack, I twisted off the cap and took a sip of drink number seven.
Cooper rested his arms across the top of the chair. “You want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” I flung the metal cap across the room, aiming for the small trash can by the desk, hearing it clink to the bottom when I made the shot.
“The reason you’re drinking, in bed, and it’s not even”—he looked at his watch—“eleven in the morning.”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Come on, Macon. What the fuck is going on with you? You’re grumpier than normal. You took off all day yesterday, didn’t answer your phone, and you didn’t get back until, what, two this morning. And now I find you like this.”
I stared at the trash can that held all seven metal beer caps.
But inside, it also held something else.
A picture.
One that had traveled with me to school the last two years.
One that I’d brought home for the summer and had planned to pack up and take to Boulder when I headed there for fall semester.
Had planned—but didn’t plan to anymore.
My parents’ housekeeper would be coming in sometime this week, and she’d empty my trash can, dumping the picture into the bin that would be pushed out to the curb.
I couldn’t wait for that day.
I never wanted to see that fucking picture again.
I took a long drink, wiping the leftover liquid off my lips. “What do you mean, like this? Drunk?” I sighed. “I’m far from that.”
“You’re making this difficult when it doesn’t have to be.”
I lifted my phone, scrolling through Instagram, done with this conversation.
Until I heard, “Is this about Marley?”
My hands shook from the sound of her name.
My stomach ached.
My heart beat a rhythm that was far too fast.
I glanced up at my brother. I didn’t like the expression on his face.
Shit, I wanted to wipe it away and never see it again.
“So that is what this is about,” he said. “Yeah, now it all makes sense.” He lifted his chair and moved it closer until he was about a foot away from my bed, resting his feet on the end of my mattress. “You guys break up?”
There it was.
The statement that had been pounding through my chest since I’d left Marley’s house two nights ago.
There was no reason to hide the truth.
It wasn’t a secret.
It just hurt—to think about, to say out loud.
To come to terms with.
I took another drink. “Two fucking years of my life ... gone.”
He clasped my shoulder, shaking it. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. That’s what is so fucked up about this. She just couldn’t deal with everything—the long distance, the unknown at the end of the night whenever I went out with my buddies, even though I assured her every single fucking time that I wasn’t hitting on anyone and there wasn’t a chick in my bed.” My head dropped, hanging low. “The idea that something could happen became too much. I wouldn’t cheat on her, Coop. You know I wouldn’t. I loved that girl ...” My voice faded, my hand gripping the bottle so hard, I was waiting for it to smash. “But her jealousy took over and created scenarios that didn’t exist.” I tapped the screen of my phone, the background a picture of us when she’d visited last semester and I’d taken her skiing.
I tossed my phone. I couldn’t stand the sight of it.
Marley and I had begun dating our senior year of high school. Not the best timing, considering I was heading off to Colorado for college and she was going to Florida, but we’d made it work. We’d visited each other as often as we could. We talked all the time. Texted nonstop. We spent every summer together.
Until now.
She was going to London tomorrow to start her semester abroad, and for the last week, she’d been telling me we needed to talk.
All we did when we were away from each other was talk.
We were finally together again; a conversation was the last thing I wanted.
I was talked the fuck out.
But Marley forced a discussion, and her emotions spiraled as she explained how she’d been feeling the past two semesters and told me she couldn’t do it anymore.
She was giving up.
Two years in ... and she quit.
Us.
Cooper tapped his foot against my shin. “You know, if Brady was here, he’d say, I told you so.”
I rolled my eyes. “That asshole told me from day one not to get tied down before I went off to school. I should have listened to him.” I adjusted the pillow behind my back and sat up straighter. “In fact, now I’m going to do exactly what he’s done all these years.” I pulled at my shirt, getting a strong whiff of beer and day-old clothes. “Fuck feelings. Fuck being tied down. Fuck any kind of relationship. I want no commitments. No emotions. I want—”
“To be a playboy.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “That.”
Because there was no way I was ever going through this again. No way I would ever allow myself to feel this way.
To hurt this badly.
To want something—and someone—I couldn’t have.
I would never give my heart to another woman.
Ever again.
Cooper chuckled, like he actually found my reply funny. “I’m not Brady. That’s not even close to what I’m going to say.” He adjusted his cuff links, his arms returning to the top of the chair. “Instead, I’m going to give you the best piece of advice anyone will ever give you.”
“Sure you are.”
His brows rose. “You don’t believe me?”
“You’re only two years older than I am, Cooper. What the hell do you know about life and women at this point?”
“More than you.”
I downed the rest of beer number seven, added the empty to the pack, and took out number eight, missing the trash can when I tossed the cap in its direction.
Maybe I was starting to feel buzzed.
I groaned. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
“There are women who will come into your life who are there just to have fun. Like some of the dudes you go to college with—they’re a blast when it comes to partying, but after you graduate, you won’t see or hear from them again.” He paused, like he was letting that sink in. “Then there are women who will come into your line of vision and the moment you see them, they’ll blow your fucking mind. You’ll do anything to be near them. Talk to them. Hear their voice.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Smell their skin.” When he opened his eyes again, he added, “Those are the women who will completely change your life.”
Like Marley?
Fuck that.
I hissed out all the air I’d been holding in. “I don’t believe it. That shit doesn’t exist—at least not anymore.”
“All right, we’ll see about that. But when a woman has the power to make your grumpy ass smile, and I’m talking really smile, where it starts in your stomach and goes up your chest and you feel it deep in your bones, you’ll know she’s the one.”
I chugged half my beer, not bothering to wipe my lips. “Bullshit.”
He smiled in a way I hadn’t seen before. “Just you wait and see, brother.”