Chapter Four
Ivy
Fucking Thorne Blackstone.
I fucked Thorne Blackstone.
No scratch that. I fucked Evander. The charming man on the train who made me laugh, who touched me like he'd been waiting his whole life to learn my body, who whispered my name like a prayer.
But Evander doesn't exist.
Thorne Blackstone does. And he’s a liar. A player. Even with my head buried in the sand about the Blackstone, I’m aware of his reputation. The man has a reputation so toxic that he probably has his own Wikipedia page under “corporate villains.”
I can't look at him. Can't process that the man who had me screaming his fake name twelve hours ago is sitting across from me in a boardroom, acting like we're strangers while my fourteen-year-old half-sister holds his family hostage with supposed environmental crimes. My life is officially out of control.
His gaze catches mine.
I should have looked him up. I know what Google is.
But every time I'd typed "Blackstone" into a search bar since I was fourteen years old, I'd closed the tab before it finished loading.
Self-preservation dressed up as indifference.
The one photo I remembered was years old, a clean-shaven man with much shorter hair. Nothing like the man on that train.
I plead silently: Don't say anything about last night.
Fuck you, his eyes seem to say back. This is business.
“We’ll set you two up at our hotel,” Sebastian says.
Madison shakes her head. “No. How will we get to know each other if you hide me out of your way for the three months?”
“That’s the point. We don’t need to know you.
You’ll never be family,” Thorne growls. His gaze returns to me, sharp and accusing.
"Ms. West, surely you can’t be on board with staying here?
Even if you took us on as clients, you can handle this remotely.
Environmental law doesn't require you to be physically present in Kentucky.
Take Madison back to New York and consult from there. "
Ms. West.
The formality erases last night like it never happened. If only my body could forget. Last night, he moaned my name. This morning, I'm a stranger.
Before I can reply, Madison says, “No, we made a deal.” Her hands grip the edge of the table. "I'm not leaving. I told you, three months. Here. With my family."
“And there is no way I’m leaving her here with you. With any Blackstone.”
Thorne’s unreadable gaze remains locked on mine. Madison taps my arm, and I turn from him. “I’ll be fine. My dad—” She glances around the room. “Their dad taught me how to handle them.”
I glance at Thorne. “I’m not so sure about that, sweetie.”
“I am.” Madison points at Thorne. Her index finger shakes, but her voice is steady. “And I want to stay with you.”
Oh hell no. I am not spending three months with a man I want to hate fuck.
“I live in Canada, kid,” he replies, cold as his eyes.
“Then why do you have a house in Anchorage?” Madison asks.
Of all the Blackstones in this room, she picks the one built entirely out of walls.
“I’m rich. Rich people tend to have multiple homes.” All casual dismissiveness vanishes when he asks, “And how do you know where I live?”
“Google.” She rolls her eyes. “And like you said, people work remotely all the time. If you're so rich and powerful, I'm sure you can manage it for three months from one of your homes,” she shoots back.
If this wasn’t my life spiraling. I’d be proud of my little sister’s quick wit. Instead, I’m frozen watching the next three months of my life play out before me.
“Why the hell would you want to live with me?” Thorne asks.
“Because you remind me of Dad.” Madison’s words are simple. Direct.
For half a second, there’s a crack in his composure. It’s a tightness around his eyes, a barely-there flinch before he locks it down. Then his too-handsome face could be carved from stone.
“I can keep going to my school. Stay in my routine,” she finishes.
“Fuck no,” he says flatly.
He runs a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t have room.”
Lillianna laughs. “I’m a spoiled rich girl, and even I know how messed up that sounds. You have what, ten, fifteen bedrooms?”
“Which are full.”
“With what? Your ego?” Rosalia mutters.
In different circumstances, I think I could be best friends with these two women.
Thorne ignores them, his attention fixed on Madison. “You want family bonding? Fine. We’ll treat you like the bad shot in the dark you are and set you up in a house and have visitation with you every other weekend.”
Madison flinches.
“Wow,” I gasp. “You are an asshole.”
“Yup, just like Dad,” Madison says, and my heart breaks a little for her. I hope like hell our mother didn’t treat her the same. Like a mistake, or worse, a bargaining chip in her relationship with Louis. God knows she never figured out how to be what either of us needed.
“Go back to Quebec, Thorne. She can stay with me,” Lillianna offers.
“Which is with me,” Thorne grates. “I’m not running a fucking hostel.”
“It’s fine. You won’t even be there,” his sister replies.
He leans forward. “I’m not returning to Canada. At least not until this mess is sorted.”
My stomach bottoms out. No. Go back to Canada.
“Why do you need to stay?” I ask before I can control my damn mouth. Which earns me questioning looks from everyone but Thorne.
