“Shut up. Your looks are one of your best assets.”

  “It’s my only asset,” I mumble quietly, taking a sip of my water. “And you can shut up too. You’re beautiful inside and out.”

  There’s silence for a few moments, Jake fiddling with his beer bottle. He’s thinking. I can literally see the cogs of his mind whirling as he chews his bottom lip. I don’t nudge him to speak his mind. He will eventually, and my twin senses know exactly what he’s going to say.

  “Why don’t you resent me?” he asks, looking up at me.

  And there we have it. I fucking hate the sorrow in his eyes. “Why would I resent you?” I love the clever fucker with everything I have. And more.

  “Mum and Dad. They’re so hard on you.”

  “I can handle them.” I stopped trying to match Jake’s academic ability long ago. It was exhausting, and the constant disappointment from my parents was hurtful. At least now they have a reason to be disappointed in me. But that’s on them. It would never make me resent Jake.

  “And what about when I’m at Oxford?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask seriously. “I’m going to Oxford too.”

  Jake’s bark of laughter is warranted. “And what will you be studying?”

  “Sexology.”

  “You don’t need to go to Oxford for that. Just call Uncle Carmichael.”

  I laugh, grabbing Jake’s hand when he reaches for another shot. What the hell has gotten into him? He scowls. I raise my eyebrows. “Enough.”

  “Since when did you become such a spoilsport?” Jake asks, but he relents, settling for his beer instead. “Have you met his new girlfriend?”

  “Uncle Carmichael’s?” I don’t know why I’m asking. The whole family is talking about it. Mum and Dad looked like they were about to self-combust when Dad’s little brother, Carmichael, rolled up in his swanky Aston to pick me up for a lunch date with his new, younger girlfriend in tow. Sarah. She’s only a year or so older than I am. There are only ten years between Jake, me, and Uncle Carmichael, but still. Even I raised a brow, and not much shocks me when it comes to Carmichael.

  Regardless, it’s a moot point. She won’t be around for long. They never are. “I’ve only met her a few times,” I say. “She seemed nice.” Almost too nice, to be honest. Very touchy-feely. It was slightly uncomfortable, but Carmichael seemed oblivious. Or perhaps his open-minded approach to all things didn’t give a fuck. “You should’ve come with us,” I say, giving Jake my attention. “Uncle Carmichael has a way of making everything so fucking right.” Acceptance. No expectations.

  “Mum and Dad ranted and raved for a solid hour after you left. If I’d gone too . . .”

  He’s right, of course. It’s bad enough Uncle Carmichael could potentially lead the wild child astray. God forbid he got his hands on the saint. Shit, my parents’ faces. They warned me. Told me if I left, I wouldn’t be welcome back. The judgmental arseholes. Carmichael is the most accepting, kindhearted, patient man I’ve ever met. And even though my granddad and father hold him firmly in contempt, he does nothing but smile and be civil. He’s a better man than I am. I want to be him when I grow up. So in control, respected, highly thought of, even if not by his family. Everyone else loves him. But I’m not allowed to see him. I mustn’t be poisoned by his sinful ways. I’m not going to lie, what goes on at Carmichael’s place always has my curious mind racing. I can’t help it. He always looks so fucking happy. So free. So unbothered by criticism. I want some of that. I don’t think he’s an embarrassment; I think he’s a fucking legend. Fuck society. Fuck expectation. Fuck my parents. I don’t know what I’d do without Carmichael to vent my frustrations. “You know, if you want to do something, you should do it,” I say wistfully. “We’re nearly seventeen, Jake. You can’t let Mum and Dad dictate everything.” Guilt grabs me again. I hate leaving him at home, but I also can’t stay in that house facing the constant disdain. Constantly trying to win their approval. So I’ll be leaving the moment I can. “Come on.” I get to my feet. Jake’s starting to slur, and it’s already going to take us hours to get home if I have to carry him. “Time for me to tuck you up in bed.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Let’s get a few for the walk home, yeah?” He half stumbles half jogs to a nearby table and claims a few beers before returning with a big cheesy grin, handing one over. Instinct tells me to decline. To take the beers away—he’s had enough. But since we’re going home now, and I’ve only had two tonight . . .