I don’t care. Even if my work gives me the time off, I can’t do three months with him. He might be a liar and an asshole, but the memory of how he made me feel is impossible to forget.
His gaze bores into mine, and for a split second, I see a flicker of heat before his expression cools to something calculating.
“I’m not returning to Quebec while a fourteen-year-old holds a loaded gun to our family’s head.
Crisis management is about controlling the narrative.
” He leans back in his chair with the easy confidence of someone who’s played this game before.
“My name is on those environmental papers. My reputation is tied to those acquisitions. If I’m in Canada and this blows up, I look guilty.
If I’m here, handling it,” his smile is sharp.
“I look responsible. Invested. Like a Blackstone who gives a damn about the family legacy.”
He says it's strategy. But a man who only cares about strategy doesn't volunteer to shoulder his father's sins.
“What about your responsibilities in Quebec?” Sebastian asks.
"Our international deals are smaller volume than domestic. I can manage remotely for a few months." His attention shifts to Madison with predatory focus. "This isn't about family bonding. This is damage control. And I'm very good at damage control."
Sebastian’s chair scrapes as he shifts. “This is on me, not you. I should have vetted those properties more carefully, not just taken Dad’s word, especially given my environmental platform. I trusted his judgment on the acquisitions.”
Thorne shakes his head. “And I signed off on them. My signature, my responsibility. Besides Bastian, you’ve got the distillery and a panicked board breathing down your neck. I’ve got acquisition investors who'll pull funding the second they smell an environmental liability.”
They look at each other, and a silent conversation passes between the brothers, a weight of history I don’t understand.
"We fix this together or we go down together. I’m not leaving you in the lurch this time.” Thorne finishes.
This time.
Sebastian’s expression shifts to surprise, or maybe gratitude, or maybe suspicion. I can’t tell.
I recall the rumors about the Blackstone brothers. That they barely spoke. And there was some blowup during Derby a few years back, and Thorne abandoned the family flagship business for Quebec. They are supposed to be rivals, not allies.
But the man across from me isn’t acting like someone who hates his brother. More like someone trying to make amends.
Madison sits up straighter with a flush creeping up her neck. “So I’m staying with Thorne and Lillianna?”
“Yes,” Lillianna replies at the same time Thorne mutters a defeated, “Fucking-A.”
This is not happening. This cannot be happening.
But I didn't come all this way to abandon her to a room full of Blackstones who see her as a liability. If she stays, I stay. It's that simple and that terrible.
And yet here I am. Moving in with the man while pretending I don't know exactly how he sounds when he comes.
“We’re staying,” I sigh, slumping into my chair. “If my work allows me to work remotely on my other cases while working on this case.”
“They’ll allow you,” says everyone in the conference room.
Thorne turns to Madison. “You might think you’ve won, but let’s be clear about something, kid. You want to play power games with the Blackstone name? Fine. But I've been playing these games longer than you've been alive.”
“I’m not playing games.” Madison’s voice wavers, but she doesn’t look away.
He snorts, “If you say so.”
Madison crosses her arms. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Yes, you are.”
I don’t agree with what Madison is doing, but Thorne’s constant coldness toward everyone makes me hate him a little more.
“You walk in here, drop a bomb about environmental crimes, threaten to go to the press, and demand we play house with you for three months. That’s not family bonding, that’s hostage negotiation,” he finishes.
“Maybe,” Madison admits with a shrug that’s pure Blackstone arrogance. “But it’s the only way I knew you’d listen.”
“Oh, you’ve got my attention, but I think you’ll learn real soon that isn’t a good thing.” Thorne leans forward, and his gravelly voice makes my pulse jump for all the wrong reasons. “In fact, something tells me that you’ll be running to New York a lot sooner than three months.”
Madison lifts her chin, meeting his challenge head-on. “We’ll see about that.”
“Yes, we will.” Thorne’s smile is all teeth and no warmth.
He pushes back from the table and stands, the scrape of his chair against the floor cutting through the tension. The rest of the Blackstones rise a beat later. He turns his attention back to Madison. “Three months. That’s what you want, right?”
My sister nods.
“Three months of family bonding? I hope you’re ready for what that actually looks like with this family.” The way he says it is a threat.
“Our Dad prepared me. I’m familiar with jerks,” Madison shoots back.
For a fourteen-year-old, she doesn't back down. I have to respect that, even if it's inconvenient as hell.
He turns toward the door, then pauses, his gaze finding mine across the table. For one heart-stopping moment, I think he’s going to say something about last night. Instead, his tone turns almost conversational. “Don’t get too comfortable. This isn’t going to be a vacation.”
The door closes behind him. The soft click might as well be a cell door locking.
Fury is easy. It's the memories of last night on the train that are going to be the problem.