  We say our goodbyes and head toward the main road. “Tell me,” I say, taking a sip of my beer. “Do you really want to go to Oxford, Jake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the lamest yeah I’ve ever heard.” I put my arm around his shoulder to support him when I catch a slight stagger. “We’re twins, remember? I can literally read your mind.” I watch as those cogs start spinning again, and I wait for the answer I know I’ll get.

  “No,” he breathes, as if the word is a hindrance he’s glad to be rid of. “Shit, no, I really don’t. I don’t want to be a doctor. Jesus, I can’t think of anything worse.”

  “But you could be one,” I point out. “Quite easily. And you’d be really good at it.” I can’t deny I’d be super proud of him—to tell people my brother is a doctor. He’s got that polite bedside manner people talk about when it comes to doctors. He's empathetic. Considerate. All those good things doctors need to be.

  “But being capable or good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.” Jake’s words are quiet, as if he’s ashamed to admit it out loud. “Mum and Dad won’t see it that way, though, will they?”

  “They’d have to accept it.”

  “What, like they accept that you smoke, drink, and shag around?”

  “They don’t know I shag around.”

  “They really do, Jesse.” He laughs, swigging the rest of his beer. “Do you know what I want to do?”

  “Tell me.” I smile, blinded by the excitement in his eyes, just from thinking about it.

  “Superbikes.”

  “Build them?”

  “Race them. God, Jesse, all that power between your legs. The wind in your hair, the freedom of the open road. The adrenalin, the speed, the race.” He looks up at the black sky. “Could you imagine it?”

  I smile, tossing my beer bottle in a hedge. I don’t need alcohol. I need this. The truth. I’ve seen him watching Moto GP. I’ve watched his concentration. I’ve found the superbike magazines under his mattress that he’s tried to hide from Dad like they’re sordid porn shit. “Then fucking do it, Jake.” He could do anything he puts his mind to. He’s just that type of person. I pull him to a stop and take his arms, looking him in his drunk eyes, hoping beyond all things I’ve ever hoped for that he’ll break free of the chains and do something he desperately wants to do. “You must do it.”

  His floppy blond hair falls across his eyes, and I knock it away, knowing he’s probably incapable of coordinating his hands to do it himself. I’m going to have to start carrying him soon. “Yeah?” he asks, his grin crooked.

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  “Will you tour with me? Help fix my bike? Ride with me? Me and you, together?”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah. “I’m there, bro. All the fucking way.”

  He clumsily falls into me, giving me the fiercest hug. The mushy twat. But, of course, I embrace it. “We’ll detail the finer points tomorrow,” he slurs, breaking away and pulling a miniature bottle of whiskey from his front pocket, opening and raising it. “But for now, we celebrate.” He downs the lot as he walks backward, taking him and the bottle out of my reach. “To freedom!” he chants raising the bottle, stumbling into the road. “And doing what the fuck we want.”

  “Doing what the fuck we—” I blink, being blinded by the headlights of a car. And then I hear them.

  Tires.

  Screeching tires.

  The sound of a horn.

  “Jake!” I yell, my head snapping back and forth between him and the car. He’s frozen. Looks startled. “Jake, get out of the fucking road!” I start running, but my legs are lead, not carrying me as fast as I need them to. “Jake!”

  My heart. I can feel it cracking.

  “Jake!” I roar. “God, Jake, no!”

  The car hits him, hurling him fifty yards up the road, and I slow to a stop, suddenly paralyzed. “No,” I whisper. “Please, no.”

  The sound of his helpless body hitting the ground is chilling.

  A sound I’ll never forget.

  And the beats of my heart slow to nothing.

  1

  April 2012

  * * *

  My nose wrinkles. My closed eyes clench. My waking brain pounds like a motherfucker. I open one eye and come face to face with an empty bottle, the damn thing practically touching my nose. I groan and roll onto my back, away from it. Good fucking God. My head feels like an army of soldiers is stomping its way through it.

  I lift my hand on a sigh and rest it on my forehead, trying to compress the thuds. Painkillers. I need painkillers. And water. Get me some fucking water.

  I drag myself up, resting back on my elbows, and peek around the room, searching for more evidence of my heavy night. I spy my clothes on the floor. But no others with it. No bra, no knickers. I hitch a brow in surprise. Don’t tell me I went to bed alone.

  “Water?”

  I startle and look at the bathroom door, finding a naked woman—her name escapes me—leaning against the door with a glass in her hand.

  “You look like you need it.” Another woman appears behind her, also naked, except for the smile she’s wearing. I definitely know her name. Fucking hell, what was I thinking entertaining Coral again? The woman is in love with me. I’m not assuming. She’s told me. Repeatedly. I knew getting into bed with her and her husband to fulfill their wild fantasies was a mistake. Now she’s left him. Now, I have a pissed off copper on my back. And now she’ll take me however I come, always drunk and, last night, even with another woman.

  “Want some help up?”

  Make that another two women.

  You’re a fuck-up, Ward. A total, uncontrollable fuck-up.

  I fall back to the mattress and pull the sheet over my head. “Any more of you hiding in there?” I ask. Jesus, I can’t remember a thing.

  I hear the bedroom door open. Then silence.

  Then . . .

  “Okay, the orgy’s over,” Sarah says, sounding as unimpressed as usual. She’s got a nerve. I bet she’s been thrashing man after man all fucking night. “Out.”

  “I’m a paying member,” one of them retorts, as indignant as fuck.

  “Not if I cancel it,” Sarah counters. I can hear the smugness in her tone. “No need to get dressed,” she adds, and I peek out from under the sheet, seeing her gathering up clothes from the floor at the end of the bed and chucking them at the women. She’s pissed off. Pissed off because there were three women in my bed last night, and she wasn’t one of them.

  She escorts them out, slams the door, and then starts collecting up various toys from the floor and shoving them in a basket ready to be cleaned. “Why didn’t you stay at your rental last night?” she asks.

  “It’s lonely.” I swing my legs off the bed and stand. And wobble. And groan. Fuck me, why do I punish myself like this? On cue, a million flashbacks parade through my sore head, reminding me of my wrongs. As if I need reminding. But in case I do, my scar twinges too, and I rub at it as I wander to the bathroom. I can feel Sarah’s eyes on my back as I go. “What time is it?” I call back.

  “Too early for a drink.”

  “Fuck you,” I mutter under my breath, flipping the shower on. It’s never too early for a drink. Never too early to escape.

  “You have an appointment with your lawyer at three, remember? To sign the papers for your new place. I’ve arranged for the transfer.”

  “When am I moving in?” I ask, stepping into the shower and standing there. Just standing there, letting the hot water wash away last night’s shame, at the same time wishing this water could wash away my regret. My past. Wash away me.

  “A week Saturday. The developers have the launch night on the Friday, then it’s all yours.”

  I look at the bathroom door when Sarah appears, leaning on the frame. She seriously needs to stop with all that stuff she pumps into her face. It’s having the reverse effect these days, making her look older instead of younger and fresher. “So my new apartment will be full of strangers wandering around messing it up?”

  “It’s in the contract. The developer has assured us it’ll be left as good as new for you to move into.”

  I set about washing my hair. “What else?”

  “We need to talk about the new rooms. Décor, design, layout, equipment, that kind of thing.”

  I work up a lather, closing my eyes and trying to enjoy the spray while Sarah bothers me. “John’s sorting the equipment,” I tell her. “As for the décor, call the company who did my new place.”

  “You want the Lusso designer?”

  “Yeah, why not? All that Italian shit looks great.” Really great. The penthouse I now own is fucking incredible, but the décor? Yeah, whoever did that knows what they’re doing. It’s good. Very good. Tasteful. And if The Manor is anything, it’s tasteful. Past the orgies and illicitness, of course. I smile as I rinse my hair, thinking Carmichael would be proud of what it’s become. Then it drops when I think about how disappointed he’d be by what I have become.

  I flinch and shake my head free of those thoughts. “What’s the time?” I ask as I step out of the shower. Sarah doesn’t control her roving eye.

  “Still too early for a drink.” She pulls a towel off the rail and chucks it at me. “I’ll call Rococo Union,” she says as she leaves me in peace.

  I frown. “Who’s Rococo Union?”

  “The designers of your new swanky penthouse,” she calls. “What should I say when they ask what kind of establishment this is?”

  I go to the mirror and immediately look away from the drained-looking man staring back at me. My green eyes look dull, my skin sallow. “It’s The Manor, that’s it. No need to give them a rundown of everything that happens within its walls, Sarah.”

  “Why? Are you ashamed?”

  I don’t entertain her. She knows I couldn’t give a flying fuck what people think of me or my establishment. I just can’t be bothered to feed their curiosity.

  * * *

  As I descend the sweeping staircase to the lobby, John wanders out of the bar. His wraparounds are perfectly in place as always, but I know his eyes will be narrowed behind them. I reach the bottom and stretch my hamstrings, nodding to staff as they pass. “All right?” I ask.

  His face remains impassive. “Stayed the night again?”

  I give him a tired look but hold back my retort, because if there’s one man on this earth who deserves my respect, it’s John. “I’m going for a run.” I need to clear the cobwebs off. And the drink. And the sin.

  I head for the doors.

  “Just tell me,” he says, pulling me to a stop. I don’t turn around. “Why the fuck have you spent millions on a penthouse apartment when you crash here every night?”

  It’s a reasonable question. I turn to face him, pulling my heel to my arse to stretch my thigh. “It’s an investment.” What else should I spend my money on? My car’s paid for, my bikes are paid for, this place is paid for, I don’t need to pay for gym membership, food, and drink.

  Or sex.

  And I certainly haven’t got anyone to leave my money to.

  “We’re here for a good time, John.”

  He shakes his head, and I know he’s thinking Uncle Carmichael would turn in his grave. “Or,” he starts, “perhaps you’ve bought it because a tiny part of your fucked-up brain, which makes a brief appearance most mornings when you wake up with a pounding head and a few women in bed, is telling you that you need to get the fuck out of this lifestyle.” He turns and wanders toward the bar.

  Yeah, and maybe that too.

  “Go on holiday, Jesse,” he calls back.

  “I just got back from Cortina.”

  “That wasn’t a holiday. That was a change of scenery.” He disappears into the bar as I drop my heel from my arse. He’s right, of course. But in my defense, I went with good intentions. A detox, if you will. Then I found the minibar and a few hot Swedish women. It spiraled from there.

  My head is suddenly pounding again, and I glance around The Manor’s lobby. Opulence and grandeur stretch to every corner. From floor to ceiling. Every inch of this place drips sophistication. I look up the stairs to the private suites. Why the fuck wouldn’t I want to stay here every night?

  Because it’s slowly killing you.

  Run.

  I turn and break into a sprint. And I don’t stop. Not for miles. My head empties and my body loosens, my mind focused on the feel of my feet hitting the ground constantly. Peace.

  And that sense of freedom only intensifies the farther I get away from The Manor.

  2

  I wake up the following morning sprawled on a bed in the communal room, my staff cleaning around me. “Fuck,” I mumble, propping myself up. “Morning.”

  “Morning, Mr. Ward,” Rosa says cheerily as she strips the bed next to me. God love her, she doesn’t bat an eyelid at my naked form.

  I gather the sheets and stand, wrapping them around my waist. “What time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock, Mr. Ward.” She flaps a fresh sheet, and it whips the air, creating a deafening crack. I flinch, kicking a bottle out of the way as I leave.

  I trudge down the stairs, around the landing, and into my private suite, shutting the door behind me and leaning against it. Why the fuck do I do this to myself?

  Because you’re a glutton, Ward. A glutton for alcohol and sex. And punishment.

  And escape.

  But there is no escape.

  I hear the muffled sound of my mobile and scan the room. The bedsheets are everywhere, the floor littered with various pieces of leather lingerie. My mind fuzzes, a montage of naked bodies and entwined limbs, ransacking my brain. Moans of pleasure. Screams of ecstasy. Meaningless orgasm after meaningless orgasm.